Irish scientists have published findings that will be good news for fans of Facebook and Twitter – Social media makes you more intelligent.
A study at Trinity College, Dublin revealed that there is a link between social interaction and intelligence.
The more people socialise, even if it is online, the more intelligent they will become.
The research team was led by Professor Andrew Jackson and PhD student, Luke McNally. They created a computer system which consisted of 50-100 neural networks.
Each network represented a human brain with the ability to make decisions. It is known as a ‘digital organism’.
The Prisoner’s Dilemma
The networks were tested with games such as ‘a prisoner’s dilemma’ where two people are brought to a police station and charged with a crime. They are separated and both given the same options – give the police information about the other person which would lead to a conviction and their own charges would be dropped.
If they betray each other they get six months each, if they both stay silent they get one month each. If one stays silent and the other talks, the one who talked would have his charges dropped and the one who stayed silent would get a year in prison.
Professor Jackson told the Irish Times: “We set up a computer model that takes in information about who did what to me the last time I met them. What was the reward I got the last time I interacted with you as a person? I can store that as a memory . . . our model is absolutely analogous to the process of evolution and is analogous to a brain.”
The findings were published in a London science journal, Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
