Social Networking the new evil....

Posted by Paul Decelles October 18, 2009 at 10:35 p.m.

Today I stumbled upon what has to be the silliest article I have seen in a long time. The article in England's Daily Mail trumpets:

"Social networking websites are causing alarming changes in the brains of young users"

And the article quotes neuroscientist Susan Greenfield as being concerned that use of social networks, twitter, facebook and others are "infantilising" the brain, exposure to computers, video games "rewriting our children's brains.

The evidence cited? A teacher of 30 years told her that students are less able to understand others. Hmmm sounds to me like the old things were better when I was young line. Other evidence? Well Autistic people have difficulty communicating but are comfortable around computers, she claims. Then she raises the specter that the seeming increase in autism is due to computer usage, ignoring the overwhelming evidence that the increase is due in large part to better screening and changes is the diagnostic criteria for autism.

Oh and here is my favorite piece of evidence, namely that computer games trigger flight or fight responses rather than the reasoning centers of the brain. OK granted some games are of that type but there are all kinds of computer games including some that really do require lots of reasoning. This from an educational psychologist.

Now do we want people to learn to form real relationships? Sure. Are computers leading us to do things differently than we have done them before and maybe made people impatient with slower media? Sure. Are there risks and problems with social networks and computer gaming? Sure. But quite frankly, printed books led to major changes in the way we do things as well and some unintended consequences such as the reformation and stuff such as that.

Granted, people need to learn balance in using these new technologies but it just seems too easy to blame social networking systems and computer games for social ills rather than focusing on real causes for real problems.

Am I the only one skeptical of "chilling warnings" about social websites and computer games and their effects on kid's brains? Or maybe you agree with the article. If so, why?

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honeychild (Mel Briscoe) says…

hogwash.
October 19, 2009 at 8:23 a.m.
justbegintowrite (Ronda Miller) says…

We love to blame anything new that comes along...whether it was the wheel, book, vinyl records, television, now computers. Running naked with iPhones might be next!

People with autism (that I know personally) love the computer because it affects regions of their brain that help soothe and engage them....it doesn't cause autism...This woman has obviously been twittering up the wrong tree.
October 19, 2009 at 10:54 a.m.
devobrun (anonymous) says…

And since none of these evidence-based conclusions are testable, they should be relegated to the ash heap of rational thought.

Global warming causes kidney disease. And everything causes cancer. Here's a list of those things just through the letter "d".

Acetaldehyde, acrylamide, acrylonitril, abortion, agent orange, alar, alcohol, air pollution, aldrin, alfatoxin, arsenic, arsine, asbestos, asphalt fumes, atrazine, AZT, baby food, barbequed meat, benzene, benzidine, benzopyrene, beryllium, beta-carotene, betel nuts, birth control pills, bottled water, bracken, bread, breasts, brooms, bus stations, calcium channel blockers, cadmium, candles, captan, carbon black, carbon tetrachloride, careers for women, casual sex, car fumes, celery, charred foods, cooked foods, chewing gum, Chinese food, Chinese herbal supplements, chips, chloramphenicol, chlordane, chlorinated camphene, chlorinated water, chlorodiphenyl, chloroform, cholesterol, low cholesterol, chromium, coal tar, coffee, coke ovens, crackers, creosote, cyclamates, dairy products, deodorants, depleted uranium, depression, dichloryacetylene, DDT, dieldrin, diesel exhaust, diet soda, dimethyl sulphate, dinitrotouluene, dioxin, dioxa

Rational thought is lost. Welcome the world of psychological manipulation via "studies". Make the populace afraid. Then ride in and save them from their iniquities.
October 22, 2009 at 8:49 p.m.
pdecell (Paul Decelles) says…

Well I would hesitate to say that something is NOT testable. You and I have gone round about that...my beef is that these claims are being made without any evidence aside from some one's fears of new technology.

Yup make the population afraid and rational thought is lost. I think we can agree on that. :-)
October 23, 2009 at 12:41 p.m.
devobrun (anonymous) says…

From the article:
"Social networking websites are causing alarming changes in the brains of young users, an eminent scientist has warned."

Eminent scientist? The appeal to authority. Ring a bell regarding other "scientific" assertions?

"We know how small babies need constant reassurance that they exist,' she told the Mail yesterday."

And finally: "I'm not against technology and computers. But before they start social networking, they need to learn to make real relationships with people.'"

All quotes from psychologists and studies. All implications are that they know what they are talking about. Yet, we live in a world of real science (like real relationships) and that which appears to be scientific (or real relationships).

Since I tend to be rather straightforward and avoid being obtuse I will complete the thought from the final quote above:

I'm not against technology and computers. But before they start social networking, they need to learn to make real relationships with people............ And before I continue to trade on the reputation of my title and the name of science, I will learn to do some real science. I will be more careful in my assertions when invoking the title of eminent scientist until real testing is done.

Not goin' to happen.
October 23, 2009 at 2:39 p.m.
devobrun (anonymous) says…

Along similar lines of quasi-science, look at this report:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/08599193...

In it is a line: "Using a sophisticated statistical analysis that controlled for any social or cultural factors that could impact childbearing, researchers determined that these characteristics were passed on genetically from mothers to daughters and granddaughters"

And later:"Douglas Ewbank, a demographer at the University of Pennsylvania who undertook the statistical analysis for the study, which was published Oct. 21 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), says that because cultural factors tend to have a much more prominent impact than natural selection in the shaping of future generations, people tend to write off the effect of evolution"

So, they are looking for a needle in a haystack and think they've found it.

The entire study is a measure of how well they have implemented the "sophisticated statistical analysis that controlled for any social or cultural factors".

My guess is that it is a computer model and the model is crap.

When you blog about funny, interesting, bizarre papers of scientific assertion, you are opening up the social-political world of science. This is when I respond with a much greater degree of skepticism than most people do.
Am I just an old curmudgeon? Maybe. Then again maybe the relaxed rigor of computer-model-science really is causing people to overstep the limits of science. Maybe science is digging its own grave by losing its definition and its clarity? Entropy is rising in the world of science. Too many degrees of freedom. We really don't know much about anything anymore because we claim to know so much.
October 23, 2009 at 4:53 p.m.
snap_pop_no_crackle (anonymous) says…

A decline in the number of pirates since the early 19th Century has caused global warming. The recent resurgence of piracy off the east coast of Africa had slowed global warming.
http://asecondhandconjecture.com/inde...
October 25, 2009 at 8:32 p.m.