The Numbing Effects of Facebook - [website] Published: 11th of Apr 2011 by: (c) Staff Training Reporter
Facebook could be making us less responsive to others’ suffering as its fast pace allows no time for reflection, according to scientists.
They say the time it takes the human brain to fully process a story of anguish or suffering and reflect on it takes longer than sites like Facebook and Twitter allow, with the next news story or update quickly taking its place.
Researchers suggest that as more and more of the time we would have spent socialising with friends is taken over by Facebook, the more likely this problem is to become widespread, and the result may be that we never really fully appreciate others’ psychological states.
In the experiment the scientists conducted it was found that while humans responded very quickly (within fractions of a second) to signs of physical pain in others, the brain took significantly longer (up to eight seconds) to register emotions relating to morals, virtue and social pain.
The results of this experiment could have huge implications for our children, warned the scientists, as their young brains are still in a state of development.
And if our children grow up with an indifference to social pain and suffering, what kind of world would we be looking at then?
Luckily this is not a situation in which our only option is to lie down and accept the consequences. We have the power to avoid this, and all we need to do is slow down, take a little bit longer to reflect on the things we read and teach our kids to do the same.
