The initial press reports in the Great January Internet Scare of January 2012 had all the makings of a good spooky story.
Internet addiction changes your brain, yelled not only the tabloids but the serious media, too.
A week or two later, the fear monsters (commonly called current events editors or duty editors) were still sleeping off the night shift hangover, and calmer voices could be heard.
It is not a new magic change to your brain, said stories such as this one on the BBC.
Thoughts longer than 140 characters and without a single hashtag are still feasible!
Well, yes, quipped TheEditor, but you do realize there are people out there who have never come close to thoughts of any length?
Why would we write about the topic of webby brain changes when the scare was subsequently rectified?
Do a web search for "brain changes" internet or similar, and you will find the sensational first cut news dominate the results pages. In terms of public discourse, this fact is more dangerous than the changes the internet makes to your brain, we would argue.
Taxi driving, watching lots of porn, playing competitive ping pong changes, watching the Google 2014 Soccer World Cup animations, all change the wiring up there -- doing anything with abandon makes your neurons giggle and jiggle.
So, unfortunately, the great brain change scare is alive and well two years after it hit the screens. In the Morgan Freeman guided series Through the Wormhole, the episode "How to Collapse a Superpower" cites this phenomenon based on the sensationalism angle.
For those readers familiar with cabbies in New York, New York, or London, England, there can be no doubt that the changes caused by driving a cab might deserve a shout-out in a collapse my superpower bank account episode.
Being in a taxi is as close to going through a wormhole as us ordinary mortals will ever get.
Ahm, you do realize that reading satire causes changes to your brain, right?
Just saying.
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