Cell phones make kids faster, dumber

[Dennis Baron]

There's a new post on the Web of Language:  Cell phones make kids
faster, dumber

Last year the Librarian of Congress warned that texting was
responsible for a drastic decline in American sentences, but that
opinion wasn't backed up by any scientific evidence. Now, a team of
Australian psychologists has come a step closer to proving that mobile
phones are destroying our ability to think. The researchers show that
children who use mobile phones respond to higher-level cognitive tasks
faster, but less accurately, than those who don't.

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____________________
Dennis Baron
Professor of English and Linguistics
Department of English
University of Illinois
608 S. Wright St.
Urbana, IL 61801

office: 217-244-0568
fax: 217-333-4321

http://www.illinois.edu/goto/debaron

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