Longitudinal cognitive and brain changes associated with one-month of increased Internet access.

Abstract

Internet technologies have profoundly changed the way we access information, manage our tasks, consume media, and our social interactions. The present work aims to provide insights into the long-term, causal influence of Internet exposure on our cognitive systems via an unprecedented, intervention-based experiment where we investigated the potential brain and cognitive changes that occurred in a rare sample of 35 young Indian adults who had minimal prior contact with Internet-related technologies, after being provided with unlimited Internet access for a month. Additionally, we performed cross-sectional comparisons of brain structure and cognitive measures between these subjects and a control group that consisted individuals who are frequent users of the Internet. Our key findings indicated that one month of increased Internet access resulted in increased media-multitasking behaviors and decreased abilities to process emotional content in faces. Critically, contrary to previous reports, our cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses found no significant effects of Internet exposure on brain structure and across a range of executive functions (impulse inhibition, attention control, task-switching and fluid intelligence) and social-cognitive measures (social network sizes, loneliness and face perception ability).

Digital Media and the Developing Brain

“…In one study, for instance, a six-week internet gaming exposure enacted with naïve and experienced young adult gamers resulted in short-term longitudinal reductions in left OFC volume (Zhou et al, 2019), which could be interpreted as evidence that video game play affects one of the important centers for reward processing. Another short-term intervention study found that when internet-naïve adults were given four weeks of increased internet access, they started to exhibit higher rates of media-multitasking, but there were no significant changes detected in brain structure (Loh et al, 2019). A more extended longitudinal undertaking involved a three-year study conducted in a large sample of Japanese children and adolescents (aged 5-18) aimed at exploring how various digital media behaviors (TV viewing, video gaming, internet use) might prospectively impact brain development (Takeuchi et al, 2015(Takeuchi et al, , 2016(Takeuchi et al, , 2018.…”

Exploring the Impact of Internet Use on Memory and Attention Processes

“…However, due to the saturation of the internet across the globe, it is difficult to examine the causal relations between extensive internet usage. Nonetheless, a recent study by Loh et al [ 33 ] capitalised upon a rare sample of 35 young adults in India with minimal prior contact with Internet-related technologies to experimentally investigate the impact of one month of unlimited Internet access on neurocognition. Results showed that introducing high levels of internet usage to this previously naïve sample increased media-multitasking behaviours in just one month, significantly more than a comparison group of internet-familiar young adults measured over the same timeframe.…”