post is flawed (Score 1)

If you actually read the linked article, the study did not compare young people who frequently used the internet against older people who had never used the internet (as such a study would be useless, because the two compared groups would not be similar in "all ways except for the aspect being studied," which would be essential to at least some useful correlation). The Post article states "His team studied 24 normal volunteers between the ages of 55 and 76. Half were experienced at searching the Internet and the other half had no Web experience. Otherwise, the groups were similar in age, gender and education." A few things: 1) 24 individuals means a very small sample size. I hardly expect such a study to have significant statistical power, and it would be immensely difficult to try to extend the applicability of this study to a significantly larger population. 2) We are not told what defines "Web experience." Is there a cutoff related to average hours spent online, or are we to believe that the half with "no Web experience" have never actually used the Internet at all, and that this study was their first time online (in which case, the results would be expected, not a result of "internet users have more active brains")? 3) I don't know if the original poster decided to post this for sensationalism, but this article is linked on Google News (granted, it shouldn't be one's only source of information, but even so); if that was the intent, it's a very irresponsible use of information dispersion/"journalism."