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Email Worse Than Marijuana For Intelligence?
wallykeyster writes "The Guardian is reporting that a recent study at King's College indicates that the average IQ loss of email users was 10 points (or six points more than cannabis users). Details on The Register as well. The Register has a related story about how computers make kids dumb and an apparent "problem-solving deficit disorder" observed in children who use computers. I thought it was television that rotted your brain?"
OMG I bet you lose 20 points for IM
The Register's story here
The survey didn't mention how subjects were selected, what if some of them are also drug users? And I think people are more willing to reveal their email addiction than their drug adddiction.
I believe it's more about social-acceptability. If the respondents think that being distracted by emails is not unacceptable (as shown in the article), they will allow themselves to be distracted.
Next up we will see how sex lower people's IQ. Imaging you're answering questions in front of naked marketing chicks.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
If anything was going to make you dumber, I would hav thought Google would be to blame. If you can't figure something out, just Google it.
I'm gonna figure out how to sue someone cause' my email made me fat.
My neighbor's email made him a pedophile.
And, my dog's email made him kill himself.
And a friend's email made him blame everything else in his life for being dumb.
--- We need more Ron Paul!
I think it would be wise to rethink this.
Is it the e-mail that makes people dumber, or dumb people that uses e-mail?
Scully: Should we arrest David Copperfield?
Mulder: Yes we should, but not for this.
What effects does that have on my memory and intelligence?
*lights one up*
Aww, who cares
I have no idea what TFA means by that.
I can easily stay focus--ooh, Amazon shipped my book order!
I think these studies are purposely focused on certain areas where they know the outcome of their own study.
Like the difference in examining crime in a low income area vs a high income area. [ / suspicion ]
"pass the pop3...dude.." "Police arrested a local ISP for running an SMTP" "That's one less scum off the face of this earth, we can't have these kids propigating this brain-numbing garbage," says Officer Joe Johnson, "Not in my town"
Comment removed based on user account deletion
As someone who has dealt with diagnosing and fixing a lot of computer related problems caused by relatives who don't have a clue and by my own tinkering, I'd say that PCs sharpen your problem solving skills. Or maybe they're unrelated, and PC skills are just a reflection of one's problem solving abilities.
I once read that using a computer is a test of one's ability to follow directions. Probably true, but I do also think that maintaining a computer in an environment of changing hardware and software is a test of one's ability to use deductive reasoning to solve problems, as well as maintain a jumble of info in your head and connect seemingly disparate pieces of info to solve a problem.
Sure the internet can make you more intelligent if you spend your time reading Wolfram Mathworld, Scientific American, Project Gutenburg texts, and Wikipedia...but who does? Is the back-forth banter here really intelligent? Seems more like smalltalk. The bloggers are just writing about each other. Everquest is pulling people away from reality entirely.
Maybe the library isn't such a bad idea after all.
that allowing computers to constantly shift your focus from one thing to the other, impairs your long term ability to focus on one thing and imprint it on your brain in serious depth.
My prescribed solution (IMHO)? A weekend per month secluded from all electronica, preferably with someone else, along with non-technical books, and one or more chess sets. Or better yet, a program once a month that provides a rewarding experience that reinforces one's ability to just **focus**.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Slashdot. Seriously its worse than email, at least email has an actual productive purpose, with slashdot we just waste our time posting things that will have no actual benefit - look im doing it now!
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
My 5 year old son has consistently been called "best in class" and "brilliant student" by his schools' staff - obviously to my pride and joy ;-) - being an IT guy, a gamer, as well as a dad, I have always taken a relaxed attitude towards pc use and gameplay. He never really played anything too challenging or involving - a bit of tuxracer, a bit of sonic, etc. Until a few weeks ago, when some of his schoolfriends started playing some more involving games, and he wanted to keep up. "Bionicles" was duly installed, and away he went.
We are now 2 weeks later, and my wife and I just - like, 30 mins ago - finished a discussion about how to remove the game from the pc whilst making it look like an accident.... His schoolwork has plummeted, his teachers are really upset - his concentration is just gone, and he isn't interested in playing, arts, crafts, friends or schoolwork. He is a completely different boy, and its really worrying us.
Make of it what you will, but this gave me a first-hand look at the whole issue, and has me pretty disturbed.
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
According to the article, they only "temporarily" lost IQ points.
So you'll be fine as soon as you stop using the internet...
This is only the result of using M$ applications and playing games in stead of studying/reading.
No big deal... As it was previously stated, "it just works!" and nobody cares how and why. On the other hand, if you don't spend too much time playing, what else can you do but work/study ? When I say games, I don't mean mindgames, I mean something like violent RPG's / Shoot'em up.
Ok... So I'm blaming it on Microsoft... this is the only corporate name I can think of at this time but you get the point: Apps for lazy & long, dull games.
How in the world do you correct for all other factors and then go on to claim that computers make kids less intelligent than having 500 books in the household? Adding together all my fiction, reference, and technical books I barely break the 200 count. Aren't they really saying that kids in more affluent homes are smarter? And are they factoring in easy access to public libraries?
I browse Slashdot at +3, Funny
I always thought IQ was a relatively static thing. Obviously, a person's intelligence changes over time, but IQ is adjusted for age. A 10-point drop in IQ means the person would have actually lost some kind of mental capacity.
I don't buy that at all.
Most likely, the added distractions in these people's lives just made the test more difficult for them. I highly doubt that these people actually became dumber. As someone mentioned earlier, this is most likely just some scientist making his data fit his hypothesis.
I MEEN OMG!!! DOES U LOSE ALL THOOSE QI PTS 4 EMALING LIKE THIS!?!?!?!?!?! Seriously, If you are going to use e-mail like a retard then it probably does make you stupid. For some reason people seem to think that because it's an e-mail grammar, punctuation and spelling can go out of the window. It's just like text messaging short hand. I try where possible to write e-mails, text messages and instant messages with reasonable grammar, spelling and punctuation. It takes a little more time, but you soon learn to type faster and more accurately because of it. There was a case in Britain not long ago where a student wrote an entire essay for their GCSE's (exams for 16yr olds) in txt message short hand. I believe that the sudden proliferation of new means of communication (txt messages, e-mails and IMs) mean that children learn txt short hand before learning grammar or typing skills. This means that they end up with some ugly short hand with no spelling required (since anything in the ballpark will let the reader know roughly what you're trying to say) and no grammar skills. Since most of them will be using txts and IMs before actually studying them in class it's no wonder that the fail to learn the correct way of doing things.
Im doubly screwed.
... I do PHP... but don't tell anyone.
I myself am 14 years old, when in was 12, i had amazing scores on tests and other school related things, however after i have gotten more into computers (iv built 3 for myself, 10 for friends) my schoolwork has declined. However blaming this on email, for me at least, is stupid. Its not email that hurts my schoolwork, it is computers in general. They are just so damn interesting, i have learned more from my time on computers then i ever have in school, the only poblem is, i am not learning about the metric system, i am teaching myself astrophysics and reading steaven hawlking, instead of shakspear.
I would like to do better in school, however i find it very hard for me to motivate myself to do my science homework, because i already know it, and if i am not learning something new, i have signifigently less entergy to put into it. There is no cure, as far as i can see it, besides throwing away my computer, which i will never do.
Its depressing, in a way, to go from A's to C's, but at the same time, i am learning a much more valuable skill and learning about more interesting things which also have use in the world.
For me, its not Email that is killing my schoolwork, it is information. I have a drive to seek out info, and thanks to the internet, There is more information out there that i wish to learn then i can without my school work suffering.
is revolting. If you're naturally lazy or stupid and you use the computer, play video games, email obsessively, or smoke pot to excess, yes, you're going to get caught in it and probably get stupider over time.
But if you're naturally smart or motivated, the opposite is true. I've known people that smoked pot all through college and graduated early with amazing grades. I'm sure amongst the people you know, you can think of the video game addict that gets all A's and the video game addict that flunked out years ago.
These things are just enablers. That's why, especially with pot, you should be of sound mind and body before you turn the machine on or pack the pipe. It makes the difference between expanding your mind and escaping from it.
"[T]he single essential element on which all discoveries will be dependent is human freedom." -- Barry Goldwater
It's not that the potential isn't there for any of the technologies, but humanity has a governor, just like the Briggs & Stratton on my old go kart. It's called the 'Lowest Common Denominator.' One individual can reason in a unique manner that can advance the frontiers of human understanding, while a mob is well known for its inability to reason except in the most primative manner. The more connected we become, the more LCD we are tied to. The technology is inevitably bent to the will of the masses, regardless of the vision of the few.
Properly used, a search engine has the potential to function as an intelligence amplifier, but that way requires hard work and a singular vision which reaches outside the common vision. It's so much easier to just kick back and go with the flow. But each of the things that really changed the world were brought about through the individual thoughts of one person, who eventually shared it with a small group. For lack of a better term, an outsider, separate from the common environment; but somehow capable of seeing something that no one else was able to see and to carry through and realize.
So, for the vast majority of those out there who unconsciously embrace mediocrity, being dumber is just another wave of the cool. While those of us who seek truth on a Friday night, discuss the realization of the possible. They're just a tool. They can help the smart get smarter, and the dumb to get dumber. Depending on what you were after in the first place. It is all a matter of choice.
"Can there be a Klein bottle that is an efficient and effective beer pitcher?"
You know, it would have been better if they published this study on Wednesday, I mean, for obvious reasons.
we loose the skill to do it manually. the same is said about calculators, and power saws.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
I guess that explains why I walk around the house in the morning and feel like I'm in a permanant vegetative state.
Seriously though, when I graduated from high school, just a mere 18 years ago, we had no such things as cellphones, and gadgets and doohickies and whatnot to distract us from the all important task of learning.
As for computers, too much emphasis is placed nowadays on being able to 'use it' and not enough on why one needs to use it in the first place. Until probably as recently as 10 years ago, there were still books and libraries to go to, but now everything is geared toward breeding a generation that can't be bothered with actually working for the answer, and education in 2005 requires internet access in the home. You need to do a book report on subject whatever, google-search, read up on it, keep doing a search until you find someone who has already solved the problem for you, then do the report. That to some is learning. There is a distinctive difference between a 'college' and a 'university' and one teaches you 'things', the other teaches you how to 'think'. When it comes to learning, it's essential to reinvent the wheel, again and again, and again until reinventing the wheel is as natural as breathing. The only way to make smarter people is to make them think for themselves. By getting someone to crack open a book and do some reading on the facts and only the facts, it gives the reader a chance to think out the problem in their mind rather than accept whatever opinion on the subject they happen to come across.
I look at the university entrance exam my dad wrote when he applied and in all honesty it's so far over my head, I have no idea what the question is asking. There seems to have been a pretty serious slip in mental discipline over the decades, computers and TV are only adding to the problem.
Also, I challenge anyone to find a child (under 18) who will primarily use the computer for actual work (study) as opposed to playing games, instant messaging and other such activities. The life of today's teen hardly requires a storm of neural activity anymore, so it's no big surprise to me that there's an apparent "problem-solving deficit disorder" observed in children who use computers.
I have trouble buying this.
I think a more important question is whether IQ and academic grades are a true measure of intelligence in general.
Moreover just because the people in the study used email, it does not mean that email is the cause for their drop in IQ score.
"This food is problematic."
Sure the internet can make you more intelligent if you spend your time reading Wolfram Mathworld, Scientific American, Project Gutenburg texts, and Wikipedia...but who does?
SciAm I skip because it costs money. But I read at least one Wikipedia article per day, if not a dozen to research an informative answer for a Slashdot comment.
The fact that the parent is modded +5 Insightful just reeks of rationalization.
Now my inbox is going to be filled by spam with subjects like "Raise your IQ 10 points!"
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
to "crackberry"
"I thought they were the dominant species..."
I wrote my MA thesis ( link ) on a related subject, computers and writing. Though more geeky than most teachers, I firmly believe that computers have no place in the education curriculum. Now, as part of a technology core, or school-to-career, or electives, fine. But absolutely nowhere near a core classes. Okay, a little bias here because I teach history as well as programming, but students need to read books and learn to write the old fashion way. I am not surprised by the results, only that it is taking this ling for some common sense to creep back into the thinking. Considering how much money and effort from all sectors of the industry (including /.'s beloved Apple. disclaimer: I own two ibooks.) has been pumped into education, it should not shock anyone the level of beholdeness to technology that permeates our schools. For far too many teachers, a project is now powerpoint, and the lab is a week off. I really do want to scream.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Who else is feeling bad for the old people in Korea?
Direct away from face when opening.
(according to my relatively uninformed theory) basically you can think of the the visual processing system as a set of imaging filters connected to a collection of non-linear discriminators. the filters are intrinsically geometric because that is the optimal configuration for multi-aspect target recognition -- an optimal pattern reached by evolution, learning or some combination thereof. (its also interesting to note that the facial recognition subsystem is -not- multi-aspect, it only works when faces are oriented upwards).
thus, drugs don't directly cause geometric hallucinations, they simply cause the system to malfunction slightly in such a way that the underlying structure is revealed (kind of like feeding an impulse into a filter to estimate its frequency response -- the malfunctions consist of a bunch of random activity spikes were none are normally expected).
this is not to contradict what you are saying, which I think is a neat idea. but it may suggest that the development is not unique (i.e., the optimality of geometric filters is universal or mathematical in nature)
personally i feel noticably stupider for 1-2 days after smoking pot, and then its gone. hallucinogens make me feel like a genius for about 48 hours, and then when it wears off I can't remember what was so great about my ideas.
i think u miss-spelled grammer..
Games addictive? I don't buy it. It sounds to me like your friends don't have an addiction problem, they have a self-discipline problem. They want to forego stuff that is important but hard in favor of stuff that is entertaining and easy. It's a simple matter of short-term gratification (another level) versus long-term satisfaction (a degree). That paper can always be written tomorrow, one can always cram for the next exam, but my guildmates need me NOW!
If I were a betting man, I would wager that if they weren't invovled in Everquest, they would have found some other diversion to consume their time and cause them to drop out of college.
I think this kind of misses the point. Your son has acquired functional skills for manipulating the computer. This does not correspond to a gain in IQ points. In fact, TFA suggests that children who spend time (and by extension brainpower) on gaining these skills tend to lose IQ points as measured by our standard methods.
Now, there's a major argument to be made that these skills in current society may actually be much more valuable than the lost IQ points (which, in my opinion, have dubious value anyway), but it's really a different issue. Point is, you can't say your son is gaining IQ points faster than other children because he knows how to minimize windows.
And certainly not because he knows you run Linux.
Given a choice between free speech and free beer, most people will take the beer.
Don't lie to your kid.
There is no need to remove the game.
Limit his time on the game, use it as reward and punishment. If he won't respond to you when he is playing pull the plug out of the wall, it will get his immediate attention. Learn to say NO, don't appoligise for saying NO, and follow through. Your kid will have alot more respect for you in the long run.
I'm a child of the fifties, it may be wussier today but I'm glad bashing your kids has become an unacceptable practice.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
>And legalize pot
Not to mention, the IQ drop is a government myth. The cherry-picked studies which show this have some seriously flawed methodology like graduate students tested against off-the-street stoners. If you can keep producing results that show marijuana in a negative light you can some nice grants from the government.
I wonder what happens to pot smokers who also use the internet and watch tv.
For those who don't know, that's what Ralph in The Simpsons says when he finds out he's failing English.
I will forever be greatful to 2 excellent high school teachers I had (in public school no less!), 1 in math (pre-calc, calc) and 1 in chemistry (chem1 and chem2AP). They wouldn't let us use calculators for anything, not on tests, not on homework, no where. This forced us to get good at doing all sorts of mathmatics in our heads, and to come up with creative solutions if we couldn't remember the specific function/equation to apply to a problem.
I often times would have to work around some equation I couldn't remember and basically derive the equation from smaller building blocks. This gave me a much greater understanding of the actual processes going on. This kind of problem solving/understanding completely disappears when children can use calculators to simply "get the right answer", but the important thing in the maths and sciences is not necessarily the answer, but the process of getting there, and the ability to problem solve, which has completely disappeared in US middle and high schools.
I haven't read the study beyond the linked article, but personally I suspect that the whole problem extends far beyond email use.
Western society is built on distractions, and on interrupting people from what they're doing, much of which is to do with commercialism. For instance:
It doesn't surprise me at all that people's attitudes to doing things have been changing quite dramatically, and it seems quite feasible that the effects of this on people's wellbeing could be negative. Emails popping up and being addressed are just an extension of everything else that's been happening with advances in technology and societial attitudes.
I would love a tool, similar to the one that you suggest, that encourages being able to focus on things. I'm not entirely sure how it could be guaranteed to work, though. To me, many of the possible problems seem to be embedded quite heavily in the way that society now works.
Meanwhile, I think I'll try forcing myself to concentrate more by shutting down lots of other things while I'm browsing slashdot. It's a shame they're so easy to start up again.
Man, I can relate. MUDs, BBSing, IRC, there went much of highschool and early college. Especially the early chunk of college since all my CS classes had nice little telnet connections, only when I switched majors (and lost the in-class telnet) did my grades improve.
/. to take up all my time. Where would we be without the internet, I don't know, but I am sure that we all would be more productive. (world peace or /. ... hmmmmm)
I broke up with one of my first g/fs because "I was about to level" on Genocide. I spent more time learning how to code on a MUSH (and later a pirated Diku) than I ever sunk into schooling.
I guess now that I'm a mature adult, I can depend of
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
My son is about a year old. My wife became pregnant before we got married, so you might say he was unforeseen.
There are two things about watching people parent that never cease to amaze me.
The first is how many people can rise to the occasion and do a good job when it is not what one would expect of them.
The second is how otherwise intelligent and responsible people can completely fail to take responsibility for how their actions affect their children.
So I say that parenting is never something that people are ready for. It is something that people can rise up to do. But before you have a child of oyur own, you are simply unprepaired.
Now on to the rest of the discussion. The metaphore I use in looking at this is that of social laws and rules. If the government were to "accidently" confiscated our cars or our houses, we would have a fit and rightly so. If, however, this was based upon a conviction in a court of law, it would be different. One of the most difficult aspects of family building is focusing on how to create a system of rules which helps foster growth. These rules need to be in the open, and easily understood.
If your child is playing too many computer games, first talk to your child about it. Set rules regarding when your child is allowed to play the game and under what circumstances. If this fails, let the child know that the game will be uninstalled. Give, say, three opportunities for failure. If the game is abused such that the conversation must repeat three times, the game gets uninstalled. Make sure that this is all done in the open and that the system is transparent.
One of the most difficult things to do sometimes is to have enough respect for your kids to think that maybe they actually need to know why you are doing something.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
If your ability to use standard English grammar and spelling is predicated on the use of spell-checkers, then consider this:
When I was your age, I used a typewriter, and was damned glad it was electric, and had error-correction cartridges so I didn't have to use white-out. A few years later, when I was in college, I couldn't even use a computer myself: I had to punch cards and take them to the Data Processing priests, who would take them into the Inner Temple and add the Holy Job Control Cards that blessed my jobs unto the Almighty Mainframe. Then I'd come back hours later, or the next day, to get my printout and my stack of cards back. If I had a syntax error, I would have to fix that and repeat the process. I had no choice but to proofread my own work before submitting it.And I walked several miles to school every day, uphill both ways! And I LIKED IT! Damn whippersnappers....
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
I forgot to bring up the most important point of that post. That exemplar of journalism called the Register then claims computers have made kids perform worse in school.
The reality is that kids accomplish less in school than in previous years is because American public schools are declining in educational quality, not that the kids are using computers. Public schools when I was growing up were already neglecting non-curicula specific training. There were articles in the late '80s and early '90s critical of public schools for the decreased critical thinking skills of its graduates. It was easier, more quantifiable, and discouraged independent thought (which improves control) by just making kids memorize more and call it education.
Bush Jr. then proceeds to contribute to this decline by mandating national testing for children and penalizing schools by witholding funding if they underperform on the test. The school systems are now forced to spend educational time on improving test performance, not critical thinking or teaching material not found on that test.
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
You're saying that overly permissive parenting leads to lowered self-esteem? You lost me, there. If, as a sibling post to this one said, what you mean by permissive parenting is submissive parenting, avoiding confrontations with the kids, it seems like you'd end up with spoiled children, with inflated self-esteem, too damn full of their own egos.
People with low self-esteem aren't a threat or a problem to anyone but themselves. It's people with inflated self-esteem that are the problem.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca