Fact of the Week: Regular Internet Usage by Older Adults Reduces Risk of Dementia
Source: Gawon Cho, Rebecca A. Betensky, and Virginia W. Chang, “Internet Usage and the Prospective Risk of Dementia: A Population-Based Cohort Study,” Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 71, no. 8 (August 2023).
Commentary: In a recent study for the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, Gawon Cho, Rebecca A. Betensky, and Virginia W. Chang analyzed the cognitive effects of internet usage by older adults. Much of the past research of the effects on cognitive functioning from internet use did not involve observing the same set of individuals over time. However, this study followed over 18,000 adults between ages 50 and 65 biennially from 2002 and 2018. The results of the study shed light on what may be an underappreciated kind of “digital divide” related to the cognitive health of older adults and the elderly.
The authors found that regular internet usage decreased the risk of dementia in older adults by roughly half. This was after taking account of a wide array of factors including baseline cognitive function, age, income, and race. To be sure, the authors note that too much daily internet usage, in this case more than 2 hours a day, also came with higher dementia risk as well. The risk of dementia was lowest among those whose daily usage was between 6 minutes and 2 hours. While the authors note that further research should look at effects of specific online activities, their findings suggest that there are plenty of such activities that can play a role in improving cognitive health and thus extending cognitive longevity into later stages of life.
