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Soocial networking sites give you a short attention span?

Do they?

  • Yes

    Votes: 2 7.4%

  • No

    Votes: 6 22.2%

  • Do they what?

    Votes: 19 70.4%
  • Total voters
    27

Professor Yaffle

Butterbeans and Breadcrumbs
Professor Yaffle
Joined
Jan 31, 2007
Messages
17,746
Location
Emily's shop
Social network sites risk infantilising the mid-21st century mind, leaving it characterised by short attention spans, sensationalism, inability to empathise and a shaky sense of identity, according to a leading neuroscientist.
The startling warning from Lady Greenfield, professor of synaptic pharmacology at Lincoln college, Oxford, and director of the Royal Institution, has led members of the government to admit their work on internet regulation has not extended to broader issues, such as the psychological impact on children.
Click to expand...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/feb/24/social-networking-site-changing-childrens-brains

I note that nowhere in the article is there any reference to relevant research. I don't know whether this is the fault of the journalist, or of Prof. Lady Greenfield.
 
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I do wonder what effect JREF is having on my brain?
Am I becoming infantilised, or was it already too late when I arrived?

Is "infantilised " actually a word anyway?
 
The article indicates a lot of argument from plausibility, rather than actual research; although the Lady seems to be primarily arguing for research to be done.

While I agree that research should be done based solely upon observation of how multiple young people of my acquaintance deal--or rather, think that they can deal--with the world, I think her arguments as presented in the article lack merit.

My basic position on large-scale Internet and text-connection usage is the same as my position on driving while using a cellphone (even hands-free): Let's see the evidence. Set up a test and conduct it with a meaningful sample; present your data and conclusions, and have it peer-reviewed and published.

The Noughties (Millenials) think they can do six things at once, and do them all well. I am inclined to believe that empirical data will show this is not the case. But we don't have the studies in hand to show it true or false.

Just my thoughts, Miss Kitt
 
Her warnings are almost word-for-word the exact same warnings that we were given...

...in the 1950s about television,
...in the 1980s about arcade video games (remember when you used to have to go to the mall to play video games),
...in the 1980s about the rise of VCRs and home video watching,
...in the 1990s about home video games (Playstation et al),
...in the 2000s about WoW and other MMPORGs,
...and when e-mail became popular at the expense of snail mail.

It was always "X will rot your child's brain, X means your child is not developing social skills..."

Whatever, society hasn't collapsed yet, unless you count the current economic climate as a collapse, and you can't blame that one on kids tweeting.
 
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On Planet X, we have downloaded our brains and now live within the Social Networking Sites, so this question really has no meaning.
 
I think people with already short attention spans would find it quite suitable. I like these boards for the opposite reason. There are some nice long sound posts to read by my favorite posters. Facebook drives me crazy with all the different applications and too many people to keep track of.
 
Well, sheesh, I was gonna come in here and snark, but everyone else beat me to it :mad:.

On a more serious note... the researcher behind the story has a compelling hypothesis about conditioning, and the effect that social networking sites have on that. And she's asking that research be done on this, so she's clearly saying that her statement is the start of building knowledge on this topic, not a conclusion drawn from already completed studies. I think the hypothesis is worthy of study myself; I'd be interested to see what comes of it.

Let's keep in mind, too, that she's proposing a narrow study on the effect of screen time and a specific medication:

"It might be helpful to investigate whether the near total submersion of our culture in screen technologies over the last decade might in some way be linked to the threefold increase over this period in prescriptions for methylphenidate, the drug prescribed for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder."
Click to expand...

... but in spite of that, I think such a study would be beneficial in that it would raise other questions about the effect of 'net immersion and human attention processes. I really would like to see this study done, since it has the potential to springboard many other inquiries into what happens to people who are on the internet all the time.

Like me. :eek:

Anyway, this 4 minutes has been the most I've ever devoted to a single thing in the last 8 years, so I need to go Facebook now and... oh, hey, look at the kitty!... :boggled:

:D
 
Would you look at that, Dr. Ben already complained...

... about the sloppy science and the cherry-picking... :)

http://www.badscience.net/2009/02/the-evidence-aric-sigman-ignored/

Okay, now where's my hourly LOLcat?

Waaaaahhh... ;)

And anyway, those kids today!

Why, back in my youth, we had to drag a phone line across two storeys just to hook up a 9600 baud modem so we could download 16-color dithering renditions of badly scanned pr0n and it took, like, 2 hours to get a single picture! And a 12-incher was a *screen size*.

And today, all those overweight, inept kids, what are they doing in front of a computer anyway?
Get off of my bandwidth, willya!
 
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I think they do the oppisite, they improve peoples self identy and get them to focus on their social relationships and who they are and what they want to do. Depends what you use it for really, if you use social networking as a substitute for geniune socializing then you've got an issue and she may be right, if you use it as a tool to aid socializing and keep in contact with people then this probably wont apply to you.

Though it can shake your self identity when someone on facebook posts a picture of you on a drunken night partaking in activities that you dont remember doing and would never be seen dead doing when sober. Its there forever. Unless you can bribe the person who uploaded it. This is what sucks about social networking. But the positives far outweight the negatives in my opinion.
 
Wait, wait, wait... why the hell was the context of other studies not provided by the Guardian? Or by Greenfield? I based my acceptance of the legitimacy of her line of inquiry on the presumption that there was no research into the hypothesis that online activity leads to psychological disorder. Well, there is such research! As Dr. Goldacre has pointed out! And that's vital information to have! So why the hell was that information not provided??!!

No, I'm not aggravated at anyone here. Rather, I'm a bit pissed off that it wasn't provided by either the popular media source - although that shouldn't be a surprise nowadays - nor the researcher herself - which also shouldn't be a surprise, but is still aggravating.

Look, believe it or not, I still think such a targeted inquiry as Greenfield suggested - specifically, a study of the incidence of methylphenidate prescriptions against the time spent online on social networking sites - might still generate some useful knowledge. The studies Goldacre linked demonstrate negative correlation between 'net use and degradation of social "well being" (3 of them referring to "loneliness", one of them referring to social interactivity and extroversion/introversion). Greenfield's proposal is to study a possible relation between online social neworking activity and ADHD numbers. The proposal is actually different in detail. Greenfield may be - oh, why am I being charitable... Greenfield is reaching to presume that online social activity has a negative effect on brain function, but the study of numbers can still contribute to knowledge. If they end up falling the way I now suspect they'll fall, such a study would at least help put to rest her claims. And if not, they don't necessarily butress her contention that online activity causes ADHD or other psychological disorders; rather, they may reveal something about what ADHD afflicted people choose to do with their time. Either way, there's potential utility in the study that goes beyond Greenfield's goals.

I just wouldn't want to put her in charge of it, now that I've seen what Goldacre has pointed out. Let someone disinterested in the agenda against social networking sites or general online activity conduct it.
 
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