An interesting research developed recently by the neuroscientists from the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich. The research has been published in the Current Biology; according to it the excessive use of touchscreen smartphones or other devices is responsible for considerable change in the relationship of our brain and thumbs. The author Arko Ghosh explains this, as “What this means for us neuroscientists is that the digital history we carry in our pockets has an enormous amount of information on how we use our fingertips (and more)“.
To observe the phenomenon of how digital footprint links to brain activity, an EEG test was conducted to record the brain response to mechanical touch on thumbs, fingertips of middle and index finger for smartphone and old cell phone users. The test clearly showed that people using smartphones have high activity in brain in response and the amount of activity in the cortex of the brain associated with the thumb and index fingertips was directly proportional to the intensity of phone use, as quantified by built-in battery logs.
These repetitive hand gestures while using smartphone reshape sensory, keeping intact with daily updates in the brain’s representation of the fingertips. As a result, personal digital technology shapes the cortical sensory processing in the contemporary brain.
What would you suggest about this research? Will it worth or not? I think from the early days, its our nature of brain that repeatedly gestures causes our brain to behave like that. For instance, people who are constantly doing typing work, have their brains shape like their fingers moves.
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