Internet rewiring youngsters' brains

11-2-2010

Internet rewiring youngsters' brains

Students are losing the ability to study properly because constant internet use is "rewiring" their brains, researchers have claimed.

Experts believe the internet encourages users to dart from page to page, rather than concentrating on one source such as a book.

Described as "associative" thinking, researchers believe it is reducing youngsters' capacity to read and write at length because their minds are being remoulded to function differently.

A survey designed to examine the internet's impact on the brain examined how 100 12 to 18-year-olds responded to a series of questions requiring some form of research.

They discovered that most of the respondents gave their answers after looking at just half the number of web pages older people examined.

They also found that younger people took far less time to research their answers and were therefore less thorough.

Professor David Nicholas of the University College London, who conducted the research, said it supported the growing theory that the web's hyperlinked network of information was helping to rewire youngsters' minds.

He revealed that 40 per cent of those taking part in the study viewed no more than three pages from the thousands available online, when researching a topic.

In contrast, people who grew up before the age of the internet repeatedly returned to the same source instead of flitting between sites.

Professor Nicholas said: "The really big surprise was that people seemed to be skipping over the virtual landscape. They were hopping from sites, looking at one or two pages, going to another site, looking at one or two pages and then going on. Nobody seemed to be staying anywhere for very long."

Details of the study will be revealed in the final episode of BBC2's The Virtual Revolution which will be screened on February 20.

Documentary presenter and social psychologist Dr Aleks Krotoski said: ''It seems pretty clear that, for good or ill, the younger generation is being remoulded by the web.

''Facebook's feedback loops are revolutionising how they relate. There is empirical evidence now that information overload and associative thinking may be reshaping how they think.

''For many, this seems to be a bleak prospect – young people bouncing and flitting between a thoughtless, throwaway virtual world.''

Dr David Runciman, political scientist at Cambridge University, added: ''What I notice about students from the first day they arrive at university is that they ask nervously,? What do we have to read?

''When they are told the first thing they have to read is a book, they all now groan, which they didn't use to do five or 10 years ago.

''You say, 'Why are you groaning?' and they say, 'It's a book. How long is it?'

''Books are still at the heart of what it means to be educated and to try to educate. The generation of students I teach see books as peripheral.'' (Education News)