Why it's good that Facebook makes us infantile

You will, along with many millions of others, likely make an emergency appointment with your psychologist this week.

After all, the words of Lady Greenfield, professor of synaptic pharmacology at Lincoln College in Oxford, England, have probably slapped their syllables against your very core. Social-networking sites, she said, like Facebook (it's interesting how Facebook seems to have come to symbolize all social networking), are infantilizing the human mind.

The definition of infantile behavior appears to span such horrific traits as sensationalism, short attention spans, and a need to urinate in the middle of shopping malls. (Perhaps I inadvertently slipped that last one in.)

However, Lady Greenfield's worries are clearly weighing upon her mind. She told the Daily Mail, for example: "My fear is that these technologies are infantilizing 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."

And she was quoted in the Guardian as telling the United Kingdom's House of Lords (old people in strange costumes who love a heavy lunch and a massage for dessert) that the experiences children have on social-networking sites "are devoid of cohesive narrative and long-term significance."

These two must have been socially networking since the age of 3, right?

(Credit: CC Strikeael)

My 4-year-old mind is seized with this response: how does she know that these experiences have no long-term significance? Is her mind so developed, adult, and able to focus for days on end on one subject that she can see into the future and declare all hope lost? Isn't it conceivable that those who network socially come to be more active socially in the real world too?

Well, not according to Lady Greenfield. "Real conversation in real time," she declared, "may eventually give way to these sanitized and easier screen dialogues, in much the same way as killing, skinning, and butchering an animal to eat has been replaced by the convenience of packages of meat on the supermarket shelf.

Perhaps future generations will recoil with similar horror at the messiness, unpredictability, and immediate personal involvement of a three-dimensional, real-time interaction."

And perhaps they will get to know each other better before they waste each other's time in the deeply meaningful live social chit-chat so beloved by attendees of cocktail parties at the British Embassy. ("Looks like rain today." "Oh, yes. My begonias really need it. Don't yours?")

At the heart of Lady Greenfield's depressing, sensationalist, and stunningly self-centered analysis is this theory: My (adult) way of life is good. Your (childish) way of life is bad.

So why is it that adults so often venerate the honesty of children? Why is it that they delight in children's ability to express their emotions fully, clearly, and without holding a grudge? Why is it that they remind children that their childhood days will be the happiest of their lives?

What, in short, is so screamingly wrong about being infantile?

It's not children who start wars, destroy financial systems, struggle for power, create Ponzi schemes, and release their recently ingested vodka and Coors Light on the sidewalk.

And it certainly isn't children who have created a world of such uncertainty that living for the moment is, quite often, the only philosophy that keeps one from taking a running leap at the nearest cathedral wall and banging one's head as hard as possible against it.

Perhaps Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Twitter and their other brand buddies will, indeed, change the human brain.

But can we really only imagine they will change it for the worse?

[DGently]

You may want to consider reading Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death"

http://www.amazon.com/Amusing-Ourselves-Death-Discourse-Business/dp/014303653X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1235857842&sr=8-1

[ghostofitpast]

"What, in short, is so screamingly wrong about being infantile?" I suppose I should take this as "irreverent, sarcastic, and sometimes ironic;" but it falls short of the caliber of Dean Swift (at least in my own commonplace book). If there is any literary allusion in this piece, it would be to Thomas Hobbes for being "nasty, brutish, and short." Still, that self-referentiality of using the adverb "screamingly" when writing about the adjective "infantile" was a nice touch!

I would turn the question on its head: What is so important about being adult? In GROWING UP ABSURD, Paul Goodman suggested an answer: An adult was an individual who could assume the responsibility of providing food, clothing, and shelter (for at least self and probably also for immediate family if not immediate community). Think of it as a transition in life where society asks one to be a producer, rather than solely a consumer. Thus, whatever Lady Greenfield may have to say about "social software," the REAL indicator of our infantilism has been our unchecked consumerism. Without it Google would not be the economic powerhouse it has become. For that matter, without it we might have averted our current economic crisis. I thus find it necessary to wring my hands over factors far more significant than Facebook, some of which I discuss at:

http://therehearsalstudio.blogspot.com/2008/10/we-dont-have-narrative.html

[mexic0]

People who are fearful of change tend to romanticize the past as being an era where people were somehow smarter and nicer. Every time we make a technological advance people bring up these concerns. People were concerned when the first printed books came out. Lady Greenfield's complaints are similar to the warnings that came out upon the invention of the telegram (shortened sentences, truncated words), television & movies (short visuals, bright lights) and the personal computer (all of the above). I think we'll survive.

[ChrisMatyszczyk]

@Mexic0,

There is much truth in what you say. Although I do fear that "Dancing with the Stars" has affected me deeply.

And I do hope you're right that we'll survive......

Thank you for commenting.

Chris

[Aanon]

"It's not children who start wars, destroy financial systems, struggle for power, create Ponzi schemes, and release their recently ingested vodka and Coors Light on the sidewalk."

Huh?

[jwilson00m1]

"It's not children who start wars, destroy financial systems, struggle for power, create Ponzi schemes, and release their recently ingested vodka and Coors Light on the sidewalk."

I believe these are examples of grown ups acting infantile. Thus providing Lady. Greenfields with more support. Though I'm not sure he meant to. I have 1 year old twins, they don't use diplomacy in resolving disputes (war), they destroy most things they get their hands on (financial systems), they vie for dominance in most available arenas (struggle for power), they use bait and switch tactics to get a toy from a playmate (Ponzi scheme), and, of course they are really good at puking.

[daveshax]

Hear hear!

[fuzzymcsnorkle]

Dan,
You are ignorant, I am not surprised that you don't understand Lady Greenfield's argument. There is a difference between being charmingly youthful and vibrant as we age, and acting in an infantile manner. The word infantile by at least one definition is derogatory.

During the many British Embassy events you have no doubt attended [well, you DID use one tiny fraction of what goes on at those events as a broad slam against the British, right?] did it ever come up that the British are extremely private people. I'm not making an editorial comment on whether that's good or not, just that it is. One 'safe' subject for Brits is the weather, did you know that? Most travel guides actually point that out for travellers.

And your 'old people in strange costumes...' comment reduces the House of Lords' traditional garb to a punchline that further points to your ignorance. What you are saying is 'I don't understand the history and importance of this so I will reduce the discussion to insults'.

You should try educating yourself instead of continuing the downward slide of misinformation and purposeful ignorance that is the internet. Oh, I suppose you can write your ignorance off as sarcasm, right? Or do you file it under irreverence? Either way this article made you come off as not wanting to see Lady Greenfield's point at all, rather, you attacked her heritage and country. Perfectly Amurican. Stupid and damn proud of it.

[ChrisMatyszczyk]

@fuzzymcsnorkle,

Dan? Dan? Did you really call me Dan?

I am touched that you feel I don't understand so much about British culture. Given that I was brought up in, um Britain.

As for not understanding M'Lady's argument. Well, you know, of course you might be right. On the other hand, please see Mexic0's comment above. Then go down to the pub and discuss it with your friend. Or perhaps you'll prefer to do that online?

Chris

[lofilondon]

Dan's piece is interesting as it contains examples of the kind of infantile attitudes that Lady Greenfield was lamenting the existence of. From his picture its obvious that he is a man in his forties, yet he confronts the opinions (both in these comments and from the government) with insult and ego.

He asks what is so wrong with being infantile in a week when a fifty year old bank executive refuses to hand back £8 million pounds of taypaper's money after driving a bank into the ground, which has subsequently cut 20,000 jobs. Fred Goodwin may not be a user of facebook, but he a good example of what happens when adult thinking is absent from the top of our most important organisations.

The popularity of facebook isn't the cause; it may well be a symptom. It is no surprise that a society that places individual needs first, sells emotion as 'experience', wallows in sentimentality (diana, madeliene, jade et al), voyeurism and emotional tourism, also embraces the idea of self-reflective control of societal face - channelling time into an activity that is often masturbatory and narcissitic. For these reasons I think the Luddite argument is a strawman.

He even suggests that adults aren't/can't be emotionally open and honest - this is perhaps the saddest and most telling opinion he expresses.

I'm left feeling many adult's today have never reached their maturity and even do not know what that maturity encompasses.

[atomD21]

Chris, why are people calling you Dan?

[ChrisMatyszczyk]

@atomD21,

I have no idea. It is very strange. Perhaps they are from some strange English David Koresh-like sect that insists on changing everyone's name to create a sense of, um, freedom or bonding or something.

Or perhaps they are merely regressing from too much social networking:)

Thank you for commenting.

Chris

[pjk0]

Chris, you come across as a defensive, pompous ass. It comes as no surprise to me that your tagline includes "...advises major corporations on content creation and marketing."

Ah yes, nothing like another apologist for the corporate world's love of "monetizing cyberspace". "How dare you criticize my advertising vehicle!!"

I don't think that Lady Greenfield's critique should necessarily viewed as gospel, but there is much truth to it, as anyone who has spent as long online as I have and kept their brain and eyes open can attest. There is no doubt whatsoever that there are a number of sociopathic qualities that the online world seems to bring out in people. Much of it has to do with the lack of "social cost" for being a jerk online, among other things. All of this has been studied and written about extensively.

[i8246i]

I believe the real question here is: why do we care?

Let the ignorant masses who believe that Facebook is a substitute for real communication continue to support some "professor"'s raving lunacy of a theory about some slice of the human psyche. Sooner or later, Facebook will become a distant memory to some other social networking site, and people will complain about that.

Its like the MMORPGs, and their related "theories" from "professors" that generalize any person playing these games as fat, antisocial, smelly, worthless creatures that loathe the sun and refuse to play any other game.

In the end, "m'lady" is just sensationalizing a small part of some of our lives to make a buck.

[AmyStrecker]

The real time conversation part killed me too. When she communicates face to face is it not in real time?? More of my thoughts here (and a delightful graphic of a brain on social networking...) : http://oneseventeenmedia.wordpress.com/2009/02/25/social-networking-disolves-your-brain-riiiiiight/

[promdresscheap]

I think that they are using a quite difficult way to begin
http://www.promdresscheap.net

[Chillerguts]

I don't think those technologies are make US infantile. They are making THEM stupid. Why would I need to lose my time in Facebook, Twitter and other idiotics when the internet is really useful FOR research. If you want to socialize, go to a club.

[torafaruga26]

<a href="http://www.millef.com/">??????</a>