does twitter make you a twit?

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Facebook 'enhances intelligence' but Twitter 'diminishes it', claims psychologist.

Spending time on the Facebook networking site could enhance a key element of intelligence that is vital to success 1. life, a psychologist has claimed, but using Twitter may have the opposite effect. Playing video war games and solving Sudoku may have the same effect as keeping up to 2. with Facebook, according to Dr Tracy Alloway.

#twittering on

Keeping up with friends on Facebook stretches the 'working memory', according to one scientist. But text messaging, micro-blogging on ''Twitter'' and watching YouTube were 3. likely to weaken ''working memory''.
Working memory involves the ability 4. to remember information and to use it. At a job interview, a candidate will employ working memory to match answers to questions in the most impressive way.

Dr Alloway, from the University of Stirling in Scotland, has extensively studied working memory and believes 5. to be far more important to success and happiness than IQ. Her team has developed a working memory training programme that greatly increased the performance of slow-learning children aged 11 to 14 at a school in Durham. After eight weeks of ''JungleMemory'' training, the children saw 10 point improvements in IQ, literacy and numeracy tests. A number who 6. off close to the bottom of the class ended up near the top.

''It was a massive effect,'' said Dr Alloway, who today 7. a talk on working memory at the start of the British Science Festival at the University of Surrey in Guildford. Video games that involve planning and strategy, such as 8. from the Total War series, may also train working memory, Dr Alloway believes.

"I'm not saying they're good for your socialisation skills, but they 9. make you use your working memory," she said. ''You're keeping track of past actions and mapping the actions you're going to 10..'' Sudoku also stretched the working memory, as did keeping up with friends on Facebook, she said. But the ''instant'' nature of texting, Twitter and YouTube was not healthy for working memory.

''On Twitter you receive an endless stream of information, but it's also very succinct,'' said Dr Alloway. ''You don't have to process that information. Your attention span is 11. reduced and you're not engaging your brain and improving nerve connections.''

She said there was evidence linking TV viewing with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) while extensive texting was associated 12.. lower IQ scores.

The Telegraph

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