Scientist: Twitter, Facebook lead to immorality
As a rule I don’t trust these studies, but this one is interesting nonetheless.
Social networks such as Twitter may blunt people’s sense of morality, claim brain scientists.
New evidence shows the digital torrent of information from networking sites could have long-term damaging effects on the emotional development of young people’s brains.
A study suggests rapid-fire news updates and instant social interaction are too fast for the ‘moral compass’ of the brain to process.
The danger is that heavy Twitters and Facebook users could become ‘indifferent to human suffering’ because they never get time to reflect and fully experience emotions about other people’s feelings.
US scientists from the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California (USC) say the brain can respond in fractions of seconds to signs of physical pain in others.
But they show it takes longer to activate processing of social emotions such as admiration and compassion, which are critical for developing a sense of morality.
This reminds me of a story from a few weeks ago about the hundreds of millions of hours spent by Americans playing games on Facebook. I took that as a sign of messed up priorities and laziness, but if the above scientists are correct, it could also speak to Scripture’s portrayal of the United States’ moral degradation (Isaiah 18:2, 7) and abundance of free time (Revelation 18:7)
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