Twitter's moral dangers outlined

Information overload from rolling news bulletins and the flood of updates on social-networking sites such as Twitter could be making us indifferent to human suffering, a study has claimed. The findings from the University of Southern California study suggest that our brains are being bombarded by streams of information which could affect young people's emotional development. "If things are happening too fast, you may not ever fully experience emotions about other people's psychological states and that would have implications for your morality," said researcher Mary Helen Immordino-Yang. Follow celebrities on Twitter Researchers studied how volunteers responded to real-life stories chosen to stimulate admiration for virtue or skill, or compassion for physical or social pain. Brain scans revealed that humans can process and respond to signs of physical pain in others very quickly, but took longer to show admiration or compassion. "For some kinds of thought, especially moral decision-making about other people's social and psychological situations, we need to allow for adequate time and refection," said Immordio-Yang. Free Twitter tools and applications The study raised concerns about media saturation and about the need for greater reflection and introspection. Research leader Antonio Damasio, director of USC's Brain and Creativity Institute, said the findings stressed the need for slower delivery of the news, and highlighted the importance of slow-burn emotions like admiration. Damasio cited the example of US President Barack Obama, who says he was inspired by his father, to show how admiration can be key to cultural success. "We actually separate the good from the bad in great part thanks to the feeling of admiration. It's a deep physiological reaction that's very important to define our humanity," Damsaio added.