Older People Who Use Smartphones 'Have Lower Rates of Cognitive Decline' (theguardian.com) 31
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Fears that smartphones, tablets and other devices could drive dementia in later life have been challenged by research that found lower rates of cognitive decline in older people who used the technology. An analysis of published studies that looked at technology use and mental skills in more than 400,000 older adults found that over-50s who routinely used digital devices had lower rates of cognitive decline than those who used them less. It is unclear whether the technology staves off mental decline, or whether people with better cognitive skills simply use them more, but the scientists say the findings question the claim that screen time drives what has been called "digital dementia".
"For the first generation that was exposed to digital tools, their use is associated with better cognitive functioning," said Dr Jared Benge, a clinical neuropsychologist in UT Health Austin's Comprehensive Memory Center. "This is a more hopeful message than one might expect given concerns about brain rot, brain drain, and digital dementia." Benge and his colleague Dr Michael Scullin, a cognitive neuroscientist at Baylor University in Texas, analysed 57 published studies that examined the use of digital technology in 411,430 adults around the world. The average age was 69 years old and all had a cognitive test or diagnosis. The scientists found no evidence for the digital dementia hypothesis, which suggests that a lifetime of using digital technology drives mental decline. Rather, they found that using a computer, smartphone, the internet or some combination of these was associated with a lower risk of cognitive impairment. The details have been published in Nature Human Behaviour. "Using digital devices in the way that we use televisions -- passive and sedentary, both physically and mentally -- is not likely to be beneficial," said Scullin. "But, our computers and smartphones also can be mentally stimulating, afford social connections, and provide compensation for cognitive abilities that are declining with ageing. These latter types of uses have long been regarded as beneficial for cognitive ageing."
"For the first generation that was exposed to digital tools, their use is associated with better cognitive functioning," said Dr Jared Benge, a clinical neuropsychologist in UT Health Austin's Comprehensive Memory Center. "This is a more hopeful message than one might expect given concerns about brain rot, brain drain, and digital dementia." Benge and his colleague Dr Michael Scullin, a cognitive neuroscientist at Baylor University in Texas, analysed 57 published studies that examined the use of digital technology in 411,430 adults around the world. The average age was 69 years old and all had a cognitive test or diagnosis. The scientists found no evidence for the digital dementia hypothesis, which suggests that a lifetime of using digital technology drives mental decline. Rather, they found that using a computer, smartphone, the internet or some combination of these was associated with a lower risk of cognitive impairment. The details have been published in Nature Human Behaviour. "Using digital devices in the way that we use televisions -- passive and sedentary, both physically and mentally -- is not likely to be beneficial," said Scullin. "But, our computers and smartphones also can be mentally stimulating, afford social connections, and provide compensation for cognitive abilities that are declining with ageing. These latter types of uses have long been regarded as beneficial for cognitive ageing."
Or maybe the other way around... (Score:5, Informative)
Older people who have lower rates of cognitive decline, are more likely to use smartphones.
I can certainly see this in my own parents, who are in their 80s. My father-in-law has dementia, and can't figure out how to use a smartphone. My mother-in-law is doing fine, and loves hers.
Re:Or maybe the other way around... (Score:5, Insightful)
I do agree that it could be interpreted to mean causation, but it doesn't.
It could perhaps better be word as: Cell phone usage inversely correlated with cognitive decline in older people.
The important part, however, is that it casts serious doubt on the idea that use of these things causes cognitive decline, since the correlation is in fact the inverse.
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Does the study actually use smart phones?
The summary says "digital devices".
Does that include desktop/laptop computers?
Or both? Are they differentiated?
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My use of the term "smart phone" came from the parent's post. Unintentional subject shift.
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TVs, credit cards and washing machines are also digital devices.
Theoretically so is a Morse code keyer.
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And old light switches that have just on/off states.
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How was "decline" or lack thereof measured?
How was a baseline established for the participants?
Maybe people who use "digital devices" (whatever that means) were higher functioning beforehand, and did decline. Just not as much as people who did not use digital devices.
What other confounding factors or other correlations could be made? What was the health of the people? Did they use these "digital devices" to interact with their friends and family? Did these people exercise or do other things out of the house
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What I can say, is that they appear to have handled your concerns pretty well, except for perhaps the ambiguity in "digital devices" you seem to be hinting that you take exception with.
Sadly, it wasn't clear if the participants were exposed to Pirates, or why that particular proper noun would be capitalized.. Are we German?
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Are we German?
We are devo.
At least we were before that mode was trademarked....
Re:Or maybe the other way around... (Score:4, Insightful)
The important part, however, is that it casts serious doubt on the idea that use of these things causes cognitive decline, since the correlation is in fact the inverse.
No, it doesn't actually do that. You're ignoring the possibility that they could be codependent variables in some interesting way.
At this point, almost everyone owns a smartphone, and they use them to communicate with family and friends. And clearly, sufficient amounts of cognitive decline would clearly prevent the use of a smartphone. So we cannot say with any certainty whether the people who stopped using smartphones and declined more quickly got worse because of their lack of smartphone use or stopped using smartphone use because they were biologically inclined to decline more quickly.
We can assume that nearly everyone will keep using a smartphone until they can no longer do so. Thus, to determine whether the use of a smartphone could accelerate cognitive decline, you would need to create an experiment group who start at a similar level of cognitive function as the control group (or use a case-control approach) where you deliberately convince them to stop using the smartphones, not because of cognitive decline, but rather arbitrarily.
Without that, it is entirely possible that using the smartphone accelerates cognitive decline beyond what would otherwise have occurred in a given individual, but that people who are declining more quickly for other reasons are more likely to stop using a smartphone sooner because of some sort of precursor decline that interferes with working memory before it starts interfering in ways that are more easily detected, or something like that.
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Without that, it is entirely possible that using the smartphone accelerates cognitive decline beyond what would otherwise have occurred in a given individual, but that people who are declining more quickly for other reasons are more likely to stop using a smartphone sooner because of some sort of precursor decline that interferes with working memory before it starts interfering in ways that are more easily detected, or something like that.
I never said it wasn't possible, I said it casts serious doubt.
As a population, it is simply a fact that over the baseline of those whom none of which used digital devices, because they did not exist, and today's mixed population (and it IS mixed- your statement that "almost everyone owns a smartphone, and they use them to communicate with family and friends" is simply patently false for this age group) the overall risk of cognitive decline is not higher, and is in fact lower among those that use digital
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I think what the parent says is it doesn't even cast doubt let alone serious doubt. Nothing about the study would be unexpected if cell phones caused mental decline. Also digital device use in older people takes much more mental effort than digital device use in younger people since they where not raised with them.
If you want to cast doubt do a study that shows causality.
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If you want to cast doubt do a study that shows causality.
Huh?
Shows causality... for what? The digital dementia hypothesis can't show causality... finding a lack of evidence is all it takes to cast doubt.
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The study doesn't claim a direction for the causality- it merely points out the correlation.
The study briefly admits that, but then they go out of their way and use language that for most people reading it would have the opposite meaning: "For the first generation that was exposed to digital tools, their use is associated with better cognitive functioning" and "This is a more hopeful message than one might expect given concerns about brain rot, brain drain, and digital dementia" and "they found that using a computer, smartphone, the internet or some combination of these was associated with a lower
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The problem is, none of these statements are true. They did not check groups that have never used smartphones against group that have. They only proved some correlation that is pretty obviously not causation. Claiming "lower risk" is flawed. FWIW, instinctively I am not a fan of the digital dementia hypothesis, but this meta-analysis claims to prove things that it doesn't.
They did check groups that have, and have not. They also did not claim a lower risk. They claimed an association with a lower risk.
Ultimately, I'm gonna have to disagree with you here. They're pretty clear that they've proven nothing.
I think in your mind, the phrase "associated with" is doing a lot more lifting than in mine. There's simply no causation implied with it.
I don't think the wording about a "hopeful message" is particularly helpful, but I can't overall disagree with it.
The paper concludes th
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> "Nevertheless, this work challenges alarmist ideas about so-called ‘digital dementia’ and instead suggests that using digital technology can be good for brain health."
That is a very clear claim of causality. Right after the professor stated that they have not demonstrated causality.
I call bad science, or at least bad science communication.
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That is a very clear claim of causality.
Ya, 100%- that's a pile of shit.
or at least bad science communication.
No argument there.
My Theory (Score:2)
I don't let my phone replace my brain, I use it to keep it occupied and to find out things that, pre-Internet and pre-mobile Internet, I would probably never have been able to find out.
I'm keeping my brain active. Active brains aren't pruning connections from lack of use. I assume I'm still losing brain cells with age, but I'm not just letting them slip away from neglect.
Re: My Theory (Score:2)
In other words you're on the trivia treadmill. Name something you "found out" last week, without checking your phone again.
You're as much a Borg as Locutus now.
Re: My Theory (Score:2)
Guess what, buttercup? You don't need a phone for that.
Sure if we define "cognitive" (Score:2)
As regurgitating propaganda and trivia as "cognition", sure.
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Of course, on the other hand... (Score:2)
Older people who use smartphones have less disposable income because they eventually get to the point where they just direct deposit their social security checks into their Candy Crush wallets.
Can confirm (Score:2)
TikTok (Score:1)
Because the cognitive decline began when they started using TikTok and now can't go much lower.
...Or Can Lead to Alzheimers (Score:2)
Maybe there is a cutoff date, but one of the presumed triggers of Alzheimers [wikipedia.org] is stress and to someone who didn't grow up playing with digital electronics, Smartphones are the worst thing.
I knew someone who was in their early 70s and was talked into going from a semi-smartphone to an iPhone. Couldn't wrap his head around it. Sure, he could make calls and text but it was visibly "work" for him and obviously wasn't intuitive; pocket dials, accidental texts, emails as texts and vise-versa, things like that. N