Response to Guardian's article on social networking sites

I wonder, but wasn't it always the case that adults blame technologies for distancing away their children and making them more selfish with shorter attention spans and therefor less achievement in schools? Isn't this exactly what was said about video games, playstations, televisions, email, mirc, msn and icq? I have heard a lot of talk similar to this around my parents and family;

"Video games makes you more violent!"
"Watching TV for over an hour destroys your brains and eyes!"
"Watch out, you can meet people on ICQ who will easily manipulate your thoughts, you won't be able to think anymore", etc.

I think all of you heard similar comments (or gave them, depending on your age!)

Well, all what Lady Greenfield 'speculates' may be correct, but not on social networking sites in specific. Isn't too much of anything (addiction) bad? I may be wrong but her analogies make her sound somewhat like a hopeless romance (caring for the princess?!!) I couldn't quite relate this. If the game was a board game instead of a digital game, will I then care about the princess? Perhaps she (or the writer) should have backed up her arguments with research sources or examples - because it sounds to me like stuff that the older generation always says about the newer one.

I do believe that with more exposure to the new technologies, one's reactions tend to become different (perhaps yes, I sense it a lot when I ask my husband a question and if he takes more than two seconds to answer I start whining about him ignoring me). But isn't this also a feature in everything in the world around us. Think of old songs and new songs, old movies and new movies. The decrease of emotional depth is not only because of the child's exposure to social networking sites - I feel this is over simplified. We have to think of other changes, such as the growing economic pressure that parents now face which makes little time available for their children.

Children's (and adult's) minds are different now than previous generations, but this has always been the case. Life is becoming more challenging on all levels. With the quickening pace of life, people are becoming more individualistic and less romantic, but this is an outcome of various changes in life, and not just 'facebook' or 'Myspace'.