I have received many complaints like this before.
This one is from gryphonscry:
‘Why is it when I click the link to see pochp’s blog I get the create a blog page asking me if I want to create a blog titled pochp.wordpress.com?
Inquiring minds want to know.’
Does anybody else encounter this malware?
From TechPulse 360:
‘The rumors are flying fast and furiously. Asus is said to be working on an inexpensive netbook running Google’s Android software for smart phones.’
Good news? If this pushes through, what do you think would be the effects?
Flavius Marcus.wordpress wrote that Obama has made his first mistake on policies:
‘The Obama Administration is continuing the Bush team’s Wall Street friendly policies, probably because they believe, as do most economists, that the downturn will hit bottom in the 2nd half of this year, and slow growth will resume next year. That’s bad. As a result they are missing an opportunity to fix the financial system, clearing their desk for the next wave of problems. That could be a catastrophic error. As always when looking ahead in this crisis, these are just guesses.’
What do you think?
‘The Stanford Prison experiment was done to see how ordinary men, chosen to be the most healthy and ‘normal’ would respond to a radical change to their normal roles in life. Half were to become prison guards, the other half their prisoners. In this experiment there were no half-measures, for it to be effective it had to closely approximate the real experience of prisoners and guards. These participants were in for the ride of their lives.
All was quiet until the second day when the ‘prisoners’ rebelled against their incarceration. The guard’s retaliation was swift and brutal. Guards stripped the prisoners naked, removed the beds from the prison, placed the rebellion’s ringleader in solitary confinement and began harassing all the ‘prisoners’.
Soon the ‘prisoners’ began behaving with blind obedience towards the prison guards. After only a few day’s realistic role-playing participants reported it felt as though their old identities had been erased. They had become their numbers. So too had the ‘guards’ taken on their roles – taunting and abusing their prisoners.’
If role playing can have these effects on adults, how much more on children and youth?
Reference
Zimbardo, P. G. (1972). The Stanford Prison Experiment a Simulation Study of the Psychology of Imprisonment. Philip G. Zimbardo, Inc.
I suddenly saw another reason why I believe that technology lures us to be lazy. One of my friends complained that she experienced hallucination just by playing online solitaire.
Now why play online solitaire when you can play with real cards? Why read e-books like Kindle when you can read real paper books? Obvious answer: because you can use digital books and playing cards with just one finger clicking buttons!
Becoming lazy is just the bait. But being controlled by technology will be the dire result.
I have written the post below months ago and included it since it relates. It should be a preview instead:
Baroness Greenfield, an Oxford University neuroscientist and director of the Royal Institution, had this interview with The Mail about networking children.
She believes repeated exposure could effectively ‘rewire’ the brain.
‘My fear is that these technologies are infantilising the brain into the state of small children who are attracted by buzzing noises and bright lights, who have a small attention span and who live for the moment.’
‘Psychologists have also argued that digital technology is changing the way we think. They point out that students no longer need to plan essays before starting to write – thanks to word processors they can edit as they go along. Satellite navigation systems have negated the need to decipher maps.’
This is the only negative effect of technology I’m sure of – the tendency to make us lazy.
I think and agree this is the bottomline:
“Sue Palmer, author of Toxic Childhood, said: ‘We are seeing children’s brain development damaged because they don’t engage in the activity they have engaged in for millennia. I’m not against technology and computers. But before they start social networking, they need to learn to make real relationships with people.’ “
Smart adults have the luxury of choosing whether they let technology control them or not. Children do not. So I suggest that children be taught of the possible effects of technology on the mind as soon as possible both at home and at school.
In his book Grown Up Digital, Don Tapscott wrote about the ‘net generation’. I haven’t scanned it yet but I think it might be a good reference.
I also have a pdf file on ‘Children and Technology’ which I can send free on request.
The problem with authority is we either submit to it totally, or rebel against it with all our might.
Do you remember the ‘Bionic Man’ of the 70’s? Well, the bionic eye is now a reality. Look for ‘Bionic Vision’ (Cheri Robertson) at YouTube.
Would you believe that as early as 1982, Role-Playing games (RPG) was already controversial? From PsyBlog:
‘Patricia Pulling’s son, an active D&D player, committed suicide, and Pulling believed the game to be the direct cause of his death. After unsuccessful legal action, Pulling founded the one-person advocacy group Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons (BADD), and began publishing information circulating her belief that D&D encouraged devil worship and suicide.
‘In 1988, the American Association of Suicidology, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, and Health & Welfare (Canada) have all concluded that there is no causal link between fantasy gaming and suicide.[20] And in The Pulling Report, writer Michael Stackpole used BADD’s own data to demonstrate that suicide is actually lower among gamers than non-gamers.’
I wonder if the American Association of Suicidology, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, and Health & Welfare still maintain their conclusions today.
I’ll continue later.
If you want your sites to be safer and faster, sign up with OpenDNS. In my opinion, it’s a must. And don’t forget Firefox NoScript and PassWordsafe.
A small but potentially disastrous glitch has hit users of the Xbox Live service who may not be checking their Hotmail accounts as often as they should be.
by PCMag.com Staff
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