Many people spend a lot of time using computers and smartphones. The question is: Do those devices worsen or improve brain function?

The answer is both — when they distract us, they interfere with memory; but we can pick and choose what we want to commit to memory and use our gadgets to look everything else up online.

My research team conducted an interesting study on what happens in the brain when a person does an online search for the very first time. To perform this study, we needed to find volunteers who had never done an Internet search.

For the obvious reason, we couldn’t recruit our subjects online. Eventually, we found a group of older people who were almost completely naïve about the Internet, and another group who had prior Internet experience. We then compared and tracked their online brain activity with an MRI scanner.

When the Internet-naïve volunteers searched online, they showed relatively minimal brain activity. But when the group of Internet-savvy people searched online, their brains showed more than twice as much activity.

The theory is that when people search online (or engage in any mental task) for the first time, they’re not sure what to do — so we see minimal brain activity. Once they figure out a mental strategy, they experience an upsurge in neural firing. Therefore, simply searching online can be a form of mental exercise.

Other studies have shown that some computer apps and video games can train the brain, improving our problem-solving skills, attention, reaction time, and multitasking abilities. Research has also shown that surgeons who play video games make fewer errors in the operating room.

So the next time you need surgery, find out about the doctor’s video-gaming habits.