Some interesting comments from Baroness (Susan) Greenfield on the neurological dangers of social media sites, particularly for kids. And as a 'proper' expert, and one you wouldn't normally associate with the Daily Mail Tendency, we should probably consider what she has to say.
Her main concerns focus on three interconnected areas, attention, empathy and sociability (let's coin AES Disorder, right here, right now)...
ATTENTION:
Social networking sites "are devoid of cohesive narrative and long-term significance. As a consequence, the mid-21st century mind might almost be infantilised, characterised by short attention spans, sensationalism, inability to empathise and a shaky sense of identity".
"If the young brain is exposed from the outset to a world of fast action and reaction, of instant new screen images flashing up with the press of a key, such rapid interchange might accustom the brain to operate over such timescales. Perhaps when in the real world such responses are not immediately forthcoming, we will see such behaviours and call them attention-deficit disorder".
EMPATHY:
There is "a much more marked preference for the here-and-now, where the immediacy of an experience trumps any regard for the consequences. After all, whenever you play a computer game, you can always just play it again; everything you do is reversible. The emphasis is on the thrill of the moment, the buzz of rescuing the princess in the game. No care is given for the princess herself, for the content or for any long-term significance, because there is none".
SOCIABILITY:
Social networking sites can provide a "constant reassurance – that you are listened to, recognised, and important". But this is coupled with a distancing from the stress of face-to-face, real-life conversation, which are "far more perilous … occur in real time, with no opportunity to think up clever or witty responses, requiring a sensitivity to voice tone, body language and perhaps even to pheromones, those sneaky molecules that we release and which others smell subconsciously".
"Real conversation in real time may eventually give way to these sanitised and easier screen dialogues, in much the same way as killing, skinning and butchering an animal to eat has been replaced by the convenience of packages of meat on the supermarket shelf. Perhaps future generations will recoil with similar horror at the messiness, unpredictability and immediate personal involvement of a three-dimensional, real-time interaction."
Could be right; could be wrong. And though it would be easy to start waving our copies of Everything Bad Is Good For You around, these are probably questions worth thinking about.
