• All Atwitter

  Posted Tuesday, February 24, 2009 1:46 PM | By Emily Yoffe
  
  
  sponsorship
  
  An Oxford neuroscientist is suggesting that social networking and the hours kids spend doing it is rewiring their brains so that we are at risk of raising a generation of solipsists. Dr. Susan Greenfield fears this exposure is permanently "infantalizing" young brains, leaving them with truncated attention spans and the inability to interact face-to-face with other human beings. Her conclusions feel instinctively right (as I've found even adult brains can be rewired for such stunting), but then again, isn't this always the cry of the older generation when a new technology comes along? Television, radio, and telephones were all supposed to ruin the generation that grew up glued to these devices. Even the printing press—which allowed people to absorb cultural knowledge privately—was supposed to destroy the group cohesion that was enforced through the oral tradition. Do others feel Greenfield is right? Or is she just the latest adult warning that rock 'n' roll, et. al., is producing degenerate kids?
  
  Filed under: social networking, Facebook, brain development, twitter
  0 Comments

  Add Yours

  Or join the discussion
  on the Fray