Posted on 07/30/2011 7:40:57 PM PDT by Mount Athos
Facebook and Twitter have created a generation obsessed with themselves, who have short attention spans and a childlike desire for constant feedback on their lives, a top scientist believes.
Baroness Greenfield, professor of pharmacology at Oxford University, believes the growth of internet 'friendships' could effectively 'rewire' the brain.
This can result in reduced concentration, a need for instant gratification and poor non-verbal skills, such as the ability to make eye contact during conversations.
Baroness Greenfield, former director of research body the Royal Institution, said: 'What concerns me is the banality of so much that goes out on Twitter.
'Why should someone be interested in what someone else has had for breakfast? It reminds me of a small child (saying): “Look at me Mummy, I'm doing this”
'It's almost as if they're in some kind of identity crisis. In a sense it's keeping the brain in a sort of time warp.'
The academic suggested that some Facebook users feel the need to become 'mini celebrities' who are watched and admired by others on a daily basis.
They do things that are 'Facebook worthy' because the only way they can define themselves is by 'people knowing about them'.
'It's almost as if people are living in a world that's not a real world, but a world where what counts is what people think of you or (if they) can click on you,' she said.
'Think of the implications for society if people worry more about what other people think about them than what they think about themselves.'
Her views were echoed by Sue Palmer, a literacy expert and author, who said girls in particular believe they are a 'commodity they must sell to other people' on Facebook.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
I can tell the healthy from the troubled because the healthy have people doing interesting things, like my trip to Alaska with the fam.
The unhealthy often only have pictures of themselves in some state of inebriation, undress or provocative pose.
Facebook is a narcissist’s dream.
I can tell the healthy from the troubled because the healthy have people doing interesting things, like my trip to Alaska with the fam.
The unhealthy often only have pictures of themselves in some state of inebriation, undress or provocative pose.
Facebook is a narcissist’s dream.
I have been saying this since the whole thing began. “Look I am doing a #2 in Starbucks!”
Not only do I find these messages mostly banal, they give away so much information that it would be impossible NOT to do identity fraud.
I have an fb account, but I post nothing on it.
*like*
(Just kidding, folks! There’s no *dislike* button!)
“Facebook and Twitter creating vain self-obsessed people with child-like need for feedback”
The title says is all. The self esteem movement has created a bunch of worthless youngsters that can’t function without someone telling them that 2 + 2 = 5. No one has the balls to tell them that they are wrong. You can’t handle the truth!
I also see lots of people out there with FB profiles that are guaranteed to lose them job and school opportunities. I check references every day, and I look at Google and FB. Not only your fb but your friends and BF tooo because one can tell a lot about the company you keep.
BINGO!!! I deal with some of these people on a daily basis and it's becoming harder and harder to be civil with them. It's all about them - not the project/situation that's going on around them.
Creating?! ::snort::
I’m going to post this article on my Facebook wall.
I didn’t know the desire for feedback was “childish.” I thought it was “human.”
Facebook and Twitter don’t “create” this kind of behavior.
I would posit that FB and Twitter “attract” vain self-obsessed people.
In an amazing contradiction, I know people who need the feedback and yet need to have the last word as well.
I found my half-sister and half-brother on facebook.
I also keep up with classmates I haven’t seen in years and friends from back home.
It’s not a loss for everyone.
I don’t know about Facebook, but I do Twitter, and there are a lot of interesting folks there like Palin, Mark Levin, Bachmann, et al, and Twitter is good for folks in a hurry.
We used to look out the office window and watch them walk into light poles, stop signs and into the streets. As the one drug store commercial lady says: “It’s all about me”.
Hmmm...might be why I can’t find a job...too many conservatives on my FB page...
I did the mountain man thing for a year and a half... I was fine without 'feedback' (sounds like talkback to me). I did see some people during that time, but my driving factors were living through it, coffee, and tobacco. When someone informed me that my ex-girl had married someone else, my response was "YES! It wasn't me!"
So humans are all over the bell curve.
Some are social, some of us are really, really not social (in any kind of polite interaction way).
/johnny
like
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