Twitter Psychics: Twitter Used for Science

The Twitter phenomenon has taken fire all over the world, being used by politicians, schoolchildren, and businessmen alike to keep anyone interested updated on the goings-on in their day-to-day life. Now Twitter is being proposed by United Kingdom scientists to test psychic ability, in its first ever official use as a scientific tool.

The experts are going to test what is known as "remote viewing" using Twitter. One of the researchers will visit a randomly chosen spot in the UK. Once the remote researcher is in place, the home base will ask participants to tweet their impressions of that place. The tweets will be recorded, then compared against a photograph the remote researcher will post of the place in question.

This process will be repeated 5 times in total. Psychologist Professor Richard Wiseman, from the University of Hertfordshire, claims that a correct impression of three or more of the places visited will definitively prove extra-sensory perception (ESP) in the subject, since the odds of doing so without prior knowledge of the areas would be 1 in 125. The subjects have yet to be chosen, but the Professor is hoping to attract about 10,000 to the experiment, which is being done in collaboration with New Scientist magazine.

Twitter recently made scientific news in a different sense, being blamed for possibly lessening the already-short attention spans of today's youth. Also coming out of the United Kingdom, an Oxford scientist recently postulated that Twitter, Facebook, and Myspace are contributing to an overly self-centered youth, whichis getting more and more accustomed to instant gratification.

Baroness Susan Greenfield recently received attention for claiming that repeated exposure to the social networking sites could lead to lasting rewiring of the brainto become once again more like that of an infant. "We know how small babies need constant reassurance that they exist," she told the UK's Daily Mail newspaper. "My fear is that these technologies are infantilizing the brain into the state of small children who are attracted by buzzing noises and bright lights, who have a small attention span and live for the moment."

While the jury is still out on the possible infantilizing of the brain via Twitter, we can see already that, if used properly, it can be a very useful scientific tool. Prof. Wiseman has done multiple multi-person experiments before the upcoming Twitter version, and he claims, "The instant nature of tweets allows thousands of people to take part in real time, making it perfect for an extra-sensory perception experiment."

"Twitter's Psychic Experiment"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/twitter/5415852/Twitters-psychic-experiment.html

www.telegraph.co.ukAre Facebook, MySpace and Twitter eroding attention spans? One researcher says yes

http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/health/2009/02/25/2009-02-25_are_facebook_myspace_and_twitter_eroding.html

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