Twitter, YouTube damage working memory

Watching clips on YouTube and sharing it on Twitter may be fun for some, but it could be hurting people’s working memory, according to one researcher.

Speaking at the British Science Festival, Dr Tracey Alloway said short form communication like Twitter and YouTube is harming our ability to remember.

Alloway described Twitter as an “endless stream” that doesn’t allow users to “process or manipulate” what they’re seening. “It’s not a dialogue,” said Dr Alloway, who is the Director of the Centre for Memory and Learning in the Lifespan at the University of Stirling.

She had the same judgement for YouTube. She claimed children who watch too much TV are more likely to be diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. “A TV programme may be 30 minutes long. A YouTube clip is only a minute or so - your attention span is being reduced and you’re not really engaging your brain and developing your neural connections to engage on a longer basis,” she said.

It’s not all bad news, however. Other forms of tech communication, such as Facebook, might be helping to train our brains.

“Social networking sites like Facebook might help working memory, because when we use them we feel more part of a larger community,” she claimed.

Dr Alloway is set to run a web-study of social networking sites for the Edinburgh Science Festival.

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