Dont Touch That Dial

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Dont Touch That Dial! Technology Scares and the
Media
Vaughan Bell
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Media and Technology

• Scare stories about technology, and particularly
  about the internet are a regular feature of the
  popular press and mainstream media.

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New Technology, New Danger?

• Scare stories centre around several themes
• The technology itself is damaging the mind, body
  and / or social function.
• The content on the new technology is trash
  compared to enriching established media. It leads
  to delinquency.

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New Technology, New Danger?

• Because the technology is new, commentators tend
  to assume that their concerns are new.
• But this is clearly not the case.

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The Dangers of Writing
Socrates discussing writing in Platos Phaedrus
in 370 BC
Those who acquire it will cease to exercise
their memory and become forgetful they will rely
on writing to bring things into their remembrance
by external signs instead of on their own
internal resources.
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The Perilous Allegory
Socrates warning about allegories in Platos
Republic

• Children cannot distinguish between what is
  allegory and what isn't, and opinions formed at
  that age are usually difficult to eradicate or
  change
• it is therefore of the utmost importance that the
  first stories they hear shall aim at producing
  the right moral effect.

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The Scourge of the Newspaper

• The 18th century was replete with worries about
  the impact of the printing press and newspapers.
• Eisenstein (2005) notes that print took over from
  the pulpit as the major source of news.
• Sermons were a group activity, but newspaper were
  an individual activity. Readers had a sullen
  silence.

While the orators of Rome and Athens were in
the midst of people assembled, men of letters are
in the midst of a dispersed people Guillaume-Chré
tien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes (1775)
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The Scourge of the Newspaper

• But there were also concerns about the content of
  the new media affecting the morality of the
  readers.
• Readers no longer relied on the pulpit for their
  news so might be tempted away from the church.
• And printed publications contained lewd
  Ballads, merry books of Italie and corrupted
  tales in Inke and Paper.

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Study Insanity
Pritchard (1837) A Treatise on Insanity and Other
Disorders Affecting the Mind
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The School Book Horror

• Duffy (1968) describes the outcry caused by the
  newly widespread schools damaging the mind and
  bodies of young children.
• Foolish parents were immolating thousands of
  children under the assumption that education was
  solely a matter of books and school-rooms.
  Under such delusion, the author asserted, they
  exhaust the childrens brains and nervous systems
  with complex and multiple studies, and ruin their
  bodies by protracted imprisonment.
• The Sanitarian, 1873

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Industrial Neurasthenia

• At this point technology of industrialised
  society was specifically cited as causing mental
  illness.
• Neurologists George Beard and Silas Weir Mitchell
  described the nervous disorder neurasthenia
• caused by the whirl of the railway, the pelting
  of telegrams, the strife of business, the hunger
  for riches, the lust of vulgar minds for coarse
  and instant pleasures

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The Radio Risk

• Radio was considered a risk because it took
  children away from books, study and affected
  their minds.

For many hours each day the youngsters gather
round the radio So enthralled are they that
they have developed the habit of dividing
attention between the humdrum preparation of
their school assignments and the compelling
excitement of the loudspeaker
They gulp their meals in order not to miss the
days instalment At night the children often lie
awake in bed restless and fearful The
Gramophone, 1936
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The Curse of Television

• Television was similarly condemned for its impact
  on mind and social function.

Opponents voiced concerns about how television
might hurt radio, conversation, reading, and the
patterns of family living and result in the
further vulgarization of American culture.
Similar to concerns about previous media
technology, accusations that television was a
prime mover in juvenile misconduct and
delinquency soon followed. Wartella and Jennings
(2000)
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The Computer Armageddon
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The Computer Armageddon

• Current scare stories focus on the internet and
  share the same features as historical ones.
• But past scare stories were often based on
  medical debates, inaccessible to the public or
  media.
• The difference with modern scare stories, is that
  the evidence can be checked out.
• Ironically, by using the internet.

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Games Damage Teen Brains

• The claim video games under-use and hence
  damage the frontal lobes compared to mental
  arithmetic.
• Based on a statement by Ryuta Kawashima at a
  conference organised by a commercial tuition
  company.
• No published study. No evidence presented.
• Now promotes Nintendos Brain Age.

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Email Damages IQ

• The claim email reduces IQ by 10 points.
• Based on a press release from Hewlett Packard,
  and an unpublished study by psychologist Glenn
  Wilson.
• People doing an IQ test did worse when made to
  respond to emails during the assessment.

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The Internet Suicide Cult

• The claim Police warn of Bebo internet suicide
  cult
• They didnt.
• Even pro-self-harm sites contain social
  support, coping and understanding, although
  minimise the significance of self-harm (Whitlock
  et al., 2006)

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Twitter Harms Morality

• The claim rapid-fire media harms compassion
• A brain imaging studying finding that blood flow
  peaked in the anterior insula at 6s for stories
  of physical pain, but 12s for stories of social
  pain or admiration.
• No mention of Twitter, Facebook or the internet
  (Immordino-Yanga et al., 2009)

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Facebook Impairs Relationships

• The claim social networking damages
  relationships.
• Based on the opinion of psychiatrist Himanshu
  Tyagi at a conference.
• No published study, no evidence presented.
• In fact, Facebook users are found to have higher
  levels of social capital (Ellison et al., 2007)

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Facebook Causes Cancer

• The claim Internet use causes loneliness,
  loneliness raises cancer risk from Aric Sigman.
• Based on a combination of two things i) there
  has been a decrease in face-to-face interaction
  in society ii) social media exists.
• No causal association between any parts, cherry
  picked evidence.

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The Digital Double Act

• Digital technology scare stories tend to have
  specific version of the damages the mind,
  impairs relationships double act
• Digital technology is distracting and affecting
  our ability to concentrate, think deeply or
  creatively.
• Digital technology isolates us and impairs
  genuine human contact.

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The Digital Double Act

• This is now a popular theme for in-depth articles
  in big name publications. During the last year
• The Atlantic Is Google Making Us Stupid?, July
  2008
• New York Magazine In Defense of Distraction,
  May 2009.
• The Times Warning Brain overload, June 2009
• These articles all have one thing in common none
  cite a single study on digital technology and
  cognitive function.

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Digital Tech and Poor Attention

• We use digital technology differently to print.
• But there is currently no evidence that it
  affects our capacity to think deeply or
  concentrate.
• The only evidence that computer use affects
  attention has found better levels of selective
  and spatial attention in video gamers
• Intervention studies (Green and Bavelier, 2003
  Feng et al., 2007)
• Comparing gamers vs non-gamers (Green and
  Bavelier, 2006 Castel et al., 2005)

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Distraction and Creativity

• Many studies to show that digital distraction
  reduces task efficiency i.e. distraction is
  distracting.
• But existing lab studies show that distraction
  increases creativity (Dijksterhuis and Meurs,
  2006 Zhong et al., 2008).
• Furthermore, there is evidence that distraction
  improves complex decision making (Dijksterhuis et
  al., 2006)
• Although this may be dependent on how the task is
  approached (Lassiter et al., 2009)

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Internet and Social Problems

• Correlational studies find no consistent internet
  / loneliness link.
• A 1998 longitudinal study found a small increase
  in loneliness and depression (Kraut et al., 1998)
• Subsequent replications and extensions found the
  reverse (Howard et al., 2001 Moody, 2001
  Wastlund et al., 2001)
• And a follow-up of the original study found the
  negative effects were no more and internet use
• was associated with better communication, social
  involvement and well-being (Kraut et al., 2002).

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Social Networking and Isolation

• So far, studies on social networking suggest that
  it generally has a positive effect on social
  function. e.g.
• Students typically use Facebook to enhance
  offline relationships not replace them (Lampe
  et al., 2006)
• Facebook associated with greater social
  capital, most benefits in low self-esteem / life
  satisfaction users (Ellison et al., 2007)
• MySpace blogging is associated with greater
  social integration and friendship satisfaction
  (Baker and More, 2008)

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Personality Interaction

• Some studies suggest the internet has an
  amplifiying effect on personality (Kraut et
  al., 2002 Orr et al., 2009)
• Extroverted / outgoing people tend to use it to
  enhance and extend offline relationships.
• Introverted / shy people tend to use it to avoid
  or manage offline relationships at a distance.
• Although this evidence is, in itself, preliminary.

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Media Coverage

• There is an assumption that we suffer from
  information overload and that there is a
  negative long-term effect on our minds.
• Negative social effects are assumed.
• Studies on the positive effects of technology
  virtually never make the media. There is little
  attempt at balance.
• This is despite the effect of them being obvious
  in searches of Google and PubMed.

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Media Coverage

• The justification is often one of public health
  or debate but it is clearly about novelty.
• For example, there are numerous recent studies on
  the negative effect of television.
• But these are rarely covered these days because
  concerns over television are old hat.