Facebook makes you smarter, Twitter makes you dumber

September 8, 2009 – 5:55 AM

Have you ever written a text message and then failed to correctly multiply 3 by 7 right after you pressed “send”?

Have you ever posted an update on Facebook and instantly reached for your Proust? And have you ever sent a tweet, looked in the mirror, and suddenly believed that you had a twin?

Well, according to the Telegraph, Dr. Tracy Alloway, a psychologist from the University of Stirling in Scotland, can explain all of this.

The good doctor has spent many of her days studying working memory, which allows people to retain and use information. She believes it to be a far more significant measure of the well-being and intelligence of humanity than, say, IQ.

Alloway spoke Sunday to the British Science Festival at the University of Surrey and rather gushed about the success she has had in training children to enhance their working memory.

And she happened to mention that certain social-media behaviors are rather more conducive at developing working memory than others.

Source:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10346125-71.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20