Ruh roh. The Guardian is reporting that social networks like the FB... Facebook... are likely going to make the generations yet to come a bunch of babbling, infantile, social networking idiots.
Hmmm.
Everybody's got to be somebody, I guess.
And here I was thinking that Facebook was just letting me get back in touch with people whom I thought had fallen off the face of the earth, like some of my fraternity brothers who now post pictures of me and that ancient beer bong from 20+ years ago.
But noooo, it's just not that simple.
A professor in synaptic pharmacology at Lincoln College in Oxford recently explained to that bastion of advanced technology, the U.K.'s House of Lords, that social networking sites like Facebook "are devoid of cohesive narrative and long-term significance."
No offense, but if I wanted some Shakespeare, I'd fly over to London myself and check out "Othello" at the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Facebook is not the place I typically turn to to have deep, inspiring, and cathartic narrative experiences.
Although I must say I do get a kick out of getting those status updates when somebody's either breaking up or headed into a new relationship or, if they're a newbie to Facebook, the notification that they just got "married," even though I know perfectly well they've been married for 15 years.
Perhaps Facebook relationship status updates are somewhere on the road towards dramatic catharsis, but they're definitely nowhere near Shakespearean territory.
Not even "The Taming of the Shrew" or the sonnets.
The Guardian article went on to explain that social networks are also putting attention spans in jeopardy.
Attention span? In jeopardy?
When I was a kid, I played the Atari 2600, standup Asteroids and Defender machines, even the original Evil Knievel pinball machine -- for which I was a local recordholder (I figured if I couldn't jump canyons on my pseudo BMX, the next best thing was to ace the Evil Knievel pinball machine).
Those were attention deficit disorder drivers.
I can't remember the last time I paid attention to, well, anything, for more than a few minutes at a time.
But then again, all that was long before they had such a diagnosis, much less a pill.
In fact, I think this issue emanated even from the Atari Jurassic period, about the time that the original black-and-white Pong came into being.
You want to fix your kids on the subject of short attention spans?
Grab that original Atari 2600 out of storage and require them to play a pixellated version of the original Defender.
It's fair to say, "we just don't know." What did a Neanderthal think of the first Cromagnon he or she saw? And Cromagnon of their successor? What did each think was being lost in the next step?
And we cannot ignore that "the next step" isn't always a good one. Perhaps this is so in the case of the "Internet Generation."
But I certainly don't yet trust "scientists" like lady Greenfield to find that out. Not yet, at least.
Rob, I bet Greenfield (Synaptic pharmacology? Ha ha..wow) is probably getting paid for her research, but to make matters worse, it seems that for every study, there is a counter study, (Grant $$$ anyone??). Interesting you mentioned a “…a new society is evolving.” Yeah, I’d agree, but how? Greenfield is referencing YOUNG minds here, and just social networking sites, but without dissecting her study, there may good cause to take a closer look at her claims. [But Greenfield warned: "It is hard to see how living this way on a daily basis will not result in brains, or rather minds, different from those of previous generations. We know that the human brain is exquisitely sensitive to the outside world."].
To continue it out even further (maybe incorrectly here), we are getting bombarded with information everyday with information on radio, TV, 30 TV’s in the bar or restaurant with news crawlers on the bottom scrolling across, Internet with streaming audio & video, 24x7 WiFi (802.11 and 3G, 4G soon, or is it here?) connections, RSS feeds, Email, text messages, Blogs, MicroBlogs, IM’s in chat/social networking sites/Tweets; then add in video games, online games, Internet connected games (player vs. player) etc., isn’t this information overload?! I know my attention is being affected by technology, but what about the young developing brains? We see attention issues everywhere, even in adults. IMHO, people don’t communicate well anymore, they don’t return emails, voice mails; when you sit down with people at a table and they may not even make proper eye contact. You can leave a meeting and go “Huh? What did we even decide to do?”; people play with their iPhones and PDA’s, my God they become toys, especially at noon & after 5 PM. At the same time, because of the overload, critical thinking, common sense and deep thought processing (as Chris P. alluded to) is going out the window. It’s occurring. It’s here.
I guess, the point I was trying to make is that, yes, with critical thinking you can disassemble anything in order to examine it properly, but since there are usually time constraints in doing that, with the average person anyway, it cannot always be done. At the very least, common sense, reading in b/w the lines, cognitive reasoning needs to be applied more. And as you allude to where subject matter gets thrown into the media stream, then get discussed out in the population over coffee, beers and water coolers, then that subject matter becomes a “reality”, albeit, perhaps a false one….I rest my case, for now, hmm…I think. Ah, maybe I’m full of sh*t.
I have a sneaking suspicion that real cause and effect research is lacking on a lot of issues these days. It seems like there's a ton of "epidemiological" research. Like "people who smoke within 15 minutes after eating dinner are 2.7 times more likely to develop lung cancer in the left lung before the right." Statistical correlating like that, instead of real digging into the "mechanics" of it all. Don't take that statistic literally, by the way. I totally made it up just to use as an illustration.
On the other hand, I can appreciate where correlations like that might provide insights into where, exactly, to target that "mechanical" research. Still, the correlative stuff is what's getting on the evening news, not the more involved stuff that actually finds out why such-and-such is so. Or, perhaps, isn't actually so.
This stuff gets on the news, and maybe finishes with "researches speculate that...", and within a couple of weeks, I can find whole conversations taking that as established fact. I think the recent uproar about mercury in child vaccines and causation with autism is a great illustration of that. Someone somewhere established the correlation, maybe several someones. And it rapidly approached near-total acceptance, even though there's no actual agreement of how such a correlation actually works, or happens. And, since the correlation is speculative in the first place, politics inevitably intrudes upon the discussion.
Relating all this back to the original story, I don't quite accept the claims of this lady Greenfield. I don't think researchers like her are accounting for the possibility that, instead of doing some kind of harm, such a new society is evolving. That perhaps the final destination won't be some populace hampered by an attention span measured in seconds. That, instead, something new might arise that permits a whole other level of thinking. Perhaps. I'm speculating as badly as anyone on that.
Along this line of cause & effect thinking + some information gathering, (not to change the subject) I was just wondering about correlations with school violence + more graphically violent mediaw/in the last 40-50 years or so, + perhaps, MORE detached, technologically involved, socially separated kids(on a human interaction caveman level) these days, dare I say, any relation (this in another discussion, not here IE)? Oh, then let's throw in some ADD/ADHD, some online bullying, drug use & abuse, crumbling moral foundation etc etc., stir well......
And you know what else? My Cats breath smells like cat food.
A teacher, a principal or even a school nurse cannot sign a prescription only an MD can. In the case of Ritalin given to a non ADD/ADHD kid will be counterproductive, it's speed it will wind a "normal" kid up.
Recently the DSM, the manual that covers all of the neurological disorders, added another disorder called EBD, Extreme Behavior Disorder. A catchall for people who just can't follow the order of of society. We can stop labelling people ADD/ADHD that aren't.
My son would have tantrums and meltdowns until he was 12 or so. There is no physical manifestation to Autism. I would get rude comments from strangers telling me what to do with my kid etc. No right minded person would say something like that to a parent with a child with Downs.
I just question all these people that are experts on raising children have raised any of their own. I wait on a lot of posts and pass on quite a few. I have never passed
up the opportunity to educate someone who has based an opinion on
falsehood.
There is some ongoing research in the UK, studying the effects of the Internet and how humans now process information. the study points out "when we read online we become mere decoders of information."
"Our ability to interpet text, to make rich mental connections that form when we read deeply and without distraction, remains largely disengaged."
James Olds, a professor of neuroscience, says even the adult brian is malleable, and "has the ability to reprogram itself on the fly, altering the way it functions."
A worthwhile read is information behaviour of the researcher of the future , a look at the Google generation, children born post 1993.
There seems to be some clinical evidence supporting the Internet has changed the way we think. No longer are people being able to absorb long articles yet alone, something like "War and Peace".
It seems we do a lot of skimming and not a lot of deep thought processing anymore.
I like what all you guys are saying here.BUt maybe we are all trying to analyse and over-analyse things today.And to the long-term detriment of our children's futures.
We need to let them enjoy the pleasures and joys of being a kid.Have fun in the great outdoors ,Meet many friends,play tons of games and come home completely soiled and dirty at the end of a great day of play!! Instead of leaving around the PC all the time and worrying about ADD and ADHD and what nots...
If you geniunely want to build up a childs immune system and consequently make them stronger adults then you need to expose them to germs.
Same way if you want them to recognize the value of money ,you need to get them to earn some in the first place.
Its simple.Its we adults who make things complicated.
It's probably best to give it about five or ten minutes before writing a response to a subject when it can hit as close to home (literally) as this one can.
When your child is a clear victim of something like ADD/ADHD, and then you hear disbelief from other people, I can understand how that hits personally, and sounds like an indictment of you as a parent.
At the same time, there are documented stories of school officials trying to order kids to be medicated without a proper diagnosis. And I personally think there was some alarmism when these disorders were acknowledged by first the scientific/medical community, and then by the psychological community. Alzheimer's isn't just about getting forgetful, and ADD/ADHD isn't just about unruliness in class. But ADD got "tagged" as if it were. And ADHD isn't being portrayed any much differently.
But I give parents full credit for doing the best they can with the information they're given, as long as the child is taken to a proper professional for proper diagnosis.
How we deal with these disorders (not just ADD/ADHD, but autism-like disorders as well) isn't a question that's got a satisfactory answer. But it sure does seem like we're going to need to do so. Autism has undergone an alarming rise in occurence, and even if it's not yet clearly established what the cause is, I think it's safe to say there is a cause. Likewise, maybe ADD/ADHD is being brought about by some evironmental factor not yet discovered or correlated.
I hope, but am not sure, you saw through my Sarcasm in my previous post. I do believe in these disorders, unlike the 2 previous posters. I think I may actually have AADD, albeit a mild form, happens when I cannot stick or focus on anything. Could be the heroin though too. (More dark humor! Gotta luv it. Sarcasm...is me.).
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