A Review of the Negative Effects of Digital Technology on Cognition

TL;DR

This review synthesizes over 500 studies on digital technology's negative impacts on cognition, highlighting risks to higher-order functions and the importance of socioeconomic factors, with implications for long-term cognitive health.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of documented cognitive risks associated with digital technology, including emerging concerns related to generative AI and long-term cognitive reserve depletion.

Findings

Digital technology may impair higher-order cognitive functions.

Socioeconomic and environmental factors influence cognitive outcomes.

Habitual digital offloading could deplete cognitive reserve.

Abstract

The rapid integration of digital technology into daily life has prompted sustained concern regarding its impact on human cognition. This integrative review synthesizes documented risks and negative associations across more than 500 empirical studies, including the established literature and the nascent body of work on generative artificial intelligence. Initial evidence suggests a potential evolution in the nature of cognitive risk: while research on earlier technologies predominantly describes disruptions to resource allocation, early findings on generative artificial intelligence point toward a hypothesized erosion of higher-order generative and metacognitive capabilities. We analyze these risks across basic cognitive processes, higher-order cognition, and integrated functional outcomes through four mechanisms: functional interference, neurochemical dysregulation, structural neuroplasticity, and psychosocial displacement. The synthesis further highlights that these associations are frequently moderated or attenuated by socioeconomic status and environmental factors, which often drive both technology use and cognitive outcomes. Finally, by reviewing principles of cognitive epidemiology, the paper examines how habitual digital offloading could theoretically deplete cognitive reserve, creating downstream risks for long-term health. The collective evidence suggests an efficiency-atrophy paradox, where digital tools optimize short-term task performance at the potential expense of the long-term cognitive effort required to maintain unassisted cognition. However, large gaps remain in the literature, particularly the need for longitudinal studies, specifically within adult and professional populations.