geek.teacher

Last week people were going crazy over a report that Web 2.0 has some real classroom benefits.  Not that I’m discounting any of those benefits, but they seem to me mostly touchy-feely type things, which, while delightful and good (who wouldn’t want more engagement and participation?), still kind of fall short of the more valuable “improves performance.”

So I’m surprised to see the apparent lack of excitement about this study saying that Internet use is good for the brain.  I guess it’s not as sexy since the study was done on old people, but I find it absolutely exciting, and would love to see a similar study done on the young’ns.

Each volunteer underwent a brain scan while performing web searches and book-reading tasks.

Both types of task produced evidence of significant activity in regions of the brain controlling language, reading, memory and visual abilities.

However, the web search task produced significant additional activity in separate areas of the brain which control decision-making and complex reasoning - but only in those who were experienced web users.

The researchers said that, compared to simple reading, the internet’s wealth of choices required people to make decisions about what to click on in order to get the relevant information.

They also get bonus points from me for throwing in a sly comics reference:

Rebecca Wood, chief executive of the Alzheimer’s Research Trust, said: “These fascinating findings add to previous research suggesting that middle-aged and older people can reduce their risk of dementia by taking part in regular mentally stimulating activities.

“Older web users - ’silver surfers’ - are doing precisely this.

*Well, in theory.  I know some pretty dumb internet users, but that’s neither here nor there.

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