(CNN) – With the first generation of people exposed widely to technology now approach old ageHow did its use affect their risk of cognitive decline?
This is a question, researchers from two Texas universities sought to answer in a new meta-analysis study, a review of previous studies, published Monday in the journal Nature Human behavior. The request investigates the “Digital dementia hypothesis“, Which maintains that life use can increase dependence on technology and weaken cognitive capacities over time.
“We say a really active brain In the youth and the forties is a more resilient brain later, “said Dr. Amit Sachdev, medical director of the Michigan University neurology and ophthalmology department, which was not involved in the study.
But the authors have discovered that the digital dementia hypothesis may not confirm: their analysis of 57 studies totaling 411,430 adults older found that the use of technology was associated with a risk of cognitive impairment of 42% lower, which was defined as a diagnosis of light cognitive impairment or dementia, or as underput performance on cognitive tests.
The forms of technology included computers, smartphones, internet, emails, social media or “mixed / multiple uses”, according to the new study.
“The fact that these effects have been found in studies even when factors such as education, income and other lifestyle factors have been adjusted was also encouraging: the effect does not seem only due to other cerebral health factors,” said Dr. Jared Benge, associate professor of neurology, Dr. Dell Medical School of the University of Austin.
The authors searched eight databases for studies published until 2024, and the 57 chosen for their main analysis included 20 studies which followed participants for about six years on average and 37 transversal studieswhich measure health data and results at a given time. Adults were 68 years old on average at the start of studies.
While the use of technology was generally linked to a lower risk of cognitive decline, the results for Use of social media were incoherent, the authors said.
None of the 136 studies that the authors examined overall reported an increased risk of cognitive impairment was correlated with the use of technology-a coherence which is “really rare,” said the co-chief of the study, Dr. Michael Scullin, professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Baylor, by e-mail.
Research is “a really well-organized and executed meta-analysis of the essential in the past 18 years or 20 years,” said Dr. Christopher Anderson, head of the stroke and cerebrovascular disease division at Brigham and Women’s hospital in Boston. Anderson was not involved in the study.
But if you think that the results of the study mean that you are free to use technology for the content of your heart, because your brain will go well anyway – not so quickly.
“Our results are not a general approval of an insane scrolling,” said Benge, who is also a clinical neuropsychologist at the complete memory center of the UT Health Austin. “They are rather a clue that the generation that gave us the Internet has found ways to obtain net positive advantages of these brain tools.”
And despite the meaning of the study, there are still many uncertainties on the relationships between various aspects of the use of technology and brain health.
The use of technology and the brain
One of the limits of the study is that he has no details on how people used technological devices, experts said. Consequently, it is not clear if the participants used computers or phones in a way that has significantly exercised their brain, or what specific way can be the most associated with cognitive protection.
The lack of information on the duration of the technology has been used means that it is also unknown if there is a harmful threshold or if a little time is necessary for the cognitive advantages, Anderson said.
These questions are difficult “to try to answer, because the volume of technological exhibitions that we must navigate is so high,” said Sachdev. “To isolate an exposure to technology and its effect is difficult, and just measure a whole ecosystem of technological exhibitions and … their global effect is also a challenge.”
In addition, “the amount we can extrapolate from this study to future generations is not very clear, given the omnipresence of technology today to which people are exposed and have been exposed to birth,” said Anderson.
“When you think about the type of technology with which this cohort would have interacted earlier in their lives, it’s a time when you really had to work to use technology,” added Anderson.
Their brain was also already well formed, said Benge.
The study can support the alternative to the hypothesis of digital dementia, which is the theory of the cognitive reserve. The theory “maintains that exposure to complex mental activities leads to better cognitive well-being at advanced age”, even in the face of age-related brain changes, according to the study.
That technology can reduce the risk of cognitive decline by helping us be more active neurologically is possible, said Sachdev. The use of technology can also promote social connection in certain cases, and social isolation has been linked with more dimensions to develop dementia.
It is also possible that the elderly who uses technology already have more active and resilient brains, explaining their engagement with technology.
Manage your technological use
Inferences on best practices for the use of technology in consideration of cognitive health cannot be drawn from the study because it had no details on the user habits of participants, experts said.
But “it maintains that a healthy mixture of activities is probably the most beneficial and that it also corresponds to other literature on the subject,” said Anderson. “What is probably more than anything else is to ensure that there is no association between at least moderate use of technology and cognitive decline.”
It is the best to engage in moderation, said Sachdev. And that should largely bring joy, an authentic link, creativity and intellectual stimulation in your life, experts said.
“This should be productive in one way or another,” he added, and entertaining you can sometimes meet this requirement. But if you feel an eye tension or the neck to sit in front of a screen, it is a sign that you use too much technology.
“Too much of anything may be a bad thing,” said Sachdev. “The identification of the objective and the duration, then of the execution in this sense is the way in which we would advise for most subjects.”
Some elderly people have avoided the use of technology, thinking that it is too difficult to learn. But Scullin and others have found that even people with light dementia can be formed to use such devices, he said. Although sometimes frustrating, the difficulty “is the reflection of the mental stimulation offered by learning the device,” added Scullin.
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