Your Brain and the Internet: Use it or Lose it

Your brain and the internet.

Yes, strange as it may seem there actually is a “Google” center in your brain. This was discovered by researchers who did brain scans on people who had never used Google (yes apparently there were some of those) compared to people who had often used Google.

Both groups received brain scans as they read books and as they Googled. In the google experienced group a part of their brain lit up on the scans, showing that their brains were adapted to using google. In the Google naïve group there was no such activity. For both groups when they read books the same parts of their brains lit up.

So, the researchers gave the Google naïve group some homework to do. You guessed it – go and Google. If my memory serves me correctly is was a couple of hours a day for a couple of weeks. When the brains of this group of new Googlers was scanned again, the same brain region as had been lit up in the previously Google experienced group now lit up in the new Googlers. Their brains had developed a Google center!

WOW. So what does this mean? And do you only find it with Google? The answer to the second question is easy – no. The answer to the first question is much more complicated and is currently being answered with research that explores the complex interactions that occur between your brain and your environment.

Basically, you find this happening with any activity that your brain is engaged in. The more you use your brain for something the more it develops. The less you loose your brain for something, the more likely it is to loose that development. It’s a case of “use it or lose it”.

And, there are many examples of this already well described and more being reported as researchers study the complex interplay between the environment and the brain. For example, did you know that the brains of taxi drivers in London, England have a larger area for spatialinformation than the brains of bus drivers do? That is because of the greater demand for processing and storing “maps” of the city of London. Another example – if you do not play the violin and then start playing, the part of your brain that controls the fingers you need to make the notes (by touching the strings) expands. And we know that if parts of the brain are not used, they shrink in size! So it really is “use it or loose it”.

Why does this happen? This occurs because the brain is the ultimate source of our ability to adapt to our environment. Therefore, as we spend longer periods of time in a particular environment (such as driving a taxi, playing a violin, googling, etc.) our brains become much more efficient at operating in that environment and pay more attention to it. This happens both by the expansion of brain cells dedicated to that activity and to improved connections amongst those cells. You can think of it is both growing and communicating better. The more “traffic” (that is to say – communication signals) there is as a result of doing things, the better we get at doing that thing because the “traffic” creates its own improved road system.

What does this mean for us? Many things. For one, it means that if we really want to excel at something we need to practice and to practice and to practice. Wayne Gretzky did not become a great hockey player just because he was born with the ability to play hockey. His greatness grew through constant practice. In the words of my father – “success is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration”. So there is something to be said for memorizing the times tables and the soliloquies of Hamlet!

Another thing this means for us is that our brains will change as our environments change.That is, they will adapt their structure and functions to optimize our interface with our environments. In other words, we are what we eat (at least a bit). Certainly we become what we do!

Young people today live in an environment that differs fundamentally from that of their parents and their grandparents. People my age (ok – it's in the fifties) are digital immigrants. If you are 30 years of age and younger, you are a digital native, and the younger you are, the more of a digital native you are. The brains of digital natives are shaped by the digital environments in which they live. What kinds of things may be going on as a result of this?

For one thing, the way we interact with people has changed greatly. Electronic interconnections such as Facebook and My Space have greatly altered traditional face-to-face social network development and maintenance. Where a few decades ago the “usual” social network consisted of about a couple of dozen people who mostly keep connected by face to face conversation and site based (usually at home) electronic links (remember that telephone was in the hall and you could not take it with you), today’s social networks number in the scores of “friends” and communication is primarily electronic – using personal communication devices that transmit not only sound but text messages.

These networks greatly expand the power of social interaction (we have recently seen how they operated during the campaign of Barrack Obama) but we do not know how they will ultimately influence the development of our social brains, and thus – us. Will the important evolutionarily developed abilities to read meaning in non-verbal facial messages diminish as we turn away from face-to-face contact or will these abilities be even further enhanced and honed as we build on those capacities (which we learn very early in life) and expand that ability to electronic means of communication? Or will there develop completely new ways for brains to communicate with each other – using digital technology as the impetus for this? We have no idea really --- but stay tuned – time will teach us.

In the meantime, it’s a good idea to get to know more about the most important part of you – your brain. A good place to start would be to check out the brain area of our website. If you are interested in learning more about the impact of the digital world on our brains you can pick up a copy of the new book written by Don Tapscott – Growing up Digital, and settle down, put your feet up and read. Oh yes, your brain knows how to read and the more you read the better you get at it. Go ahead!

~ Dr. Stan Kutcher