Are video games and social networking websites hurting the next generation?
Yes, says Baroness Greenfield, neuroscientist and director of the Institute for the Future of the Mind, the University of Oxford Screen culture — video gaming and using computers in general — is impacting on our lives, especially those of the young, to an unprecedented degree. We know that the human brain is exquisitely sensitive to the environment. It follows that if that environment is changing in unprecedented ways, so the brain may be changing in a way that results in a departure in mindset from that which human beings have had since we evolved. First among these changes is a shorter attention span. If the young brain is exposed to a world of new images flashing up with each press of a key, then it might become accustomed to operating over such timescales. Perhaps when, back in the real world, such responses are not forthcoming, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder will result. Second, there is “living for the moment”, where the emphasis is on sensory-laden thrill — the buzz of
