Estarão os mais novos a ficar desatentos?

A utilização do computador alterou, sem dúvida, o quotidiano de muitas pessoas. E, na opinião de uma prestigiada neurocientista britânica, Baroness Greenfield, poderá mesmo afectar o nível de atenção dos mais novos que, cada vez mais cedo, estão durante várias horas a interagir com essa ferramenta informática. Esta ideia não é ainda consensual e gera polémica no meio.

O artigo
Is computer use changing children?
By Marc Settle
Reporter, BBC iPM

As the age at which children start to get familiar with computers and the net gets ever lower, questions are starting to be asked about what that exposure is doing to our children's brains and their ability to concentrate.

These questions are ones which eminent neuroscientist Baroness Greenfield says needs to be confronted. The director of the Royal Institution says the "sensory-laden environment" of computers could result in people "staying in the world of the small child".

Professor Greenfield has spent a lifetime researching the physiology of the brain, and now thinks that there could be a link between the attention span of children and the growing use of computers.

In an interview for Radio 4's iPM she said: "The last 10 years have seen a three-fold increase in the prescription of the drug Ritalin, a drug used for Attention Deficit Disorder. One asks why?

"Why suddenly is there greater demand for a drug for attentional problems?" she asked. "This might, and I stress might, be something to do with the increased exposure of young children to unsupervised and lengthy hours in front of a screen."

in BBC News - Technology