Want to boost your IQ? Then get online for an hour a day
Despite worries about the damaging effects of the digital age on brain development, surfing the internet can, in fact, increase IQ and boost memory in adults, scientists have found.
Researchers at the University of California Los Angeles compared the brains of middle-aged participants who rarely used the internet to experienced internet users, as they conducted web searches for an hour each day. After five days, areas of the prefrontal cortex, which controls the ability to make decisions and integrate complex information, had become significantly more active.
'These areas were fairly inactive at the beginning of our experiment,' says Gary Small,
Professor of Psychiatry and Bio-Behavioural Sciences at UCLA, who led the study. 'But after five days they were as active as regular internet users, showing that brain function can change and improve with internet use very fast. This research demonstrates that average IQ is steadily rising with the advancing of digital culture. The ability to process information fast and multitask without errors is improving too.'
