In recent years, an abundance of academic research from institutions including Harvard medical school, the University of Oxford and King’s College London found evidence that the internet is shrinking our grey matter, shortening attention spans, weakening memory and distorting our cognitive processes. The areas of the brain found to be affected included “attentional capacities, as the constantly evolving stream of online information encourages our divided attention across multiple media sources”, “memory processes” and “social cognition”. Paper after paper spells out how vulnerable we are to internet-induced brain rot. “High levels of internet usage and heavy media multitasking are associated with decreased grey matter in prefrontal regions,” finds one. People with internet addiction exhibit “structural brain changes” and “reduced grey matter”. Too much technology during brain developmental years has even been referred to by some academics as risking “digital dementia”.
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