So at first I became interested in this news ditty, which I heard on BBC World Service radio, because it uses the term infomanic and is about the detriments of communication to our brains, time, and psyches (declarations of which I’m always ready to consider, debate, and worry myself over).
But after a Google News search on the study about infomania, I’m more interested in how many different ways headlines can say “[ICT ACTION] [VP MEANING 'IS WORSE THAN'] [WORD FOR MARIIJUANA],” since that is the point of comparison for IQ damage used by the study. Here’s a sample of headlines and links (unless noted, they’re from the UK):
E-mails ‘hurt IQ more than pot’ - CNN International
E-mails fog brain worse than cannabis - Manchester Evening News
E-mails ‘make you stooopid’ - News24 (South Africa)
‘Infomania’ worse than marijuana - BBC News
Emails ‘pose threat to IQ’ - Guardian
Texting hits IQ harder than pot! - Webindia123
It lowers your IQ more than smoking cannabis - Mirror.co.uk
IQ tumbles with too much texting - The Herald
Texting is worse than pot - The Sun
Emails worse than drugs, says study - ITV.com
Txt and email ‘reduce IQ more than cannabis’ - Daily Mail UK
Why texting harms your IQ - Times Online
Emails more danaging than cannabis - VNUNet.com
And my favorite:
It’s not clever to send too many texts and e-mails - Scotsman
[A: "Hey, Scotland! Just how bad IS sending too many texts and emails?" B: "Well, you know...it's just not clever." A: "Well, shit then. I gotta throw away my phone and computer, like, today." B: "Yeah. Let's go smoke some weed instead, man."]
(Notice, no headlines used weed - is this an American thing?)
This is not to downplay the issue of infomania, email overload, or whatever else you want to call it (from CNN):
But the mental impact of trying to balance a steady inflow of messages with getting on with normal work took its toll, the UK’s Press Association reported.
In 80 clinical trials, Dr. Glenn Wilson, a psychiatrist at King’s College London University, monitored the IQ of workers throughout the day.
He found the IQ of those who tried to juggle messages and work fell by 10 points — the equivalent to missing a whole night’s sleep and more than double the 4-point fall seen after smoking marijuana.
“This is a very real and widespread phenomenon,” Wilson said. “We have found that this obsession with looking at messages, if unchecked, will damage a worker’s performance by reducing their mental sharpness.
And that’s a serious issue, but come on! Using the salacious “marijuana” for comparison is such a blatant cry for news coverage! As is, of course, the mention of IQ dropping at all (which seems misplaced to me - it seems like the issue is simply one of distraction and can be explained without reference to controversial notions like IQ). Then again, the study was commissioned by HP, and we all know how I feel about them lately.
On the other hand, this is AWESOME news for these people.