Facebook and Twitter vs. e-books and other books? Harmful to kids’ brains? Turn ‘em into scrambled eggs?
Do social Web sites scramble kids brains—and harm sustained concentration of the kind useful in reading books? From the Daily Mail Online:
Social networking websites are causing alarming changes in the brains of young users, an eminent scientist has warned.
Sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Bebo are said to shorten attention spans, encourage instant gratification and make young people more self-centred.
The claims from neuroscientist Susan Greenfield will make disturbing reading for the millions whose social lives depend on logging on to their favourite websites each day.
But they will strike a chord with parents and teachers who complain that many youngsters lack the ability to communicate or concentrate away from their screens…
Baroness Greenfield, an Oxford University neuroscientist and director of the Royal Institution, believes repeated exposure could effectively ‘rewire’ the brain.
True? Darned if I know. I plead innocent to being neuroscientist, and for all I know, Baroness Greenfield’s own thinking might be scrambled. But then again, there is at least the time factor. TV and video games already eat up huge chunks of time that kids in the past might have devoted to books.
Meanwhile, perhaps with promotion and reader feedback in mind, Random House has just started Twittering, as randomhouse. We’re all doomed. Random House has already drawn more than 700 followers but is following just five Twitter folks—er, corporations, such as BantamDell. Presumably Random execs are doing the following through other accounts.
Related: Scramble your brains with us on Twitter, as well as Norman Mailer and E.
February 25th, 2009 at 11:23 am
Note that the Daily Mail article contains zero evidence to back up the claims of Baroness Greenfield. Has she done any actual research that demonstrates social websites reduce peoples attention spans? No way to tell from the article. That’s something that really peeves me about science journalism.
February 25th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Hi,Robbie. Here we agree. I’d love to see some helpful links. Thanks. David