Using the Internet Boosts Cognitive Function in Retired Elderly
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In over 2,000 retired older adults, those who used the Internet regularly exhibited better signs of cognitive function, as measured by word recall tests.Ā
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Results found that people who used the internet after they retired were able to recall 1.22 extra words in the recall test compared to non-internet users.
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ThisĀ protective effect was found to be most significant amongst women, with female retirees who regularlyĀ used the internet able to recall 2.37 more words compared to women who didnāt go online.
This article was posted on EurekAlert.org:
Using the internet during your retirement years can boost your cognitive function, a new study has found.Ā
Researchers from Lancaster University Management School, the Norwegian University Science and TechnologyĀ and Trinity College Dublin examined theĀ cognitive functionĀ of more than 2,000 retired people from across Europe,Ā and found that post-retirement internet usage is associated with substantially higher scores on tests.Ā
The study, published in theĀ Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization,Ā uses dataĀ drawn from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) that collects information about the health, employment history and socio-economic status of older people.Ā
FocusingĀ on a sample of 2,105 older people from Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Israel, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland who have been retired since 2004, researchers examined retireesā cognitive function in both 2013 and 2015. They specifically focused onĀ a word recall test,Ā where individualsĀ were askedĀ to recall a list of 10 words immediately, and then again five minutes later.
Results found that, on average, people who used the internet after they retired were able to recall 1.22 extraĀ words in the recall test compared to non-internet users.Ā However, retirees who used the internet were also more likely to be male, younger, better educated, and have been retired for a shorter period. They also appear to be in better health ā even though they drink and smoke more*.
Dr Vincent OāSullivan, a co-author from Lancaster University Management School said: āOur results reveal that using the internet, post-retirement, leads to a marked reduction in the rate of cognitive decline.
āInterestingly, this protective effect was found to be most significant amongst women, with female retirees who regularly surfed the internet able to recall 2.37 more words compared to women who didnāt go online. The results were also consistent among men, with retired internet users able to recall 0.94 more words than men with similar characteristics who didnāt use the internet.
āWe also found that retirees who used computers in their jobs before retirement were more likely to keep using computers once they retired, and hence had better cognitive function.ā
Researchers compared the cognitive function of retirees who used to work in jobs where computers were commonplace to retirees who worked in jobs where computers werenāt often used. For example, among teachers, computers became common in the workplace much later than sectors such as financial services. Their results revealed that people with pre-retirement exposure to computers were more likely to continue to use them once they retired.
Among the overall results, the researchers also found a stark difference in the patterns of internet usage between European countries, with no more than 12% of retirees using the internet in Italy, compared to over 60% in Denmark.Ā
āResearch has shown that retirement from the workforce is a critical period for cognitive function, which declines with age and can be a predictor for a range of key health outcomes among older people,ā said co-authorĀ LikunĀ Mao, formerly a PhD student at Lancaster but now at Trinity College Dublin. āAlthough there is a widespread belief that computer usage improves older peopleās cognitive function ā such as memory, attention, spatial abilities and problem solving ā there has been mixedĀ evidenceĀ from previous studies.Ā
āWe were able to discern that pre-retirement computer usage does not directly influence post-retirement cognitive decline, and we ensured our results referred only toĀ post-retirementĀ internet usage.āĀ
Professor Colin Green, of the Norwegian University Science and Technology, added: āWithin our study we estimated statistical models which controlled for individualsā ages, education levels, occupational skills and years since retirement, so we are confident that our results are robust and relate only to the use of the internet, post retirement.
āThis sets it apart from other studies and raises the interesting question of what it is about internet use exactly, that drives this positive effect on cognitive function. Interacting with others online, finding out information in order to attend social activities or simple tasks like shopping online can all make life easier for retirees, but we are yet to understand which, if any, of these tasks actually go as far as improving cognitive performance.ā
JOURNAL
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization