Dangers of the Net

[jee]

We all know that too much of a thing can become a danger. That some things will not cause me any harm because of my biological built and my environment but to you might cause harm to you and those around you. I am always reminded about the case in one of my psychology semesters at varsity about the Mexican man that did not use alcohol, was the most placid at work, but in the evenings became violent and a danger to his family. They found out that he was allergic to their staple, potatoes.

There are many threads on the forum where everyone wax about the NoN-Danger of the Innerwebs and games. However, science have been watching, and testing.

It seems that the malleable gray matter of the youth can atrophy with prolonged Innerweb activity (I would have thought it might have been their derrieres).

heavy internet use by the young results in "brain structural alterations" of a kind associated with "impairment of cognitive control."

I must say that the sample is small. One of my bugbears with science.

One set of [MRI] images focused on gray matter at the brain's wrinkled surface, or cortex, where processing of speech, memory, motor control, emotion, sensory and other information occurs ... The researchers discovered several small regions in online addicts' brains shrunk, in some cases as much as 10 to 20 percent. The affected regions included the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, rostral anterior cingulate cortex, supplementary motor area and parts of the cerebellum.

What's more, the longer the addiction's duration, the more pronounced the tissue reduction. The study's authors suggest this shrinkage could lead to negative effects, such as reduced inhibition of inappropriate behavior and diminished goal orientation ...

and

As another crucial part of the new study on Internet addiction, the research team zeroed in on tissue deep in the brain called white matter, which links together its various regions. The scans showed increased white matter density in the right parahippocampal gyrus, a spot also tied to memory formation and retrieval. In another spot called the left posterior limb of the internal capsule, which is linked to cognitive and executive functions, white matter density dropped relative to the rest of the brain. [The researchers suggest that the white matter changes] may make it harder for Internet addicts to temporarily store and retrieve information ... [and] could impair decision-making abilities—including those to trump the desire to stay online and return to the real world.

The google generation?

[Tribble]

More like the Wiki generation.

[jee]

Nope, Wiki (unless you are into politics) is a useful tool.

[Tribble]

Not always accurate though

[jee]

Nope, but how much on the Innerwebs are accurate? Heck, school text books differ mightily from encyclopaedia particularly American v English. Wiki, for many items are the beginning of a search to give basic information. Its like everything - it should be used for the reason its there, not as the alpha and omega

[Tribble]

Agreed - but when school kids do projects they use Wikipedia as the only resource. Teachers are pulling their hair out and banning the use of Wiki articles. They are now even deploying Plagiarism Checker and expect senior students to put an anti-plagiarism report on all their projects. There is a site for that too.

[jee]

Welcome to the world of instant cut and paste. This was already a dangerous situation years ago at varsities.

Bad when a learner uses this, but a University student working towards his Masters? What is worse is that for Hons and MIS we each did some assignments, and you wrote exams on everyone's work. I basically redid 80% of the assignments... Even worse is that one of those are now in a similar position than me... and I tell you.... its heartbreaking.

[Tribble]

It must be. It is a sad day when people are not capable of writing things in their own words.

[Anakha56]

... reduced inhibition of inappropriate behavior ...

So I am curious...

How does this fit in with hamin?

This lot would seem like fun in the work place...

[jee]

I have always pondered "inappropriate behaviour"

[doo_much]

Dangers of the Net?

Oh, like your daughter telling all and sundry that you've got a problem with drinking and driving?

[Prime]

jee, go read a book called Wrong. I think you'd enjoy it. It's on my to buy list,

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 48630.html


And for the record, small samples aren't the fault of science, they are the fault of Scientists, Doctors and Marketing companies.

[rustypup]

while it's easy to blame poor reporting, we should look to ourselves. we are far to ready to accept, on faith, statements made from a position of tenuous authority. more tellingly, our willingness to critically assess sensational news items decreases in direct proportion to the factual content in a story - the fewer facts the easier it reads, so it must be true. right? because big words are just there to confuse us - so a peppering of polysyllabic prose is automatically interpreted as untrustworthy.

also, fact checking everything you are exposed to is just so darn tedious... and gets you labelled as a nitpicker/anal retentive/<insert negative moniker>.....

the media business is a business... market pressure determines the quality of the product... if the product is sub-standard or bland, that's because the market demands it.

how many people do we imagine would step back and say "<20 is a woefully small sample and is highly unlikely to account for social, gender, lifestyle and age contributors."

similar changes have been observed in children <12 exposed to "excessive", (whatever you may happen to call excessive), television viewing so it could just as easily be linked to over-stimulation of the optical system....

reporting like this is why i've all but given up reading main-stream news sources unless i'm desperately bored or need to get my BP up...

@Prime: add Bad Science to your list... (also Big Babies )