Boost brain health – ditch that device

Experts say the cognitive workout from reading a printed book far outweighs the dopamine highs of infinite screen-scrolling

- Chantal Sajan Senior Correspondent

From chatbots that spit out essays in seconds to smartphones that serve up answers at your fingertips, artificial intelligence (AI) and mobile devices have become the go-to tools for instant gratification.

But relying on machines to do the thinking may come with hidden costs to brain health, according to recent studies.

Experts, both here and overseas, are warning against lifestyles that lean heavily towards passive consumption of digital content instead of good old-fashioned reading of newspapers, magazines and books.

Not even e-books make the cut, doctors say. Turning the pages of a printed book instead of swiping screens is an antidote for digital overload.

These experts note that the focused attention needed to understand the plots, vocabulary, characters and subtext in a physical book activates multiple regions of the brain.

This is at odds with watching video feeds on smartphones or doomscrolling, which provide fleeting dopamine surges but inhibit recall as the brain is entertained but not challenged.

Experts here are also concerned about the rise of Asian dementia.

In an ongoing research study of 818 Singapore participants, aged 30 to 95, about half were found to have undiagnosed mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a brain condition that points to the early stages of dementia.

The sobering data was reported in June 2023 by a team of scientists at the Dementia Research Centre (Singapore), housed at the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine at Nanyang Technological University.

The research study has been expanded to 1,500 participants to continue to look at what happens to the brain at the earliest stages of dementia and even before brain changes set in.

MCI is a collection of symptoms that includes age-related cognitive changes and abnormal mental decline from a serious illness of the brain, such as Alzheimer's disease.

RISK OF MENTAL DECLINE CAUSED BY DIGITAL OVERLOAD