{"id":195198,"date":"2025-10-12T15:37:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T15:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/195198\/"},"modified":"2025-10-12T15:37:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T15:37:09","slug":"the-internet-is-ruining-gen-zs-brains-and-saving-grandmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/195198\/","title":{"rendered":"The Internet Is Ruining Gen Z\u2019s Brains\u2014and Saving Grandma\u2019s"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sure, the internet might be destroying human civilization as we know it. And those who pull the strings behind the scenes seem to be actively trying to destroy the internet itself. But at least it\u2019s keeping elderly people\u2019s brains young-ish and elastic-y!<\/p>\n<p>According to research published in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/abs\/pii\/S0022395625004625\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Journal of Psychiatric Research,<\/a> scientists dug through data from nearly 10,000 old folks as part of the China Health Retirement and Longitudinal Study. <\/p>\n<p>They split participants into two groups: the \u201cdigital inclusion\u201d group, who used the internet for chatting, streaming, reading, and gaming, and the \u201cdigital exclusion\u201d group, which was made up of old folks who were not online at all.<\/p>\n<p>They found that the internet users showed sharper cognitive abilities and fewer signs of severe depression. They also seemed to have better executive function and memory recall. <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"536\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/The-Internet-Is-Dead\u2014And-You-Killed-It.png\" alt=\"The Internet Is Dead\u2014And You Killed It\" class=\"wp-image-1876620\"  \/>Peshkov\/Getty Images\/VICE<\/p>\n<p>The Internet Melts Young Brains, but Might Actually Help the Elderly<\/p>\n<p>These folks weren\u2019t necessarily happy-happy; they were walking around without a care in the world. They were still prone to bouts of gloominess. But they were less likely to spiral into the darker depths of depression than their offline counterparts.<\/p>\n<p>The researchers admit that it\u2019s unclear whether the internet is making people sharper or if those who are already mentally sharper are just more likely to get online\u2014a classic chicken or the egg scenario. <\/p>\n<p>Either way, the researchers didn\u2019t seem interested in figuring out that if older people on the internet are mentally sharper, why do they think <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vice.com\/en\/article\/the-internet-is-hurtling-towards-a-wasteland-of-ai-ads-for-ai-bots\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">every AI video<\/a> on Facebook is real?<\/p>\n<p>The internet is, unfortunately, still a place where you can quite easily ruin your life. Elderly users are more vulnerable to scams and misinformation. Just because Grandma figured out how to use Facebook doesn\u2019t mean she\u2019s immune to Facebook\u2019s Carnival of Internet horrors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sure, the internet might be destroying human civilization as we know it. And those who pull the strings&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":195199,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[102,1638,6648,1906,227,86,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-195198","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-internet","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-internet","10":"tag-life","11":"tag-mental-health","12":"tag-tech","13":"tag-technology","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}