Facebook May Boost Cognitive Skills

With social media playing an ever more prominent role in how people communicate today, preliminary research findings from the University of Arizona (Arizona, USA) suggest that men and women ages 65+ could boost their cognitive function by learning to use Facebook.  Janelle Wohltmann facilitated Facebook training for 14 older adults, ages 68 tto 91 years, who had either never used the site or used it less than once a month. They were instructed to become Facebook friends only with those in their training group and were asked to post on the site at least once a day.  A second group of 14 non-Facebook using seniors instead was taught to use an online diary site, Penzu.com, in which entries are kept private, with no social sharing component. They were asked to make at least one entry a day, of no more than three to five sentences to emulate the shortness of messages that Facebook users typically post. The study’s third group of 14 was told they were on a “wait-list” for Facebook training, which they never actually completed. In the follow-ups 8 weeks later, those who had learned to use Facebook performed about 25% better than they did at the start of the study on tasks designed to measure their mental updating abilities. Participants in the other groups saw no significant change in performance.