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Baroness Susan Greenfield: Is Online Networking Harmful?

Australian Broadcasting Corporation
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DON WILMER Avatar
DON WILMER
Posts: 14
Posted: 11.22.09, 11:50 AM
Susan is a wonderful speaker. The narrative is fluid and easy to follow. The theory that nurture has more to do with brain function / development than genetics has been gaining ground. Susan ably demonstrated that. I am not at all surprised by the Piano test. Golfers have been effectively using this – called visualization technique to condition their brains. And I have using this VERY effectively in my public speaking. As for Twitter: religion filled a need (fear, hope, etc.,) in society. I think Twitter is doing something similar.
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tomm541 Avatar
tomm541
Posts: 4
Posted: 11.22.09, 11:59 AM
Blowing the mind is fine...!:-)
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wsoutherland Avatar
wsoutherland
Posts: 25
Posted: 11.22.09, 02:56 PM
To say there is no symbolism and content in video games is to say you have a limited understanding of the medium. Neverwinter Nights, Zelda, Assassin's Creed and World of Warcraft are literature.

Real life is boring. To cure this, we read books, watch movies and play video games. We place sentimental value on things to make them worth more than they really are because that is less boring. Some people seek attention, thus the play by play of a cat sneezing. As someone on stage giving a speech, how can you bash someone who is also trying to seek attention? Only your method and ambition are different.
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DON WILMER Avatar
DON WILMER
Posts: 14
Posted: 11.23.09, 02:06 AM
Attention seeking? Really?
Quote:
Originally Posted by wsoutherland
To say there is no symbolism and content in video games is to say you have a limited understanding of the medium. Neverwinter Nights, Zelda, Assassin's Creed and World of Warcraft are literature.

Real life is boring. To cure this, we read books, watch movies and play video games. We place sentimental value on things to make them worth more than they really are because that is less boring. Some people seek attention, thus the play by play of a cat sneezing. As someone on stage giving a speech, how can you bash someone who is also trying to seek attention? Only your method and ambition are different.
The play by play of a cat sneezing may be for sharing information or thought than for mere attention seeking. some people use a gun for self defence and some use it to kill others or commit robbery, etc., Twitter is used by people for different purpose. Just simplifying it as "attention seeking" isn't really a scienctific or sensible.

BTW, Real life isn't boring for everybody and reading books isn't necessarity for curing that - unless you are referring to Harry Potter.
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mrbaracuda Avatar
mrbaracuda
Posts: 1
Posted: 11.25.09, 04:16 AM
Complementary to the latter part of this presentation I recommend watching Philip Zimbardo: The Time Paradox.
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psikeyhackr Avatar
psikeyhackr
Posts: 2
Posted: 11.25.09, 09:20 AM
It is funny that she should talk about paying a MORTGAGE.

Does that mean she has adopted a ridiculous economic paradigm where she believes that she is obligated to pay someone else to live on THEIR PLANET.

Are psychologists too dumb to notice PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE 40 years after the Moon landing?

What does she know about REALITY?
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EasternBlot Avatar
EasternBlot
Posts: 1
Posted: 11.29.09, 02:30 PM
This presentation is terrible. First of all, who shows high school-level video clips in what is supposed to be a mainstream lecture? The point could have been made just as well and far more professionally by giving real data instead of a monologue by some idiot's story accompanied with a 80's techno beat. Also, she makes herself look foolish, passing judgment unnecessarily. As a scientist, and being presented as a scientist, it is unseemly for her to comment on the glories of books and the dangers of twitter. We've heard the same arguments about moral decay regarding comic books, jazz, and blacks having children with whites.

Much worse than her fogeyism, however, is that Dr. Greenfield quite hypocritical in claiming that genetics cannot be used as sufficient explanation for brain diseases in the beginning of her presentation and then proceeds to make poorly supported links between games and social networks with neurological disorders. Of course spending a significant time on computers can alter brain development, but she provided little real science for either direction.

The only advantage I can think of for her scaremongering is the hope that it can shift government funding towards more studies in the matter, but there are better ways to do so without dancing with the risks of unnecessary government interference.

As a final note, she seems have made a misleading title, or does not know what it means to be an online social network. Games and twitter, though quite famous, are but a small fraction of the systems that could be defined as online networks. Almost everyone in my social group uses facebook, maybe linkedin.

Overall, one of the poorer fora presentations.
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Rocket Avatar
Rocket
Posts: 3
Posted: 12.01.09, 07:36 AM
Our knowledge of the brain is scant indeed. Susan G does seem to try to sound knowledgeable while in fact comments are rife with assumptions about the people dancing (... "they have done this ...... they are that ...." Does she know these people? .... Does she have any real knowledge of what they experience? Of what they think? Just what passes for science these days?

Honestly this short presentation is a shabby expression of what is, or is not known about the brain, of real knowledge. Assumptions and sweeping statements about how peoples brains work and process information seem quite a waste of time, especially her assumptions about others experience and use of a photo that seems to satisfy a need to belittle people she actually probably knows little of nothing real about.
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Rocket Avatar
Rocket
Posts: 3
Posted: 12.01.09, 07:45 AM
Wow. She is an outrageous hypocrite. In one presentation making sweeping assumptions about others and in another , with a more balanced comment that how can anyone view life thru anothers eyes ...
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brotherlog Avatar
brotherlog
Posts: 1
Posted: 12.06.09, 12:31 PM
Perhaps the effects of screen culture? She spent the bulk of the talk with empirical studies and then a series of suspicions about the effect of video games. Surely there have been studies on the neurological effects of video games and we do not need to rely on the apparently self-diagnosed video?

Thousands of people have "blown their minds" by engrossing themselves in books at the exclusion of the real world. Some read Tolstoy but many many more read Danielle Steele and the Left behind series.

We really want the medium to be the message. But the medium can do incredible things too. Her smug dismissal of Twitter is self-indulgent. I have never seen anyone twit about putting their socks on but many talk about the mundane events in their lives as that they generally tell the people around them anyway. "I had a cheese sandwich." "I hate Mondays", Twitter just allows these boring conversations to be shared more widely. It also almost allowed the people of Iran to bring down the government. It will be the first source of all news very soon. It will be immediate.

Aren't some video games being prescribed as a means to help push back dementia and Alzheimer's?
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