Online risks: from cancer to autism?

By Clare Murphy
BBC News health reporter

Could he be putting his health at risk?

A number of reports have recently linked online networking and computer games to a host of health risks.

Susan Greenfield, the eminent neuroscientist and head of the Royal Institution, is the latest to weigh into the debate, warning that young people's brains may be fundamentally altered by internet activity.

While concerns about children and computers have usually focused on their forging inappropriate relationships online, or failing to get enough exercise as a result of being glued to a screen, the baroness suggested the consequences may be more profound.

She told peers in the House of Lords it would be worth considering whether the rise in autism - a condition marked by difficulties forming attachments - was linked to the increasing prevalence of screen relationships.

Real-life conversations "require a sensitivity to voice tone, body language and perhaps even to pheromones - those sneaky molecules that we release and which others smell subconsciously.

It is hard to see how living this way on a daily basis will not result in brains, or rather minds, different from those of previous generations Baroness Greenfield

"Moreover, according to the context and, indeed, the person with whom we are conversing, our own delivery will need to adapt. None of these skills are required when chatting on a social networking site," she said.

"It is hard to see how living this way on a daily basis will not result in brains, or rather minds, different from those of previous generations."

She also suggested that increasing diagnoses of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder - ADHD - may be connected to the "near total submersion of our culture in screen technologies". Read more...