← All papers
World Psychiatry
The “online brain”: how the Internet may be changing our cognition
Research summary
This multidisciplinary review argues that online environments can produce immediate and sustained changes in attention, memory, and social cognition, while effects vary by activity, population, and life stage.
Evidence strengths
- Multidisciplinary evidence
- Life-course research agenda
Limitations
- Many included findings are correlational
- Rapid technology change limits persistence
Topics
- Cognitive Science
- Memory
- Social Intelligence
- Neuroscience
Connected claims
- Contextualizes
Smartphone presence or use has a small negative average association with cognitive performance, but the effect varies substantially by domain and context.
The broader review places device effects within activity, population, and life-stage differences.
- Contextualizes
Online search can inflate perceived internal understanding by blurring the boundary between accessible external information and knowledge held in memory.
The review situates metacognitive effects within broader changes to attention, memory, and social cognition.