Smartphone use 'changing our brains'
By Michelle Roberts
The scientists used something called electroencephalography
(EEG) to measure brain activity.
They found distinct differences between smartphone users and
people who used 'conventional' cellphones.
Smartphone users had more attuned fingers and thumbs, based on
their EEG readings.
Of the 37 volunteers, 26 were touchscreen smartphone users while
11 used 'old-fashioned' mobile phones.
EEG
EEG measures and records the electrical activity of the brain
The EEG readings looked at the electrical messages sent back and
forth between the brain and the hands via nerves.
Multiple electrodes placed on the volunteer's scalp recorded
these exchanges about sensation.
From this, the researchers were able to build up a picture or
map of how much brain tissue is devoted to a given body region.
The results revealed discernable differences between touchscreen
smartphone users and people with conventional cellphones.
Smartphone users had bigger EEG brain activity measurements in
response to mechanical touch on the thumb, index and middle fingers.
And this appeared to be linked to how often they used their
touchscreens - the more frequent, the greater the EEG response.
The researchers say their findings, published in the journal
Current Biology, make sense given that the brain is malleable and can be
moulded by experience.
For example, in violinists, the brain area representing the
fingers that play the instrument is larger than in non-musicians.
The researchers suspect the same is true with smartphones -
repeated use sculpts the brain.
Study author Arko Ghosh, from the Institute of Neuroinformatics
of the University of Zurich, said: "I was really surprised by the scale of
the changes introduced by the use of smartphones."
He
said the discovery underlines how commonplace smartphones have become in our
daily lives.
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