ABSTRACT
In 2009, scientists at UCLA published a landmark study that looked at how the Internet affects the brain.1 Cleverly entitled “Your Brain on Google: Patterns of Cerebral Activation during Internet Searching,” the research received an enormous amount of press attention. Headlines included:
Digital Gains Changing Our Brains, Especially Young Ones, Seattle Times, April 14, 2010
The Decade Google Made You Stupid, The Daily Beast, December 13, 2009
Texting May Rewire Young Brains, The Globe and Mail, August 17, 2009
Numerous adults pointed to this research as clear evidence that children’s brains were being scrambled because of their massive amount of digital time. But the analysis did not measure the brains of children, teenagers, or even college students. Instead,
the age range of the participants was from fifty-five to seventy-six years, and the study was published in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry. These were true digital immigrants; indeed, half of the participants had minimal experience with the Internet!
