How does coding affect your brain? Some thoughts based on Science.
Programming has become a new literacy in the 21st century but have you ever thought How does it affect your brain?
Coding or Programming whatever you may choose to call it. It is an integral part of modern society.
It is present everywhere and involved in every part of our life, from the smartphone in our hand to the computer in our office all of our worlds are surrounded and built with coding nowadays.
Even Stephen Hawking has said
“Whether you want to uncover secrets of the universe or you just want to get a job in the 21st-century basic computer programming is an essential skill to learn”
But have you ever thought about how coding affects your brain?
Well the scientist thought of it and have done multiple research to find out how coding affects us and what they find is “Coding changes your brain figuratively and literally”
1. Coding changes the mindset of the programmer.
In case you have been close to a programmer you must have noticed their way of approaching a problem because learning a new thing shapes your brain and makes new pathways.
In an era of famous coding languages such as APL, BASIC, and COBOL one of the famous and influential computer scientists prof Dr. Edsger W Dijkstra said
“It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers, they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.”
And
“The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense.”
As Dr. Edsger believed that
“The tools we use have a profound (and devious!) influence on our thinking habits, and, therefore, on our thinking abilities.”
2. Increase cognitive ability and memory skills.
Research has proved that Solving puzzles is helpful to the brain and there is supporting evidence that it may help prevent dementia by strengthening existing brain pathways between neurons.
Research done in 1991 proves that “Programming results in an increase of cognitive ability ”
Even the research by John Hopkins University proves that the area that affects the programmer’s brain is not simply that of language processing that was previously thought but that of Multiple domains.
The research done at MIT came up with similar results, in terms of Anna Ivanova who is an MIT graduate student and also the lead author of the study.
“Understanding computer code seems to be its own thing. It’s not the same as language, and it’s not the same as math and logic”
So while the studies are being carried out to prove more evidence but this is positive evidence that learning how to do programming positively affects cognitive abilities.
3. Activate the brain’s learning centers.
Important research is done in determining how coding affects our brain is done by Dr. Janet Siegmund and her team which was published in 2014.
They found out that programming activates neural activity in 5 distinct regions that are related to Working memory, attention, and language.
Even in the research published by Scientists of Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST) in December 2020, where they studied a group of novice, middle-grade, and expert programmers.
They found out that expert programmers have increased activity in the brain compared to the novices watching the same code.
Although learning to code is a challenging effort it is an effort you must try even Steve Jobs in an interview said
“Everyone in this country must learn how to program a computer because it teaches you how to think”
So How did you start your coding journey?
Or when are you starting your coding journey?
Please let me know in the comments.
