Is Facebook giving us baby brains? British scientist says yes

http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ny-health-face0226,0,5304904.story

Facebook was started in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg from his dorm room at Harvard University with the aim to help students keep in touch over the Internet.

This is your brain.

This is your brain on Facebook.

It's an advertisement you might see someday, if testimony given to the British House of Lords this month is to be believed. In remarks that have stirred up a tempest in the British media and on the Internet, Baroness Susan Greenfield, a neuroscientist at the University of Oxford, warned that the instant feedback and impersonal communication offered by social networking sites could drive human brains and behavior in negative directions.

"As a consequence, the mid-21st Century mind might almost be infantilized, characterized by short attention spans, sensationalism, inability to empathize and a shaky sense of identity," Greenfield said Feb. 12.

But American scientists, while agreeing that Facebook use could influence behavior and brain function, said research into those effects is only beginning.

"Social networking sites are very powerful," said Dr. Gary Small, a neuroscientist at UCLA and author of the book "iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind." "They can really help people in many ways, but they also do have risks."

Small said the idea of Web sites affecting brain function is not far-fetched: A study he performed found increased brain activity after a computer-naive person was taught to use Google.

BJ Fogg of Stanford University, who has taught classes on "the psychology of Facebook," wasn't surprised to hear alarm spread in certain circles about the site, but he doubted it would have much of an impact.

"Even if there were evidence Facebook was somehow changing the brain in a bad way," Fogg said, "I don't think people would stop using social networking."

Re: Is Facebook giving us baby brains? British scientist says yes

Waaaaaaah. Am not

Re: Is Facebook giving us baby brains? British scientist says yes

Awww, aren't you a good widdle baby? Yes you are, yes you are...

Message edited 2/26/2009 10:08:59 AM.

Re: Is Facebook giving us baby brains? British scientist says yes

Honestly, if they think its just facebook that is turning people's brains to mush--they haven't been paying attention to just about everything on the internet, tv, radio, and just about everywhere these days.

Re: Is Facebook giving us baby brains? British scientist says yes

Posted by MrsPJB2007

Honestly, if they think its just facebook that is turning people's brains to mush--they haven't been paying attention to just about everything on the internet, tv, radio, and just about everywhere these days.

Re: Is Facebook giving us baby brains? British scientist says yes

Posted by MrsPJB2007

Honestly, if they think its just facebook that is turning people's brains to mush--they haven't been paying attention to just about everything on the internet, tv, radio, and just about everywhere these days.

Re: Is Facebook giving us baby brains? British scientist says yes

Posted by GoldenRod

Posted by MrsPJB2007

Honestly, if they think its just facebook that is turning people's brains to mush--they haven't been paying attention to just about everything on the internet, tv, radio, and just about everywhere these days.

Or, maybe they've spent too much time on FaceBook, and their brains turned to baby brains, so they can't think that advanced anymore.....

Re: Is Facebook giving us baby brains? British scientist says yes

texting is more the culprit... turns everyone into really bad spellers and kills good grammar!

Re: Is Facebook giving us baby brains? British scientist says yes

My brain went to mush way before FB

Re: Is Facebook giving us baby brains? British scientist says yes

Message edited 11/23/2011 5:24:11 PM.