busyScientists Fear Technology May Be Rewiring Our Brains
When the brain spends more time on technology-related tasks and less time exposed to other people, it drifts away from fundamental social skills like reading facial expressions during conversation, Small asserts.
So brain circuits involved in face-to-face contact can become weaker, he suggests. That may lead to social awkwardness, an inability to interpret nonverbal messages, isolation and less interest in traditional classroom learning.
... this really sounds like the anti-bookworm propaganda some teachers heaped on me when I was younger, because I preferred the company of books to that of the banal little beasts they called my classmates. And while I've got some nearby friends, frankly I prefer the company of online folks to most of the locals, because the Midwest is not exactly a hotbed of culture and brilliance. The scientists may have a point in there somewhere, but if they want to sell it to intellectuals, boy howdy they'd better find a better way to phrase it.
Re: Devil's Advocate Jaguar, Reporting for Duty!
December 10 2008, 15:07:46 UTC 12 years ago
Really? Not easy for anyone? To use myself as an example, I live with two people I met through an Internet-mediated interest group; I met my SO through another, and
Right now, people use the internet more to feel not-alone in mind... because they can't get enough people of like mind in geographical locations close to them.
This is definitely a major way people use the Internet in my experience as well. It seems on the whole a positive one to me. Would it be better for them if they changed their minds -- changed their personalities -- in order to better fit in with those geographically close to them? This is a real question; it seems to me to be the necessary next step if using the Internet in this manner is not good for people.
And you still need people skills to make those meetings work.
Of course. One could even practice those people skills during those face-to-face meetings, once the Internet has introduced the participants in the first place and been used to set time, date, and so on for the meetings.
(As for using the internet to woo people, that's a very iffy thing. For every 'I met and married my online girlfriend', I hear dozens of 'oh, we met in person and the spark wasn't there'. Some things really need to be experienced in person.)
It seems to me that for any group of relationships united by a descriptor, be it relationships begun due to a common interest, begun over the Internet, between people of opposite genders, between previously divorced people, and so on, some will fizzle early, some end after awhile, some continue for the long term. I don't think that necessarily invalidates any of these groups of relationships. I wouldn't advocate that people go straight from online correspondence to, say, cohabitation -- I would of course recommend some face-to-face meetings -- but in my experience the Internet is not significantly less successful a place to meet potential interests than any other, nor the relationships resulting from such meetings fundamentally flawed in any unique way.
Re: Devil's Advocate Jaguar, Reporting for Duty!
December 10 2008, 17:48:59 UTC 12 years ago