The extension of the use of digital technology can be associated with a reduction in rates of cognitive deterioration and lower neurological disability rates in adults over 50, as described a meta -analysis published in Nature Human Behaviour. These results seem to contradict the hypothesis that the use of technology would have an adverse effect on the conservation of cognitive abilities as we aged.
The popularization of consumer electronics in the last decades of the twentieth century has led to the first generation of people who have interacted their entire lives with Digital technologies between now in the age at which Symptoms of dementia They tend to emerge. The results of the study by Jared Bege and Michael Scullin, from the Texas universities in Austin and Baylor, suggest that these habits have been able to contribute to preserve cognition.
“The findings indicate that greater use of digital technologies was linked to a lower risk of cognitive impairment and slower decline rates“, explains Lucrecia Moreno Royo, a professor in the Department of Pharmacy of the CEU Cardenal Herrera University, in statements to Science Media Centre. The study suggests that interaction with technology could benefit cognition as we age. The implications for the real world pass for the use of technology as cognitive stimulationclearly “.
The authors of this work analyzed 57 Research which covered a total of 411,430 people from all over the world. The average age of the participants was 68.7 years, and all had performed at least one cognitive test or had received a neurological diagnosis. The use of digital technology, defined as the use of A computer, of a smartphoneInternet or the combination of the three- was associated with a risk of loss of lower faculties in the population subject to the different studies.
A particularly important aspect of the meta -analysis of the studies was that the results were not limited to a certain demographic, socioeconomic group, or characterized by the habits of life and the state of health. All peopleregardless of context, they would benefit from the use of technology. Bege and Scullin also verified this relationship in longitudinal studies, which followed participants during an average of 6.2 years.
“The society in which we live is immersed in the use of digital technologies for multiple fields and environments. Is this use of digital technologies by modifying our brain and our cognitive abilities?” Diego Redolar Ripoll, professor of psychobiology and neuroscience at the Faculty of Psychology and Sciences of Education of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC).
“Determined brain damage can cause cognitive deficits in one person, but in another,” he continues. “The concept of ‘cognitive reserve“It arose to explain the lack of direct correspondence between a degree of brain injury and associated clinical or cognitive manifestations, that is, between having the injuries of a disease and developing their symptoms.”
Redolar Ripoll states that the ability of the brain to counteract the harmful effects of aging or disease, and therefore the generation of this ‘cognitive reserve’, can be associated with exposure to environmental variables or concrete lifestyles, including digital technologies. The study that is now published could help discern that these effects are beneficial, in opposition to the hypothesis of Dementia mediated by technological use.
“Taking into account the results globally, we could include the use of digital technologies as one of the factors that could help counteract the deleterious effects of aging or even certain diseases, contributing to an increase in cognitive improvement. This could have a great draft for a society in which digital technologies are deeply transforming the way we live, work and relate, “he concludes.
