"Study: Regular Use of Internet Reduces Risk of Dementia" Topic

""Little is known about the long-term cognitive impact of Internet usage among older adults," said New York University researcher Virginia Chang and her colleagues.

"Our research characterized the association between various measures of Internet usage and dementia."…"

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Armand

Misleading.

They "characterized the association", but did nothing to determine causality. Does internet usage reduce the risk of dementia, as the headline suggests? Or does inclination to use the internet indicate someone is less likely to suffer dementia? If you have no control groups of people who wanted to use the internet but could not and on the other hand did not want to use the internet but did anyway for the sake of the study you can't tell much.

I think the scientists' language indicates that *they* understood this, but the journalists did not.

What we know does reduce risk of dementia is learning new things and being socially connected. Maybe the people inclined to do those things used the internet to do it, and thus had reduced risk. People who just wanted to watch TV were at high risk already, and they didn't see much use in using the internet. So the internet may very well be entirely incidental to the effect.

Thanks.

Armand