Study Finds Growing Up WIth Gadgets Has a Downside: Social Skill Impairment

PolygamousRanchKid writes with this excerpt from a CNN story:"Tween girls who spend much of their waking hours switching frantically between YouTube, Facebook, television and text messaging are more likely to develop social problems, says a Stanford University study published in a scientific journal on Wednesday. Young girls who spend the most time multitasking between various digital devices, communicating online or watching video are the least likely to develop normal social tendencies, according to the survey of 3,461 American girls aged 8 to 12 who volunteered responses. The study only included girls who responded to a survey in Discovery Girls magazine, but results should apply to boys, too, Clifford Nass, a Stanford professor of communications who worked on the study, said in a phone interview. Boys' emotional development is more difficult to analyze because male social development varies widely and over a longer time period, he said."

Comments

Study finds surveys bad science..

[tbird81]

Seriously?

n: 3461 - pretty good
Inclusion criteria: Girls 8-12 who replied to a magazine survey - pretty bad
Measurement: Self-reporting of multitasking, self-reporting on social ability - reliable?
Interpretation: Can also be applied to boys - where the fuck did this come from??
Author: Clifford Nass a "self-described technologist of 25 years".

The author seems to be one of those self-promoting weirdos who picks a topic he knows will be controversial, does some easy "science" with it, and comes up with a controversial conclusion. He says he finds the results "disturbing".

Well Clifford, I find the fact that Stanford employs someone like you quite disturbing. I find you job title "technologist" disturbing. And I find your name dropping of Google and Microsoft disturbing. Most of all, I find the complete lack of scientific method in this study incredibly sad - it's just made for pop-science articles. Shame on you.

Re:that's the truth

[Samantha Wright]

Look at all the social network users without resistance to ostracism! Who's going to run civilization now? Zoidberg! That's who!

Re:Seriously

[rrohbeck]

For the same reason we have TV aimed at children.