(CNN) -- Rapid-fire TV news bulletins or getting updates via
social-networking tools such as Twitter could numb our sense of
morality and make us indifferent to human suffering, scientists
say. Scientists say updates on networking tools such as Twitter
are often too quick for the brain to fully digest. New findings
show that the streams of information provided by social
networking sites are too fast for the brain's "moral compass" to
process and could harm young people's emotional development.
Before the brain can fully digest the anguish and suffering of a
story, it is being bombarded by the next news bulletin or the
latest Twitter update, according to a University of Southern
California study. "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. The
report, published next week in Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences Online Early Edition