Part 2 of the response to Lady Greenfield's Guardian interview where she speaks about relationships and her concerns that social networking sites like Facebook are leading to attention deficit in young people. Click on the image below for the expanded version.
Tor_Khan تور خان
You gotta lova handwritten blog posts! Thanks for this...
ReplyDeleteI am agreeable with your final paragraph, but my conclusion, as opposed to Lady Greenfield's conclusion, is that -enter-social-networking-site-name-here-, rather than being the cause, is the tool that exposes the status-quo. What i find especially disheartening is:
(a) the lack of scientific evidence to support the claims, and
(b) the use of the media and the house of lords to push research agendas.
What is interesting is that (a) she claims that the brains has changed due to exposure to such technologies and we should be weary of their use, (b) techno enthusiasts claim that the brain has changed because of exposure and we should integrate these technologies even more into the classroom, and (c) cognitive psychologists note that it is evolutionary impossible for the brain to change so quickly.
Ah George ... handwriting ... I kind of wanted to try something different here ...
ReplyDeleteI think Lady Greenfield would have a more convincing argument if she had some current research to back her findings, but I think that the general point that she makes about relationships needing to be healthy is one that mental health professionals will know lots about and the effects on brain chemistry.
As we both appear to agree, it is a point of concern when people hide behind avatars and create a distorted online profile of themselves and then claim to have 900 friends.