Beyond parody (cont.)

Last week, Facebook was giving everyone cancer. Now it is damaging the brains of children.

In Social websites harm children's brains: Chilling warning to parents from top neuroscientist (24 Feb 09), Susan Greenfield makes this stark warning. And what scientific study is this claim based on? Umm, well, there doesn't seem to be one. Instead, 'Lady Greenfield told the Lords a teacher of 30 years had told her she had noticed a sharp decline in the ability of her pupils to understand others.'

So a story from an old teacher becomes a front page story about the dangers of social networking. Weird to pick on Facebook and Twitter and not the internet in general, but then it's quite weird to pick this claim and treat it as a serious story.

(This nonsense has also appeared in The Guardian)