Remember when they said TV would rot your brain and rock music would destroy your soul?

That kind of speculation still lingers, it would seem, as noted neuroscientist Baroness Susan Greenfield at Oxford University has been suggesting that social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter (along with the usual scapegoats TV and video games) could be "re-wiring" the brains of children, making it harder for them to focus on tasks or relate to others.

"My fear is that these technologies are infantilising the brain into the state of small children who are attracted by buzzing noises and bright lights, who have a small attention span and who live for the moment," she said.

Certainly it's important to make sure your online social tools are supplementing your offline social life rather than supplanting it. That's not at all what Greenfield appears to be saying in this article, though. She seems to be suggesting that social networking might actually prevent the brain from developing properly.

Thing is, how many four year olds do you know who have Facebook accounts? It's also worth mentioning that the news report is scant on details or actual research data. Count us as suspicious of blind conjecture like this, regardless of the source. If you agree, maybe you should be worried. Maybe you're like us; you've spent too much time online and your brain has been infantilised. As we say on the internet: "Oh noes!"

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