Has Internets Hurtz Ur Brain, LOL

Via Nicholas Carr:

A new study provides evidence that heavy internet use by the young results in “brain structural alterations” of a kind associated with “impairment of cognitive control.” The study, published this month in PLoS ONE, was conducted in China, where approximately 14 percent of urban youths - some 24 million kids - are believed to suffer from so-called “internet addiction disorder.” Using brain scans, the researchers compared the brains of 18 adolescents who spend around eight to twelve hours a day online (playing games, mainly) with the brains of 18 adolescents who spend less than 2 hours a day online. The heavy Net users exhibited gray-matter “atrophy” as well as other “abnormalities,” and the changes appeared to grow more severe the longer the kids engaged in intensive Net use.

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