Communication Breakdown
Communications from the world of, er, communications. And other stuff.
Wednesday 25 February 2009, 11:12 PM
Does Facebook rot your brain? Obviously not, but...
As it happens, I learned of this article from the ever-reliable (this time I use the term non-sarcastically) Dr Ben Goldacre, via the social networking medium of Twitter (Follow him. He's @bengoldacre and, since I may as well shamelessly promote myself while I'm at it, I'm @superglaze). Goldacre is the man behind Bad Science, a marvellous Guardian column, blog and book. After Baroness Professor Susan Greenfield, the head of the Royal Institution, weighed into the "debate" by backing up Aric Sigman, the author of the paper behind the original Mail article (you can read her views in another splendid Mail article entitled Social websites harm children's brains: Chilling warning to parents from top neuroscientist), Goldacre felt compelled to appear on Newsnight, sparring with Sigman, last night. Do watch the video, and do enjoy the general atmosphere of exasperation.
The issue has clearly struck a nerve on both sides. In one camp you have Sigman, Greenfield and the Mail arguing for caution over social networking, based on a very vague potential for associated biological harm. In the other, you have Goldacre and pretty much everyone I know (although my friends and colleagues are, admittedly, hardly technophobic) arguing that the idea of Facebook causing cancer or rotting the brain is patently ludicrous.
The whole kerfuffle reminds me strongly of an interview I did almost a year ago with Lee Siegel, author of the book Against The Machine. To briefly recap, Siegel was burned by an incident involving anonymous contributors being nasty to him in the comments section of a piece he wrote for The New Republic (he created his own anonymous profile on the site to hit back, and was busted) and ended up writing a book in which he argued that the interwebs were doing terrible things to society. He had a particular bone to pick with social networking sites, which he said were leading people to package themselves like products for others' consumption.
Siegel, like Sigman and Greenfield, pretty much ignored all the positive effects of social networking - which, by the way, you're engaging in right now by reading, and hopefully commenting on, this blog. As Goldacre points out, there is an awful lot of evidence that suggests online social networking is frequently used as an augmentation to users' existing, offline social networks. I can certainly testify that I use Facebook as an organisational tool for parties and other get-togethers, and I would argue that these demonstrable benefits outweigh fears that are couched in many layers of "could".
However, Siegel's argument has one distinct advantage over that of Sigman and Greenfield: it's not based on biological concerns. His views may be somewhat ranty, but Siegel is effectively calling for a worldwide, webwide debate about the nature of online activity and what that does to us as individuals and as a society. That much I think is fair enough, and to be welcomed.
We do need to debate these things. It scares me every time I cast my mind back to when I first became aware of the web in the mid-nineties, and how much life has changed since then - largely because of the web. It astonishes me every time I think how recently Facebook actually came into existence, and what a short time it took for some of my more bleeding-edge tech compatriots to declare it "over" in favour of Twitter (fodder for another blog, that subject). The pace of change right now really is amazing, and each new development causes some alteration to the way we live our lives. Certainly, the nature of childhood has changed. As much as it did with the introduction of TV? I don't know.
But that's not biology. It's sociology, and it's bloody fascinating, and I look forward to the debates that will and should ensue. The only reason that anybody gives any credence whatsoever to the bizarre claims of Sigman and Greenfield is that there's a grain of truth in what they say. Let's not dismiss that grain outright, but let's also not allow pseudoscience to pervert the conversation.
PreviousComments on this post
Great blog David,
So you mean the Daily Wail took some time out from talking about remortgaging and Princess Diana and actually tried to run a technology story then? Well that was bound to go wrong wasn't it?
I did see it and was equally appalled to think that the 50-something readers sat on their Lazee-Boy reclining armchairs in the comfortable wolds of England's green and pleasant land are being fed the mere idea that social networking is bad for you.
Moderation in all things of course. But now that these sites are evolving to the degree that they are, we're all very wary of spam, porn and Twitter users who want to talk you through every mouthful of their lunch.
It reminded me of when I worked in Dubai some years ago and phoned the editor of the Gulf News about an IE story related to Windows 95 Arabic Edition which he dismissed by telling me that, "The Internet is just a passing fad."
I believe along with many others that there is a real place for social networking on a business level. MySpace seems to have nestled in a music-related niche and seems unlikely to re-evolve. Facebook I feel suffers from a few too many childish elements. I pulled out when an analyst I know apparently "Scribbled on my FunWall", sorry - but no thanks. But Twitter is getting more and more hardcore by the day.
Finally, thank you for finally getting the word "kerfuffle" into a blog. I bow to your wordsmithery.
@AdeBridgwater
Ok, two very important observations:
One. There is a reason that people, and organizations, try to use FUD as a weapon. Because it works. The previous (thankfully) U.S. government was a perfect example of its use, and one of the corollaries - repeat something enough times, and it becomes accepted as truth.
Two. Kerfuffle?
jw
P.S. I'm 50-something... and I own a Lazee-Boy reclining chair... uh-oh... good thing I don't live in "the comfortable wolds of England's green and pleasant land", or I would be concerned!
I saw this article, and what gets me is that it comes across in such a way as to assume everybody's the same! Sure there will be some who rot away immersed in the triviality of choice. Others will use it in a clever way. Even to better themselves. Having family all over the world I couldn't express enough the value facebook has to me.
Since the new version of facebook, idiots that used to be able to mess up your walls in public view can be hidden away in the background, if your not going to drop them as a friend. I'm quite merciless when comes to dropping folk of my radar, one even being a close friend in real life. Luckily he heard me when I used the terms voluntary permanent record and the like.
But hell we're not all the same are we? I wished that some elements of the media would get over themselves.
@rogerandre
Andre,
For those who live by Facebook, it's an environment which practically forces them to adopt a homogonized information model - each representing their identity within the confines of 'the space'.
Facebookians take on a sameness insomuchas look and feel even though one might argue that individual data may be different. Users are however, using a McFacebook page to spruik their existence. All 175 million (current Feb 09) users have actually fused their identity with that of Facebook's by adopting the brand which now represents their individuality. It's like having 175 million people constantly wandering the globe wearing a Nike baseball cap!
There may actually come a time when Facebook is of considerable concern to certain institutions, even organisations, with it's sheer size and overall connectedness to the mass and it's capacity to affect decisions, policies etc.
Facebook may even become the world's first, true (think Sealand or Second Life) VNS or Virtual Nation State.
TFD
Yes it does. Rot Your Brain that is. I think.
Maybe not. Oh I don't know!
(LOLI)
Kerfuffle - http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kerfuffle
Thinkfeeldo, Long time no hear/here.. I think that may be too simplistic. Maybe it rings alarm bells in me because I'm already there. A part of this new state...is it easy to get out?
In a way, facebook has let me see sides to people I know that I wouldn't have otherwise....I agree it's alarming to see the amount of alcholism and comercialism being pushed around, but then again I can also use it to keep up with the likes of Paul Thurrot, Bill Thomson, even David Brin.
It is down to the individual I'm not sure about the nike baseball cap anology although there are plenty of them on there I'm sure!
I like to use facebook as a trunk, and then let people follow the branches if they want to. I think the medium of facebook itself is neutral. Rather like money, it will throw up a reflection of the user. After all, when you start out you are presented with a blank page.
Hiya Roger,
What I’m alluding to is the fact that the Facebook phenomenon tends to create an emotional ‘need’ in users whereby they feel compelled to keep their profile up to date in order to sustain activity and maintain a connectedness with their ‘friends’.
Thurrot, Thomson and Brin all have websites, blogs etc which you could subscribe to in order to stay in touch. Why are we duplicating all our information? How many sites does one actually need in order to communicate?
I know of a few people who are practically addicted to maintaining their myspace and facebook sites - continually expanding their profile to include thoughts, feelings, interests, likes, dislikes, desires and so on.
The thing to watch out for is the next generation of Super Profiling Systems and what they’ll be able to determine/ deduce with all the personal data.
For me, that’s when it’s going to get really interesting. Right now, these so-called social networking models seem to be more ‘social experiments’ that are still in their infancy and in that respect I prefer to remain an observer.
Till then,
TFD
Fair comment. I think compulsive/addictive disorders are an issue for humanity on the whole. If super profiling systems become a reality then now is the time to shape the data if people wish to be that way inclined.
I am about to use a term that I really dislike, but for now it seems apt.
At the end of the day, we do it to ourselves.
