The Social Media Puzzle: Piece #5 Is there evidence that social media is worth all this time?

There has been a constant drum beat in the media over the past few years of Luddite criticism of social media. They claim that it is all a waste of time, that social media is banal and trivial.

For those of us who value technology there has to be more than blind faith to counter such views. Fortunately, a recent scientific study has shown that social media is linked to increased intelligence.

The study, by a team at Trinity College, Dublin, replicated the evolution of social interaction over 50,000 generations. It claims to have found a link between sociability and intelligence.

Professor Andrew Jackson and research student Luke McNally conducted the research. They used neural networks and games to simulate how humans interact in society and learn.

The findings will be published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the biological sciences journal of the Royal Society in London.

My personal view is that social media forces cooperation and openness. To do otherwise on social media would lead to being flamed as a troll. Cooperation and openness lead to increased learning, as your reading of this article illustrates, which will inevitably leads to increased intelligence.

Whether I can claim that reading this blog leads directly to increased intelligence is probably a step too far though! I don't think every Tweet or post is symbol of progress, but there are enough positive ones, I believe, to make it obvious that social media is of benefit to humanity overall.

To support this site - over 60 free posts so far on social media for you to explore - please buy one of my novels, The Istanbul Puzzle or The Jerusalem Puzzle or my guide to social media. And enjoy!