11/19/2025

Why You Should Embrace New Technology as You Age

Engagement with tech may offer older adults cognitive benefits

You might think spending time on your smartphone or computer is bad for your brain. Indeed, "brain rot" — the slang term for a mental decline caused by mindlessly consuming social media or digital dreck — was Oxford Dictionary's 2024 Word of the Year.

But new research suggests that older adults who spend time engaging with technology may get a cognitive benefit.

"We saw that older adults who are engaging with technologies overall seem to be having less diagnoses of dementia, mild cognitive impairment, better scores on cognitive measures," said Jared Benge, an associate professor at Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin and an author of the paper, a meta-analysis of 57 studies, which was published in Nature Human Behaviour.

Please select this link to read the complete article from The Washington Post.