A new study says rapid-fire info updates don’t allow us to develop emotions fully.
A recent study showed that social networking sites, like Twitter and Facebook, are providing information too fast for the brain’s “moral compass” to process, eventually leading to a stunted ability to feel emotions such as admiration or compassion.
CNN reported the findings of the study, which were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Online. According to the study, when stories are streamed at a high rate, the brain does not have the opportunity to digest the anguish and suffering that may be a part of the story.
“If things are happening too fast, you may not ever fully experience emotions about other people’s psychological states and that would have implications for your morality,” said researcher Mary Helen Immordino-Yang.
Although brain scans showed that humans can relate very quickly to signs of physical pain in others, it took longer to attach sentiment to “slow-burn” emotions like admiration.
Here’s various articles and studies for your viewing pleasure you mean-spirited bunch:
Using Twitter makes you morally callous
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Complete and utter load of tosh.
First – sample size. The study you give, the one published on ‘stories streamed at a high rate’? FIFTEEN PEOPLE ONLY IN THE STUDY.
Second – Selection criteria of the sample population. Statistically significant results can only be inferred from a blinded study wherein the subjects of the study are randomized such that the data cannot be biased, which leads to – logistics and demographics. They are not accounted for in a localized study which is isolated to a particular region, namely where ever in CA they decided to conduct their “experiment.”
What was the stimulus used? Comparison of lack of romance whining and potentially graphic bone-crushing gore? Reaction times to two different external stimuli _cannot_ be analyzed as a single data set without some kind of normalization to the exposure duration of the stimulus. It takes one second to observe an ankle being broken. In that same one second, a patient has enough time to mention their name without going into any detail about horrific symptoms of a terminal illness. If it takes three seconds to react to a on second stimulus, how does that relate to a fifteen minute delayed reaction to a five minute story of emotional distress?
Hear hear!
What a load of poppy cock!
Twitter’s no good now CWalken is gone. That guy made it awesome. Nobody else is nearly as funny.
The ironic thing is, if this study is correct then most of the people reading about it won’t care due to their “stunted ability to feel emotions”.
Either that or they won’t care because its a load of crap. (:
Oh thats just bull!
Did I happen to rattle a cage here? I felt rather indifferent to the research.
Maybe it’s my stunted emotional state.
Cnn and is just anti twitter cause aplusk (ashton kutcher) is going to beat them to one million followers. ha. Besides – future man needs to tell them about the internet and the iphone.. and those special pills
We are just proving that we can still react emotionally…
3yrs ago it would have been MySpace
6 years ago it would have been FriendsReunited
160 years ago it would have been the invention of the telephone
It’s all Meh. Did it really need funded research to find out that the brain is more receptive to physical pain than to emotional pain? Pay it no heed. Move along.
love the picture and comments!
Ehehehe … love the pic …
Only if you tweet and facebook and sms all the time and have lack of other social activities perhaps ….
But then again … I mean .. what highly intelligent topics will be at the breakfast table of many couples and roommates anyway ? Lot of grunting and such, but full sentences???
And lets face it .. some people are just plain shallow by nature … that’s how they prefer to live … ‘their brain wont cope well with more intense communications.
Maybe it is not the speed of twitter but more the lack of a physical presence of someone else (authority …)
I’m currently going through some major trauma due to the passing of loved ones in my family, and have found it helps numb the mental anguish if I just keep distracting myself with everything. I have 6 different things going on inside my head at once and it stops me from thinking about what happened. The internet makes it soooo easy to take you far away from a naturally formed emotion, and I barely use Facebook, have never posted on Youtube, and have never used Twitter before. I can only imagine how much more subdued I’d be if I did use those sites often like many people do.
It makes perfect sense that conditioning someone this way from a young age would lead to an imbalance of extrovert or introvert in their personality. Does this make sense to anyone?
Its really very funny that CNN reported this as they broadcast different news items ‘streamed’ constantly throughout the day on websites and TV. So are we also unable to lend out ‘moral compasses’ to the news?
“Twitter and Facebook, are providing information too fast for the brain’s “moral compass” to process”
Yep, sure. Twitter and Facebook manage to undermine the evolutionary process by providing a stimulus too fast for the human mind.
Here’s Ben Goldacre debunking these types of claim on Newsnight.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gg8LlUME-IM
I do like Goldacre’s opening line: “I’m almost ashamed of myself being here talking about it”
M.
im indifferent on this subject too. I think it would depend on the individual, because not everyone is happy go lucky all the time. Did anyone else watch that stupid mouse video in full? I did and was disappointed to find out that it never escapes.
I think the time we spend with others at schools and in the work place offsets the argument against Facebook and other like sites.
What about if you have friends with different routines. Meaning, you hardly ever have social time at the same time in which to press the flesh?
How about meeting locals in the pub or working-’people’s clubs and other friendly society places? Oh…the tax is too high on alcohol and soft drinks are extortionate. I think some are going to grab some drink from the supermarket and sit watching the £40 per month satellite TV.
How about if you have friends with specific interests similar to your own, but the physical distance between you is quite large? Travel time is dead time and un-environmental. Dead time unless you can surf the internet at the same time perhaps? Oh…..this is what anti social-network shite people are trying to stop us from doing.
While a=0 do