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Facebook - it melts your brain

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pwhodges:

--- Quote ---"She feared" "it might" "She claimed" "It might be helpful to investigate" etc etc
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This isn't the result of any research, just (possibly informed) spouting.  Consider carefully, but with a large supply of grains of salt.

And The Guardian's spelling and grammar used to be much worse - I know, I was there...

Skibas_clavicle:
Big ups, Cathy, I thought a lot of similar things when I read the study as well.

--- Quote from: ruyi on 24 Feb 2009, 18:35 ---
--- Quote ---It might be helpful to investigate whether the near total submersion of our culture in screen technologies over the last decade might in some way be linked to the threefold increase over this period in prescriptions for methylphenidate, the drug prescribed for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
--- End quote ---

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I found this particular part pretty preposterous, myself, seeing as there are so many outside issues, several of which not even pertaining the the issues of psychological health or medicine having to do with the increased prescription of ADD medication. Either way, I'm gonna have to agree with Cathy on a lot of her points. However, that being said, people do seem to have gotten dumber with the maintreamification (yah, just made up a word, eat it) of social networking site. I am not going to make any scientific claims here, but come on, don't people seem dumber?

ackblom12:
Not really, you just are aware of so many more people. You're bound to find quite a few people who at the very least act stupid as fuck in that case. Also, Internet Dickwad Theory.

KvP:
I think there a few reasonable explanations for the percieved dumbness of people on networking sites. One is that there are lots of people on social networking sites who wouldn't be on such sites if a certain amount of knowledge or expertise were required. You don't have to be a proficient in computer use (or basic english) to establish yourself online. If page templates and the like weren't readily available we wouldn't have such a grand amount of tools and ditzes on these sites. Another is the more classic theory that was outlined in the "Internet you vs. real you" thread - the disconnect between your offline self and your online self is easy to forge, to such an extent that there are a lot of people who don't think their online conduct "counts". Who the fuck cares how you act online, anyway.

Now I adore roo as much as anybody, but there's a relativistic bent to some of her arguments that I find myself at odds with. It's sort of the same idea behind the recent battles over students being penalized for including IM abbreviations in their schoolwork - some welcome that vernacular as a "natural evolution of the english language" and others see it as detrimental, seeing as how it largely disregards standard rules of grammar. I obviously tend to find myself on the side of the latter, even as I've experienced my IM habits bleeding over into my other writing (Have you noticed how I rarely use question marks in my typing. Don't you think that's a bit odd.) but it's the same principle at work here. Maybe it's a problem. Perhaps it is not.

The core of this is corrolation / causation. This professor seems to believe that being immersed in online socialization causes various neuroses to develop. I think this is a fairly reasonable claim to make, to an extent. If believe, as I do, that online social interaction counts as social behavior, subject to the same sorts of expectations and norms as offline interaction, it is plain to see how aspects of it produce harmful behavior. There are several instances on this very forum of people who, we're told, are the greatest people offline, but who get ugly and inconsiderate online. The reasons for this I think I have already referred to at the end of the first paragraph. Assholish behavior online is less than assholish behavior offline.

Where the professor runs into trouble is her contention that this sort of behavior online informs similar behaviors offline. I don't think it really matters, as I think antisocial online behavior is as pertinent as the same sort of behaviors offline, but if you don't then it's something to consider. It doesn't seem as though she makes much of a case for this. She's taking her observations and extrapolating on them more than she perhaps should.

As for ADHD and the like, I'm less eager to blame pharmacology for the rise in it, no more than I'm eager to blame the rise in psychology for the sudden emergence of autism and other mental illnesses over the last 100 years. I'm open to the idea that attention disorders are not as big of a problem as they're made out to be but I strongly dislike the appeals to tradition and is/ought arguments commonly trotted out to support the claim. When I was talking this over with roo the other night we were discussing possible causes for the increase in ADHD and the like, and the commonly claimed scapegoat of television, she brought up changes in diet as a possible factor, and I think that's a good one to look at. Ever since the 50's and 60's children have been ingesting tremendous amounts of processed sugar and caffeine.

tl;dr fuck all y'all

jhocking:

--- Quote from: Drill King on 24 Feb 2009, 18:50 ---Cathy stop* being so frighteningly intelligent

*please cure aids

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 :-D

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