Newsday.com

Your brain on Google: Scientists examining whether digital age
rewiring young people's minds

By MALCOLM RITTER

AP Science Writer

3:17 PM EST, December 3, 2008


What does a teenage brain on Google look like? Do all those hours
spent online rewire the circuitry? Could these kids even relate
better to emoticons than to real people?

These sound like concerns from worried parents.  But they're 
coming
from brain scientists.

While violent video games have gotten a lot of public attention, 
some
current concerns go well beyond that.  Some scientists think the 
wired
world may be changing the way we read, learn and interact with 
each
other.

There are no firm answers yet.  But Dr.  Gary Small, a 
psychiatrist at
UCLA, argues that daily exposure to digital technologies such as 
the
Internet and smart phones can alter how the brain works.

When the brain spends more time on technology-related tasks and 
less
time exposed to other people, it drifts away from fundamental 
social
skills like reading facial expressions during conversation, Small
asserts.

So brain circuits involved in face-to-face contact can become 
weaker,
he suggests.  That may lead to social awkwardness, an inability 
to
interpret nonverbal messages, isolation and less interest in
traditional classroom learning.

Small says the effect is strongest in so-called digital natives
people in their teens and 20s who have been "digitally hard-wired
since toddlerhood." He thinks it's important to help the digital
natives improve their social skills and older people digital
immigrants improve their technology skills.

At least one 19-year-old Internet enthusiast gives Small's idea a
mixed review.  John Rowe, who lives near Pasadena, Calif., spends 
six
to 12 hours online a day.  He flits from instant messaging his 
friends
to games like Cyber Nations and Galaxies Ablaze to online forums 
for
game players and disc jockeys.

Social skills? Rowe figures he and his buddies are doing just 
fine in
that department, thank you.  But he thinks Small may have a point
about some other people he knows.

"If I didn't actively go out and try to spend time with friends, 
I
wouldn't have the social skills that I do," said Rowe, who 
reckons he
spends three or four nights a week out with his pals.  "You can't 
just
give up on having normal friends that you see on a day-to-day 
basis."

More than 2,000 years ago, Socrates warned about a different
information revolution the rise of the written word, which he
considered a more superficial way of learning than the oral
tradition.  More recently, the arrival of television sparked 
concerns
that it would make children more violent or passive and interfere
with their education.

Small, who describes his modern-day concerns in a new book called
"iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern 
Mind,"
acknowledges he doesn't have an open-and-shut case that digital
technology is changing brain circuitry.

Still, his argument is "pretty interesting and certainly
provocative," although difficult to prove, says brain scientist
Tracey Shors of Rutgers University.

Others are skeptical.  Robert Kurzban, a University of 
Pennsylvania
psychologist, said scientists still have a lot to learn about how 
a
person's experiences affect the way the brain is wired to deal 
with
social interaction.

Life in the age of Google may even change how we read.

Normally, as a child learns to read, the brain builds pathways 
that
gradually allow for more sophisticated analysis and 
comprehension,
says Maryanne Wolf of Tufts University, author of "Proust and the
Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain."

She calls that analysis and comprehension "deep reading." But 
that
takes time, even if it's just a fraction of a second, and today's
wired world is all about speed, gathering a lot of superficial
information fast.

Wolf asks what will happen as young children do more and more 
early
reading online.  Will their brains respond by short-circuiting 
parts
of the normal reading pathways that lead to deeper reading but 
which
also take more time? And will that harm their ability to reflect 
on
what they've read?

Those questions deserve to be studied, Wolf says.  She thinks 
kids
will need instruction tailored to gaining reading comprehension 
in
the digital world.

Some research suggests the brain actually benefits from Internet 
use.

A large study led by Mizuko Ito of the University of California,
Irvine, recently concluded that by hanging out online with 
friends
sending instant messages, for example teens learn valuable skills
they'll need to use at work and socially in the digital age.  
That
includes lessons about issues like online privacy and what's
appropriate to post and communicate on the internet, Ito said.

Rowe, the 19-year-old, said he and his buddies often debate 
whether
technology might actually be bad for you.  That includes kicking
around the argument that computer use makes people socially 
inept.

Of course, he added, "we spend a lot of time on the computer and
still have totally normal and perfect social lives."

Copyright 2008 Associated Press.  All rights reserved.  This 
material
may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.




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