Study: Electronic multitasking hinders youth social skills
46 replies, posted
[QUOTE](CNN) -- FaceTime, the Apple video-chat application, is not a replacement for real human interaction, especially for children, according to a new study.
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.
"No one had ever looked at this, which really shocked us," Nass said. "Kids have to learn about emotion, and the way they do that, really, is by paying attention to other people. They have to really look them in the eye."
The antidote for this hyper-digital phenomenon is for children to spend plenty of time interacting face-to-face with people, the study found. Tweens in the study who regularly talked in person with friends and family were less likely to display social problems, according to the findings in the publication Developmental Psychology.
"If you eschew face-to-face communication, you don't learn critical things that you have to learn," Nass said. "You have to learn social skills. You have to learn about emotion."
The Stanford researchers were not able to determine a magic number of hours that children should spend conversing per week, Nass said. Social skills are typically only learned when children are engaged and making eye contact, rather than fiddling with an iPod during a conversation, he said.
FaceTime and Skype are not replacements for actual face time because other studies have found that people tend to multitask while on video calls, Nass said.
Nass is a self-described technologist of 25 years, who has worked as a consultant with many major electronics firms, including Google and Microsoft. He said the findings disturbed him.
A few years ago, Nass worked on a study about how multitasking affects adults. He found that heavy multitaskers experience cognitive issues, such as difficulty focusing and remembering things. They were actually worse at juggling various activities, a skill crucial to many people's work lives, than those who spent less time multitasking, Nass said.[/QUOTE]
Source: [url]http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/25/tech/social-media/multitasking-kids/index.html?hpt=hp_bn6[/url]
[sp]inb4 hundreds of neckbeards attempt to discredit expert study[/sp]
it all fucking makes sense to me now!
and i wish i wasnt being serious
Makes sense. I mean, humans, like most animals, learn about this kind of thing from observing their parents and peers. If you reduce that, of course you reduce how people learn about social interactions.
well this is fucking obvious
Another study that shows us electronics are bad, In other news grass is green.
I guess it's good that I use no social media then.
B-but all my friends on facebook. ;(
[quote]The study from Stanford University included nearly 3,500 girls aged 8 to 12[/quote]
Why did they only choose to include girls in the survey?
[QUOTE=Jasun;34448325]Why did they only choose to include girls in the survey?[/QUOTE]
Yeah, plus, I don't know, it looks good, but they should've had 8-18 or something, male and female.
All 8-12 and girls makes NO sense.
Sounds like a pretty poor study to me, even if it is true.
[quote]The study only included girls who responded to a survey in Discovery Girls magazine, but results [b]should[/b] apply to boys [/quote]
...
Dug a little deeper in to this on the Stanford University website and found
[quote]The researchers say that while they found a correlation between some media habits and diminished social and emotional skills, a definite cause-and-effect relationship has yet to be proved.[/quote]
Also, the survey was distributed through 'Discovery Girls' magazine, and I'm not one to judge, but the people subscribing to this magazine are probably more likely to be the more 'nerdy' girls, and therefore probably wouldn't fit as well in to social situations as their peers, as children at that age through to high school are notoriously judgemental and mean as fuck.
The study is bullshit and purely for scaremongering.
That might be true to girls, but it's a whole different thing for boys
boys tend to be lone wolves compared to girls, at least in general
therefor biased article
[QUOTE=FalconKrunch;34448164]I guess it's good that I use no social media then.[/QUOTE]
no that's pretty terrible in this day and age
[QUOTE=Jasun;34448456]Dug a little deeper in to this on the Stanford University website and found
Also, the survey was distributed through 'Discovery Girls' magazine, and I'm not one to judge, but the people subscribing to this magazine are probably more likely to be the more 'nerdy' girls, and therefore probably wouldn't fit as well in to social situations as their peers, as children at that age through to high school are notoriously judgemental and mean as fuck.
The study is bullshit and purely for scaremongering.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, it smells... smelly! But it logically can make sense
Though, I don't know, I'm naturally a big introvert, I can talk perfectly fine with people I just feel a certain peace in not having to get into other peoples damned issues.
how is this a problem, things change, maybe we should learn to adjust
sorry to break it to you techno-fetishists: the digital age is depersonalizing, vacuous, and ultimately detrimental to human understanding and insight. the internet makes you stupid.
People mostly doing unsocial things are unsocial? I had no idea!
[QUOTE=FalconKrunch;34448164]I guess it's good that I use no social media then.[/QUOTE]
[quote]Definition of SOCIAL MEDIA
: forms of electronic communication (as Web sites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (as videos) [/quote]
You're using one right now you dolt.
And did anybody think about if they wouldn't be out, with their friends, if they had any?
This seems as mere correlation without clear proof of causation. What if it's that some kids are born with shitty social abilities and as they can't hold friends or don't find the communication pleasant, they spend all day at computer, which is after all the #1 past time, globally?
In other news:
CERN is one step closer to determining if water is wet
[QUOTE=notxmania;34448573]sorry to break it to you techno-fetishists: the digital age is depersonalizing, vacuous, and ultimately detrimental to human understanding and insight. the internet makes you stupid.[/QUOTE]
Right. Technological advancement and information available at any time makes us stupid.
Ding dong
[QUOTE=notxmania;34448573]sorry to break it to you techno-fetishists: the digital age is depersonalizing, vacuous, and ultimately detrimental to human understanding and insight. the internet makes you stupid.[/QUOTE]
Then what are you doing on the internet?
[QUOTE=J!NX;34448977]Then what are you doing on the internet?[/QUOTE]
Porn.
What else is there to do?
:v:
[quote]The study only included girls who responded to a survey in Discovery Girls magazine, but results should apply to boys[/quote]
That's called extrapolation.
I am living proof of this.
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;34449061]Porn.
What else is there to do?
:v:[/QUOTE]
[url]http://www.facepunch.com/[/url]
[QUOTE=J!NX;34449387][url]http://www.facepunch.com/[/url][/QUOTE]
I come here for the porn, to be honest.
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;34449440]I come here for the porn, to be honest.[/QUOTE]
the hell you doing in SH then? :v:
10,416 Posts
Posts Per Day 9.68
you must really love porn
[QUOTE=Kurtzund;34449217]I am living proof of this.[/QUOTE]
You're an 8 to 12 year old girl?
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