Surfing Your Way to a Healthy Brain

A new study suggests that surfing the web has a positive effect on the brain and can help postpone atrophy, increase cell activity, and ward off dangerous accumulations of Alzheimer’s causing deposits. Activities such as reading and puzzles have already been shown to contribute to the brain’s upkeep as the aging process goes on, and a recent study adds the internet to that list. The researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging scans (which track how strong a cell’s response to stimuli is) to record subtle brain-circuitry changes in the patients while using the internet veruses the changes when they read passages out of books.

All the study participants showed significant brain activity during the book-reading task, specifically in the temporal, parietal and occipital lobes of the brain, which are involved in controlling language, reading, memory and visual abilities. But Internet searches revealed differences between the two groups. While all the participants showed the same activity as during the book-reading, the group of experienced web surfers also registered activity in the frontal, temporal and cingulate areas of the brain, whereas those new to the net did not. This is because, unlike the act of reading, navigating the Internet requires continuous decision making, such as what to click on—thus engaging cognitive circuits in the brain which control decision-making and complex reasoning.

"Our most striking finding was that Internet searching appears to engage a greater extent of neural circuitry that is not activated during reading — but only in those with prior Internet experience," said study leader Gary Small of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA. That being said, with more time and experience, the group that was new to the Web could eventually reap the same benefits as their peers who had been googling away for years. So next time you’re surfing the web, on the prowl for a juicy new GNG update, pat yourself on the back for giving your mind a workout.