How Older People Are Reaping Brain Benefits From New Tech

It started pinch a precocious schoolhouse typing course.

Wanda Woods enrolled because her begetter advised that typing proficiency would lead to jobs. Sure enough, nan national Environmental Protection Agency hired her arsenic an after-school worker while she was still a junior.

Her supervisor "sat maine down and put maine connected a instrumentality called a connection processor," Woods, now 67, recalled. "It was large and bulky and utilized magnetic cards to shop information. I thought, 'I kinda for illustration this.'"

Decades later, she was still liking it. In 2012 — nan first twelvemonth that much than half of Americans 65 and older were net users — she started a machine training business.

Now she is an coach pinch Senior Planet successful Denver, an AARP-supported effort to thief older group study and enactment abreast of technology. Woods has nary plans to retire. Staying progressive pinch tech "keeps maine successful nan know, too," she said.

Some neuroscientists researching nan effects of exertion connected older adults are inclined to agree. The first cohort of seniors to person contended — not ever enthusiastically — pinch a integer nine has reached nan property erstwhile cognitive impairment becomes much common.

Given decades of alarms astir technology's threats to our brains and well-being — sometimes called "digital dementia" — 1 mightiness expect to commencement seeing antagonistic effects.

The other appears true. "Among nan integer pioneer generation, usage of mundane integer exertion has been associated pinch reduced consequence of cognitive impairment and dementia," said Michael Scullin, a cognitive neuroscientist astatine Baylor University.

It's almost akin to proceeding from a nutritionist that bacon is bully for you.

"It flips nan book that exertion is ever bad," said Murali Doraiswamy, head of nan Neurocognitive Disorders Program astatine Duke University, who was not progressive pinch nan study. "It's refreshing and provocative and poses a presumption that deserves further research."

Scullin and Jared Benge, a neuropsychologist astatine nan University of Texas astatine Austin, were co-authors of a caller study investigating nan effects of exertion usage connected group complete 50 (average age: 69).

They recovered that those who utilized computers, smartphones, nan internet, aliases a operation did amended connected cognitive tests, pinch little rates of cognitive impairment aliases dementia diagnoses, than those who avoided exertion aliases utilized it little often.

"Normally, you spot a batch of variability crossed studies," Scullin said. But successful this study of 57 studies involving much than 411,000 seniors, published successful Nature Human Behavior, almost 90% of nan studies recovered that exertion had a protective cognitive effect.

Much of nan apprehension astir exertion and cognition arose from investigation connected children, sometimes focused connected adolescents, whose brains are still developing.

"There's beautiful compelling information that difficulties tin look pinch attraction aliases intelligence wellness aliases behavioral problems" erstwhile young group are overexposed to screens and integer devices, Scullin said.

Older adults' brains are besides malleable, but little so. And those who began grappling pinch exertion successful midlife had already learned "foundational abilities and skills," Scullin said.

Then, to participate successful a swiftly evolving society, they had to study a full batch more.

Years of online brain-training experiments lasting a fewer weeks aliases months person produced varying results. Often, they amended a person's expertise to execute nan task successful mobility without enhancing different skills.

"I thin to beryllium beautiful skeptical" of their benefit, said Walter Boot, a scientist astatine nan Center connected Aging and Behavioral Research astatine Weill Cornell Medicine. "Cognition is really difficult to change."

The caller analysis, however, reflects "technology usage successful nan wild," he said, pinch adults "having to accommodate to a quickly changing technological environment" complete respective decades. He recovered nan study's conclusions "plausible."

Analyses for illustration this can't find causality. Does exertion amended older people's cognition, aliases do group pinch debased cognitive expertise debar technology? Is tech take conscionable a proxy for capable wealthiness to bargain a laptop?

"We still don't cognize if it's chickenhearted aliases egg," Doraiswamy said.

Yet erstwhile Scullin and Benge accounted for health, education, socioeconomic status, and different demographic variables, they still recovered importantly higher cognitive expertise among older integer exertion users.

What mightiness explicate nan evident connection?

"These devices correspond analyzable caller challenges," Scullin said. "If you don't springiness up connected them, if you push done nan frustration, you're engaging successful nan aforesaid challenges that studies person shown to beryllium cognitively beneficial."

Even handling nan changeless updates, nan troubleshooting, and nan sometimes maddening caller operating systems mightiness beryllium advantageous. "Having to relearn thing is different affirmative intelligence challenge," he said.

Still, integer exertion whitethorn besides protect encephalon wellness by fostering societal connections, known to thief stave disconnected cognitive decline. Or its reminders and prompts could partially compensate for representation loss, arsenic Scullin and Benge recovered successful a smartphone study, while apps thief sphere functional abilities for illustration shopping and banking.

Numerous studies person shown that while nan number of group pinch dementia is expanding arsenic nan organization ages, nan proportionality of older adults who create dementia has been falling successful nan United States and respective European countries.

Researchers person attributed nan diminution to a assortment of factors, including reduced smoking, higher acquisition levels, and amended humor unit treatments. Possibly, Doraiswamy said, engaging pinch exertion has been portion of nan pattern.

Of course, integer technologies coming risks, too. Online fraud and scams often target older adults, and while they are little apt to study fraud losses than younger people, nan amounts they suffer are overmuch higher, according to nan Federal Trade Commission. Disinformation poses its ain hazards.

And arsenic pinch users of immoderate age, much is not needfully better.

"If you're bingeing Netflix 10 hours a day, you whitethorn suffer societal connections," Doraiswamy pointed out. Technology, he noted, cannot "substitute for different brain-healthy activities" for illustration exercising and eating sensibly.

An unanswered question: Will this expected use widen to consequent generations, integer natives much comfortable pinch nan exertion their grandparents often labored over? "The exertion is not fixed — it still changes," Boot said. "So possibly it's not a one-time effect."

Still, nan alteration tech has wrought "follows a pattern," he added. "A caller exertion gets introduced, and there's a benignant of panic."

From tv and video games to nan latest and possibly scariest development, artificial intelligence, "a batch of it is an overblown first reaction," he said. "Then, complete time, we spot it's not truthful bad and whitethorn really person benefits."

Like astir group her age, Woods grew up successful an analog world of insubstantial checks and insubstantial maps. But arsenic she moved from 1 employer to different done nan '80s and '90s, she progressed to IBM desktops and mastered Lotus 1-2-3 and Windows 3.1.

Along nan way, her individual life turned digital, too: a location desktop erstwhile her sons needed 1 for school, a cellphone aft she and her hubby couldn't summon thief for a roadside flat, a smartwatch to way her steps.

These days, Woods pays bills and shops online, uses a integer calendar, and group-texts her relatives. And she seems unafraid of AI, nan astir earthshaking caller tech.

Last year, Woods turned to AI chatbots for illustration Google Gemini and OpenAI's ChatGPT to scheme an RV excursion to South Carolina. Now, she's utilizing them to put a family cruise celebrating her 50th wedding anniversary.

The New Old Age is produced done a business with The New York Times.