Despite Warts, Being Online Can Be Overall Positive for Older People, New Study Finds Suggest. The study found that reported regular internet use was associated with a lower risk of dementia in people over the age of 50. The greatest possible benefit was seen in those who reported 2 hours or less. Internet usage compared to none.
The study was conducted by researchers at New York University. They are, Health and Retirement Researchis a government-funded project that tracks the health status of a representative sample of older Americans through surveys conducted every two years. One of the many questions people were asked in this study is whether they use it. the internet.
team The study focused on approximately 18,000 adults aged 50 and over who had no dementia at the start of the study and were followed for up to 17 years. He then divided the participants into two groups based on whether they said they used the Internet regularly in the first survey. Another questionnaire assessed people’s cognition, which researchers used as a measure of their dementia status.
The authors found that regular Internet users were half as likely to meet dementia criteria as those who reported no use at baseline. This was even after considering other factors such as pre-existing health conditions.
“Taken together, these findings suggest that regular Internet use may be associated with cognitive longevity,” the authors write in their paper. It was published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
this is not first research To find a correlation between internet use and reduced risk of dementia in older adults. However, the authors say their analysis is the longest of its kind to examine this possible relationship. We are actively tracking the results of These studies are generally better than many other types of studies at eradicating a causal link between two factors (in this case, internet use reduces the risk of dementia).
However, I still have many questions about this link. The authors also examined data from a small sample of participants who reported how often they used the Internet each week, and they found that he likely had a U-shaped relationship between online time and dementia risk. I discovered that there is People who spent the least and the most time online (6-8 hours a day) appeared to be at the highest risk of dementia. The lowest risk, on the other hand, was for Internet users who spent less than two hours a day on the Internet. However, the difference in risk for highly online people was not statistically significant. This is probably due to the small sample size available.
The authors say there is likely a point of diminishing returns, where “excessive online engagement can adversely affect cognition in older adults.” But more research is needed to find out where this point lies. And even if internet use helps reduce dementia risk, this relationship could have a two-way impact, the authors note. For example, people who develop dementia may use the Internet less and less over time.
At the very least, this study should inspire other researchers to find the best balance between being online and being sharp. To tell.
“Because a person’s online engagement can involve a wide range of activities, future research should explore the potential side effects of excessive use, while keeping an eye on the potential side effects of excessive use, and the extent of Internet use associated with a cognitively healthy lifespan.” We may identify different patterns,” they wrote.
