Is Facebook Bad for Your Brain?

If you’re like most teens, you spend a fair amount of time on social networking sites. Facebook alone has more than 150 million users who go online to update their status, share pictures, post links, and connect with friends from all over the world. But is there any downside to spending so much time doing the whole social networking thing?

Some scientists think so.

A recent article in the London paper, the Daily Mail, quotes neuroscientist Susan Greenfield who says that sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Bebo are actually changing the brains of young users, adding that these sites “shorten attention spans, encourage instant gratification, and make young people more self-centered.”

She goes on to say:

Real conversation in real time may eventually give way to these sanitized and easier screen dialogues, in much the same way as killing, skinning and butchering an animal to eat has been replaced by the convenience of packages of meat on the supermarket shelf. Perhaps future generations will recoil with similar horror at the messiness, unpredictability and immediate personal involvement of a three-dimensional, real-time interaction.

It should be said that there is no concrete evidence to support Susan Greenfield’s theory, and the idea that brain functionality is being changed by these online experiences is raising many eyebrows (including mine). While there are certainly many benefits to having face-to-face, in-person conversations, I would argue that Facebook and Twitter have done more good for communicating than bad. As an occasional Twitterer, I have made great connections and friends through those short little dialogue bursts, and I frequently use Facebook IM to talk with the teen authors I’m working with. In the latter situation, Facebook has deepened these relationships, and brought us closer together, while making our work back-and-forth smooth and efficient.

Here’s another take on the controversial claim over at One Seventeen Media. Like One Seventeen Media, I agree with the whole idea that it’s about moderation…too much of anything, including spending time online, isn’t a good thing.

Do you think there’s any truth behind Geenfield’s theory?