Controversial Study Claims 'Smartphone Addiction' Alters the Brain (inverse.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Inverse: In the new paper, presented Thursday at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America, a team of radiologists at Korea University report that smartphone addiction changes teenagers' brains. Using brain imaging, they argue that smartphone- and internet-addicted teenagers have imbalanced brain chemistry when compared to their peers who aren't addicted to smartphones or the internet. But scientists not involved with the study have some serious issues with their research. Perhaps the most important of these issues is the fact that "smartphone addiction" is not a scientifically established thing -- at least not yet.

In the study, the team led by Dr. Hyung Suk Seo used "standardized internet and smartphone addiction tests to measure the severity of internet addiction" in nine boys and 10 girls, according to a statement. Then, they used MRS, a brain imaging technique that can identify particular brain chemicals, to examine the participants' brains before and after taking nine weeks of cognitive behavioral therapy to help their "addiction." Compared to a control group, the "smartphone addicts" had skewed levels of neurotransmitters in their brains. In particular, they had a higher ratio of GABA to Glx (glutamateglutamine), which are respectively responsible for slowing down brain signals and exciting neurons. An elevated ratio of GABA to Glx, the researchers concluded, can be associated with the self-reported symptoms of the "smartphone addict" teens, including depression, anxiety, insomnia severity and impulsivity. After 12 of the teens participated in cognitive behavior therapy, the scientists report, their chemical imbalances appeared to even out to look more like the control group's.

Comments

This is my complete lack of surprise

[Baron_Yam]

Your brain is 'plastic' - it alters in response to use. It strengthens and prunes connections over time. Bits of it can atrophy.

So yes, if you habitually perform some task, it's going to show up as a change in sufficiently accurate before and after fMRIs. This isn't news, it's been studied before.

Established basic facts now "controversial"

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all:

It has long been known that the human brain is altered by the simple act of learning anything.

If you repeat something over and over, like walking or flipping a light switch, your brain changes in subtle ways to optimize these processes.

If you sit in a lecture hall and listen to a boring professor, your brain changes in subtle ways.

If your significant other rewards you for something with a kiss, your brain changes some tiny amount.

It's not just formal "learning" but ALL forms of learning that cause a gooey slimy biological computer to re-wire bits of its neural network. It would be a revolutionary discovery if it was determined that using a smartphone FAILED to "alter your brain".

There's no news in that, now, as to the rest:

Like most junk science, if you line-up one observed thing (in this case smartphone use) with some observed negative behavior, you can extrapolate and deduce all sorts of faulty drivel. Instead of publishing papers based on causation-correlation assertions, it would be nice if the scientific community would start demanding actual science by requiring papers to show that the authors discovered all the underlying mechanisms so well that they could use that understanding to accurately predict outcomes to be obtained from all other inputs. If the authors of this study truly understand the mechanisms (as opposed to merely reporting an observed correllation) then they ought to be able to accurately predict the exact responses of brains for people using any other devices. Does using a grand piano cause "addiction"? If not, why not? If so, why? If only for some, why them?

I have observed that everybody who eats cake has eather died or will die... I guess cake kills.

who aren't addicted to smartphones or the internet

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm impressed that they managed to even FIND a statistically significant number of teenagers aren't addicted to smartphones or the internet. :/