Too Much Time on Internet Turn Your Brain To Mush?

Web Surfing Image

I recently read an interesting article on CNN about all of the ways that spending too much time online can affect the brain.  I myself spend a lot of my days and nights on the internet. Is it all turning my brain to mush?

Some interesting findings reported in the article include:

Clifford Nass, a social psychologist at Stanford, says studies show multitasking on the Internet can make you forget how to read human emotions. When he showed online multitaskers pictures of faces, they had a hard time identifying the emotions they were showing.

 Oh no... That doesn’t sound too good. We  would definitely like to be able to read the emotions of our family and friends.

Over time, and with enough Internet usage, the structure of our brains can actually physically change, according to a new study. Researchers in China did MRIs on the brains of 18 college students who spent about 10 hours a day online. Compared with a control group who spent less than two hours a day online, these students had less gray matter, the thinking part of the brain.

Google surfing

Less gray matter? Also a little scary.

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The article also provides a few tips for moving back to normalcy:

• Going offline–by limiting internet use between certain hours, 
• Going device-free for some amount of time, and even just staring out the window from time to time. 
• Get off the computer and take a walk around the office… although it would be hard for many people to leave their iPhones and blackbarries in the leaving room instead of taking it up to bed.

- Team Shirsa