SWIFTLY * EVOLVING SOCIETIES : TECH FEAR PRECIS

YEARS of online brain-training experiments have produced varying results. Often, they improve the ability to perform the task in question without enhancing other skills.

MUCH of the apprehension about technology and cognition is arising from research on children and adolescents, whose brains are still developing.

Older adults' brains are also malleable, but less so. And those who began grappling with technology in midlife had already learned '' foundational abilities and skills,'' Dr. Michael Scullin, a cognitive neuroscientist at Baylor University in Texas said.

Then, to participate in a swiftly evolving society, they had to learn a whole lot more.

'' I tend to be pretty skeptical '' of their benefit, said Walter Boot, a psychologist at the Center on Aging  and Behavioral Research at Weill Cornell Medicine.

'' Cognition is really hard to change.''

The World Students Society thanks Paula Span.