How are you? I hope all is well with you. By the way, I just posted a new batch of articles & slide shows on my blog at http://voyage.aimvotal.com/

I hope that you may want to take a look at them & have a pleasurable read & viewing. Please do leave a comment or two to help me improve my blog. Thanks in advance. Keep in touch.

Abasster

I know – giving technology to people and hoping they will use it with intelligence is naive. But well… I don’t want to be pessimist.

Maybe it’s the case – I don’t know. Without actual fact, I prefer to wait and see, but of course, not without working on getting a better life.
I suppose you’ve read the Csikszentmihalyi’s books ? His experiment show that a life that is engaged in highly stimulating activities (intellectual or not) bring us a lot more happiness.
Some bouddhist monk participate in experiment on the brain – Mathieux Ricard for example. Their brain seem to be more active while they meditate, and they are more aware of their environment without being disturbed by it. But well, I should reread it

So, to be clear : yes, I think what we do influence how our brain configure itself (experiment proove it, an easy version of the expriment can be found in “This our brain on music” and “Brain Rules”). But no, we have no proof if facebook and so on change it in a drastic way. And I’m no fan of those application !

“Around 1970, Walter Mischel launched one of the most famous experiments in modern psychology. He put a series of four-year-olds in a room with a bell and a marshmallow, the asked if he or she would like a “small” or “large” reward. Most, if not all, opted for the bigger treat. But then the catch was releaved: only if the child waited until the experimenter returned, would he receive two marshmallows. If the child couldn’t wait, he could ring the bell, and the adult would allow him to eat the first treat. … some children rang the bell in a minute, others toughed it out for up to twenty minutes before the researcher returned. For decades, Michael and his colleagues at Stanford and then Columbia universities repeated the experiment, sometimes with pretzel sticks or toys, or after giving the children a helpful tip on waiting. And then, they tracked many of the preschoolers as they grew. Thise who has waited longer for a treat become more socially competent, resilient, articulate, attentive, reasoning teens who scored substantially sigher on the SATs and got higher educationsl degrees. Kids who opted for instant gratification were more likely to become bullies, get lower parent and teacher evaluations as teens, and abuse drugs as adults. Even seconds’ difference in wait times made a difference in the trajectory of a life. How could such a breathlessly simple experiment predict so much?”

Regarding Greenfield’s words, it’s true that it isn’t backed by a scientific experiment, but in my opinion that’s not really needed. Maybe one day she or somebody else will show a nice brain map which shows the damage done to some areas. But even that wouldn’t say much more – and in a way even those scans and numbers will be just another opinion. The sample, the methodology, the interpretation and the consequences of her data can be challenged by other scientists and by lay people. I think that philosophical observations have their own value in themselves, purely apart from scientific “evidence.”