Is screen use really sapping our ability to focus and lowering our IQs? The scientists who have actually analysed the data give their verdict
Andrew Przybylski, a professor of human behaviour and technology at Oxford University, is a busy man. It’s only midday and already he has attended meetings on “Skype, Teams, in person and now FaceTime audio”. He appears to be switching seamlessly between these platforms, showing no signs of mental impairment. “The erosion of my brain is a function of time and small children,” he says. “I do not believe there’s a force in technology that is more deleterious than the beauty of life.”
Przybylski should know: he studies technology’s effects on cognition and wellbeing. And yet a steady stream of books, podcasts, articles and studies would have you think that digital life is lobotomising us all to the extent that, in December, Oxford University Press announced that its word of the year was “brain rot” (technically two words, but we won’t quibble) – a metaphor for trivial or unchallenging online material and the effect of scrolling through it. All this has sown widespread fears that the online world that we – and our children – have little choice but to inhabit is altering the structures of our brains, sapping our ability to focus or remember things, and lowering our IQs. Which is a disaster because another thing that can significantly impair cognitive function is worry.
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