Social Networking Will Kill You... Or Maybe Not

from the scary dept

Fri, Feb 20th 2009 7:22am — Carlo Longino

A story doing the rounds says a new article in a British biology journal claims that social networking is harmful to your health, running under headlines like "How using Facebook could raise your risk of cancer." Apparently replacing face-to-face human contact with online socializing "could alter the way genes work, upset immune responses, hormone levels, the function of arteries, and influence mental performance," according to the BBC, leading to an increase of serious health problems -- or, put a slightly more sensationalized way, Twitter will kill you. Charles Arthur at The Guardian's tech blog actually bothered to read the entire article, not just the press release, and says the breathless stories are based on more on bad journalism than junk science. The original article doesn't ever really get into the direct effect of online social networks, beyond saying people are spending more and more time on them, and never mentions any by name; it just says people are spending less time with other people, and that biologists should work to create more awareness of the detrimental effects that can have. But hey, that's way less interesting than saying MySpace is going to rot your insides.

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Filed Under: dangers, social networks, studies

23 Comments

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Hulser, 20 Feb 2009 @ 7:51am

WFH v. Facebook
If it's really true that "people are spending less time with other people", I think it has less to do with social networking and more to do with the overall types of communications made available by the Internet and modern telecommunications technology.

For example, I believe that telecommuting has a far greater negative impact on spending time with other people than does MySpace or Facebook. In my experience, social networks help to keep you in contact with people who are already your friends, which increases the odds that you'll get together with them in person. But working from home decreases the odds that you'll make friends with your co-workers, which obviously decreases the odds that you'll get together with them in person. If all that you do is e-mail or telecon with a co-worker, you're far less likely to establish any kind of relationship with that person, much less have any chance of becoming their friend.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2009 @ 8:28am

Yeah?
Stupid tech-scare headlines arent anything new, nor are ones about social networking sites?
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THE MAN, 20 Feb 2009 @ 8:30am

Its not the Facebook that will kill you, its the fat that will kill you.
Turn off the computer, grab the extra-reinforced handrails and climb out of your mothers basement you 'Social Network' geeks. Try being a real person and staying of the stupid computer for a little while. Computers are for work and generating revinue. If it is not going to make you money, stay off the computer and live your life. Loose some weight, meet a live friend, talk walk, get laid.....OK, I am probably going too far with that one. But you can take a walk.
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PaulT (profile), 20 Feb 2009 @ 8:33am

I know virtually nobody who uses Facebook to socialise *instead* of face-to-face contact. It gets used to either organise social lives or to contact people that would not normally be able to be contacted (due to geographical location or work schedules, for example).

I also know very few people who use the internet instead of having a social life. It usually replaces time that they might have spent reading, watching TV or even sleeping rather than the time they would have participated in other activities. So, I doubt there really is any net reduction in the way people socialise, and what reduction there is probably has little directly to do with the internet.

Anyway, "bad journalism"? Of course. It's no surprise that the linked article is from that right-wing reactionary rag the Daily Fail. If I read that they said the sky was blue, I'd look up to check.
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DSchmeling, 20 Feb 2009 @ 9:11am

Haven't we heard this before?
About TV? And Cellphones? And the like? I mean really...
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2009 @ 9:12am

Re: Its not the Facebook that will kill you, its the fat that will kill you.
Please leave your High School gym for long enough to realize that the modern computer geek is a healthy socially active member in good standing of your society. Not the shunned "Neeeerd" of 1974 that you seem to think that anyone capable of doing more than banging out a few quick insults in a forum is.
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SteveD, 20 Feb 2009 @ 9:17am

Re: Haven't we heard this before?
Steam trains give women miscarriages, don't you know...
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2009 @ 9:39am

Re: Its not the Facebook that will kill you, its the fat that will kill you.
This "geek" you are talking about is NOT a social networking geek. In my experience, since I'm the geek you are referring to, the people on social networking sites are either popular people trying to be tech-savvy, or they are lonely depressed people who have to resort to social networking to make friends.

The geeks you are referring to, me, are the ones who spend their time programming, gaming, and being overall asocial. We disklike social network sites because of their fakeness and because we don't like the people in the previous paragraph. Please don't lump social network geeks with us real techies.

Thanks.
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cvpunk, 20 Feb 2009 @ 9:45am

Re: Its not the Facebook that will kill you, its the fat that will kill you.
so how much money did your post just make you?
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cvpunk, 20 Feb 2009 @ 9:50am

Re: Re: Its not the Facebook that will kill you, its the fat that will kill you.
so to counter his generalization you make your own?
shut up moron.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2009 @ 9:58am

Re: Its not the Facebook that will kill you, its the fat that will kill you.
revinue?
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Mr. Nosuch, 20 Feb 2009 @ 10:09am

Re: Its not the Facebook that will kill you, its the fat that will kill you.
My irony meter just exploded.
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Eric, 20 Feb 2009 @ 10:14am

I don't know why being a code monkey and a gamer and antisocial go together all the time. It seems like this stereotype is getting proven more false by the day.

And I agree with the comment that people use facebook to organize getting together in real life, not replace real life interaction.

Hell, people use video games and facebook as a way to stay in touch with friends from real life that have moved away. How does that factor in to the less face time, spending time chatting with an old friend you would never talk to otherwise?

www.adaptiveengine.com
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2009 @ 10:26am

Ban Books
We should ban books, too. Everything said about on-line social networks avoiding human contact would apply just as much to someone sitting at home and reading a book instead of going out to a social event.

One of the basic assumptions in the original article is very commonly made, but is totally wrong. Everyone assumes that social networking/internet use is done by people sitting at home in a dark room. I run a college computer lab. Even though all the students have computers in their dorm rooms, they come to the computer labs and get on facebook/myspace, et.al. They chatter away verbally as they visit various websites, often having several people visit the same page at once. At home I have noticed that my kids take their laptops to the same room and chatter away as they surf and use social networks.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2009 @ 10:53am

Beginning epidemic of bad journalism and junk science?
This story seems to fit into Britan's desire to regulate Social Networking Sites. But my favorite Bad Journalism article of the week is thatLiving near a fast food restaurant increases risk of stroke.

Is the news business that bad that they see a need to compete with The Onion? Who comes up with this stuff?
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MA, 20 Feb 2009 @ 12:49pm

Socail Networks cause CANCER?
So I can get a med card and smoke weed due to social networking giving me cancer?
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Dave, 20 Feb 2009 @ 1:17pm

Lick your keyboard
If the concern is about not encountering enough germs, couldn't you just lick your keyboard? Usually they have more germs than a toilet seat.
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Gene Cavanaugh, 21 Feb 2009 @ 11:50am

Twitering as a threat
Good for you, Carlo! Sorry, I called you Carl in an earlier post.
Pegging is bad, and when a news report "pegs" it can be disastrous.
Recently the LA Times published an article saying "vitamins do not help" (paraphrased, but correct). The ScienceDaily article they got that from said, in effect, "vitamins are good for you, but C and E do not prevent heart attacks" - not that anyone ever said they would, to my knowledge.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Feb 2009 @ 9:13pm

Re: Its not the Facebook that will kill you, its the fat that will kill you.
And yet here you are? LOL.
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ASHMITA, 24 Feb 2009 @ 9:14am

PARENTS SAY ITS THE INTERNET AND TELECON THATS RUININ THEIR KIDS LIVES BUT, IS IT REALLY THAT OR DO US THE YOUTH RUIN OUR LIVES BY MAKING BAD DECISIONS WHEN IT COMES TO THIS SUBJECT? I THINK THAT WE SHOULD BE ABLE TO SCHEDULE OUR TIME IN ORDER TO LIVE OUR LIVES WITHOUT PARENTS COMPLAINING...
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b0b, 1 Apr 2009 @ 11:10am

Re: Its not the Facebook that will kill you, its the fat that will kill you.
you spelled revenue wrong fuckhead
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Mark Easterling, 3 Apr 2009 @ 5:22pm

Here is a solution.
Wow Bob. I guess your mother never taught you any manners.

I would suggest taking a look at http://batchchat.blogspot.com. I've used it at work for a while now and it works where ever there is file sharing in place. No need to install anything. It makes it fun to chat with friends that you work with. Maybe not social networking, but it is nice to connect with peoples.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Aug 2014 @ 8:50am

Re: Lick your keyboard
That's unlikely to help much - apart from the ones related to poor food hygiene (if you eat at your computer), most of the germs on a private keyboard are ones you put there, or deposited from the air. That means that you're only being exposed to germs you're already exposed to.

A shared keyboard is a whole different kettle of fish.
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