It's official: Tweeting can turn you into a twit

SHOOT: Fascinating; this all has to do with stimulating nerve endings. We only learn when we do something slightly challenging, requiring us to think and produce nerve responses.

clipped from www.tgdaily.com Guildford, England - Facebook users can boost their intelligence, while microbloggers are tweeting their brain cells away, says a Scottish scientist. Spending time on Facebook can boost what Dr Tracy Alloway of the University of Stirling calls 'working memory', while using Twitter or watching videos on YouTube requires little use of memory skills and can have a negative effect on intelligence. ''On Twitter you receive an endless stream of information, but it's also very succinct. You don't have to process that information and your attention span is being reduced and you're not engaging your brain and improving nerve connections.'' War games make people use their working memory and keep track of past actions and plan future moves, she claimed, adding that there was evidence linking watching large amounts of TV with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and extensive texting with lower IQ scores. Tweeting or watching YouTube was not good for stimulating working memory.