Today’s moral panic in the UK is all about the “infantilising” effect of the Internet on human minds. Lady Greenfield, a professor of synaptic pharmacology at Lincoln college, Oxford, and a director of the Royal Institution, no less, is very worried:

the mid-21st century mind might almost be infantilised, characterised by short attention spans, sensationalism, inability to empathise and a shaky sense of identity

There’s lots more like that here, including concerns that kids who play video games and read stuff online are missing out because they don’t get the in-depth experience of reading real books. I was tempted to suggest that Lady Greenfield read The Ten-Cent Plague, because I’m sure that very similar concerns were expressed about the dangers of children reading comic books. Then I decided she’d be much better off being sat down and given a good talking to by danah boyd.

Which is not to say that methods of social interaction are not changing, and in some ways no doubt for the worse. But I’m never much impressed by “new technology will destroy us all” rants.

In other news scientists in the US have discovered a correlation between kids who listen to music with sexually explicit lyrics and underage sex, and the journos have concluded that this “proves” that pop music makes kids have sex. That one, at least, hasn’t changed in decades.