Flicking between screens has damaging effect on brain

As you flick between smartphone, computer and TV, it may feel you are giving yourself a mental workout.

But using several gadgets at once is bad for your brain, the Daily Mail reports, citing scientists’ findings.

It is said to release a hormone that can have the same effect on thought processes as being high on drugs, scientists have found.

Such multi-tasking lowers your IQ because people who, for example, check Facebook on their smartphone while watching TV are training their brains to be disorganised.

When you focus on one task at a time and take in information properly, it is stored in the hippocampus – the ‘library of the brain’ where data is organised, categorised and made easy to recall.

However, when you flick between gadgets, the information is sent to another part of the brain, the striatum. This is the region involved in planning movements and motivation, rather than storing data, so any information it receives is much harder to recall.

Sending data there too often establishes a pattern, rewiring the brain to try to store information in the wrong place, researchers at the University of Copenhagen found.

It is the opposite of the effect seen in London taxi drivers, who develop the region of their brain that deals with mapping routes, and violin players, who develop the part that controls their left hand.

The scientists, who undertook the study with the marketing agency HeyHuman, say that every time people switch between gadgets they release the chemical L-dopa, which produces the hormone dopamine.

Raised levels of dopamine are associated with drug abuse and the scientists say the effect of flicking between gadgets on cognitive ability can be ‘worse than being stoned’ on cannabis.

“Use of technology in our everyday lives is damaging the brain, causing it to rewire itself and lowering our IQ as a result,” they added.

“Our brains could, thanks to our reliance and overuse of technology, be heading for the scrap heap.”

The findings are likely to alarm the millions who regularly sit in front of the television, simultaneously checking social networks or sending emails from their smartphones or tablet devices.

The report says more than 80 per cent of mobile phone owners do this.

The study asked people to use their smartphone or tablet while watching TV and then tested how much information they could think about at once.

Most said using multiple devices made them feel “productive and efficient” and all felt comfortable flicking between devices. However, little over half could remember what had been on TV.