Digital natives may need social, comprehension skills

What does a teenage brain on Google look like? Do all those hours spent online rewire the circuitry? Could these kids even relate better to emoticons than to real people? These sound like concerns from worried parents. But they're coming from brain scientists.

While violent video games have gotten a lot of public attention, some current concerns go well beyond that. Some scientists think the wired world may be changing the way we read, learn and interact with each other. Dr. Gary Small, a psychiatrist at UCLA says the effect is strongest in so-called digital natives—people in their teens and 20s who have been "digitally hard-wired since toddlerhood." He thinks it's important to help the digital natives improve their social skills and older people—digital immigrants—improve their technology skills.

More than 2,000 years ago, Socrates warned about a different information revolution—the rise of the written word, which he considered a more superficial way of learning than the oral tradition. More recently, the arrival of television sparked concerns that it would make children more violent or passive and interfere with their education. Read more this Associated Press article online.