As human beings, technology is something that consumes us. This consumption obviously has many positives, but also many negatives. Most psychologists take a negative view on smartphone use, as it takes away from reality and takes away from the types of interactions we were genetically designed to have. After considering these negatives, I wondered what kind of brain changes were occurring that was causing some of these behaviours. I stumbled upon this article today which discussed the effect of smartphone use on the brain, primarily as it relates to the expression of the thumb in the cerebral cortex. This article doesn’t necessarily highlight smartphone use as a positive, it merely presents the fact that there are brain changes present.

The article, by Gindrat et al. is called “Use-Dependent Cortical Processing from Fingertips in Touchscreen Phone Users” (link here), and highlights a study conducted using electroen- cephalography (EEG), where they measured the cortical potentials in response to mechanical touch on the thumb, index, and mid- dle fingertips of touchscreen phone users and nonusers. This study was conducted because the researchers wanted to see if other types of plasticity was transferable to smartphone use. For example, in people who learn a very skill-intensive instrument (such as the violin or piano), their cerebral cortices change, allowing for the brain to create more connections where they are needed. In this case, those connections are needed to be made between areas involving dexterity of the fingers. Therefore, when using an EEG, you will be able to identify increased activation of the areas related to the fingers, in comparison to those who don’t have such skilled use of the fingers.

This is exactly what Gindrat et al. discovered when in comes to the use of smartphones. In their study, small shocks were given to various fingers, and the cortical activation measured. Interestingly, in all of the smartphone users, there was a greater activation of all fingers (not just the thumb which is primarily used) at the cortical level, when compared to the users of non-smartphone cellular devices.

I am starting to realize more and more that the old saying “practice makes perfect” has a solid root in neuroscience. The more you do something, the faster your brain wants to be able to conduct that movement, and so more connections will form. In the Gindrat study, they saw that even after 10 days of greater smartphone use, there was already enhanced cortical activation. From this, we can identify how fast the brain is adapting to the environment around it. If we can take information like this and transfer it into our own lives, we may be able to function faster and more efficiently in tasks that each of us desire!

Works Cited:

Gindrat, Anne-Dominique, Magali Chytiris, Myriam Balerna, Eric M. Rouiller, and Arko Ghosh. “Use-Dependent Cortical Processing from Fingertips in Touchscreen Phone Users.”Current Biology 25 (2015): 1-8. Web. 28 Dec. 2014.

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