Update on the social-networking-causes-health-risks story. Previous post here
Ben Goldacre and Dr Aric Sigman on BBC Newsnight discuss Sigman’s paper with Jeremy Paxman. Also featured, the views of Professor Susan Greenfield, source of The Daily Mail story:
Social websites harm children’s brains: Chilling warning to parents from top neuroscientist
‘Social networking websites are causing alarming changes in the brains of young users, an eminent scientist has warned.’
Lots of fun. Best bit is when Goldacre, having pointed out that Sigman has ignored all research evidence which contradicts his theory, says ‘there are several research papers which contradict your theory and I’m going to post them on Badscience.net’.
Which he did. He also has a link to Sigman’s full paper.
At Badscience.net you can now watch the extract from Newsnight, look up the references and read the comments thread.
Which allows you to be better informed than people who rely only on newspapers and TV.