Neuroscientists in South Korea are reporting a rise in digital dementia -- the tendency of the young to be so obsessed with smartphones that they can't remember phone numbers, produce legible handwriting, or look people in the eye, all signs of a type of brain damage.
The eZombie at your table: Column
by Devra Davis, President of Environmental Health Trust, USA Today, 30 July 2013
Our fascination with zombies, vampires and sci-fi creatures may be a quite cry to find ways to avoid becoming heartless sci-fi monsters ourselves.
More suited to a sci-fi flick than reality, a startling epidemic of young people with smartphone-addled brains is on the rise, and the long-term consequences might be far worse than you or I could imagine. Reporting that one in five students are addicted to their smartphones, South Korea, the world's most tech-savvy nation, is aggressively tackling the problem, establishing more than 100 Internet addiction camps. As the number of young smartphone users escalates around the globe, educating children and parents about the effects of this increasingly prevalent drug of the future is imperative.