[Lewis Thomson (OP)]

Listener Mike has reached out to the Naked Scientists with this communication conundrum.

"Does email and texting affect our brain's cognitive functions?"

Do you have the answer? Discuss your findings in the comments below...

[evan_au]

Like all technological advances, these have advantages and drawbacks...

Distance: In the "Good Old Days", you mostly talked to people in your village, or the occasional visitor from far away.
- These days, you can communicate easily with people on the other side of the world, as I do every day. That really expands your horizons

Mode of Communication: Text-based communication has resulted in some loss in the ancient art of rhetoric (although the politicians seem to have taken up that skill, with gusto).
- But it also allows those who like to think about what they want to say to say it more clearly.
- To some extent, the flip to video calls over the past 2 years has returned us to (virtual) face-to-face, and provides an opportunity to hone verbal skills

Promptness: Texting allows messages with little delay. That is convenient, but messages are sometimes ill-considered. It does leave a good evidence trail when issues come to court...

[alancalverd]

Problem is that "cognitive function" is interpreted differently on every psychobabble website!

If I assume that it is concerned with the ability to learn from observation, then email and text may increase the spectrum or immediacy of second-hand information available to us, but wouldn't have a first-order effect on our ability to learn from it. However the available volume and intensity of input might dull the critical senses, to the point of folk accepting Big Lies and fake news, just as weekly exposure to repetitive sermons and rituals sows and nurtures the seeds of superstition.

Worse, the easy availability of what appears to be information could lead to a disinclination to observe, study and experience the world.  On the one hand this may be harmless and even beneficial: most of my colleagues around the world have given up business travel in favor of Zoom, and I see no reason to go and pollute the beaches of Bali when I can see them at the touch of a button. But I worry about online teaching of science: nobody is going to broadcast an experiment that doesn't quite produce the answer in the textbook, so nobody is going to learn how to trace faults (remember CERN's supraluminal particles that turned out to be a dry solder joint?) or think about the effect of turbulent flow on heat transfer.

[Lewis Thomson (OP)]

The question has been answered by The Naked Scientists and you can listen to the segment through this link...

https://www.thenakedscientists.com/podcasts/question-week/how-does-email-and-texting-affect-our-brain