Comments on: Twilight novels ‘could be altering the brain’

By: X

Mon, 20 Sep 2010 19:13:35 +0000

Doesn’t *everything* a teen (or child) gets exposed to change their brain? And isn’t that the point?

By: 9/20/10 « English Class

9/20/10 « English Class — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 02:01:54 +0000

[...] 1) Reading assignments to be determined in class; Read this quick entry at http://mindhacks.com/2010/09/13/twilight-novels-could-be-altering-the-brain/ . We’ll talk about [...]

By: Emily Anthes

Emily Anthes — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 19:09:23 +0000

Upon further review, I now realize that there actually wasn’t even a study. Oops. However, I still reserve the right to hate the whole idea.

By: Emily Anthes

Emily Anthes — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 19:06:46 +0000

I absolutely hate these studies–I swear, they’re designed with media coverage in mind. “Let’s pick a trendy topic from column A–hmmm, vampires–and a trendy topic from column B–aha, brain plasticity–and voila! We have a study.”

You know what else changes the brain? Reading anything. Eating. Sleeping. Getting older. In short: everything.

By: Quick Links | A Blog Around The Clock

Quick Links | A Blog Around The Clock — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 15:04:26 +0000

[...] Twilight novels ‘could be altering the brain’ [...]

By: Sherman Unkefer

Sherman Unkefer — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 00:43:58 +0000

The only mind altering effect that the Twilight novels is having is the acceptance of garbage as literature by teenagers.

By: Jackie T. Ewing

Jackie T. Ewing — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 15:51:00 +0000

Methinks altering the [current] state of teenage mind can only be a good thing!

I’ve always had a great imagination and have passed this on to my kids (one is now a teen) with the belief that not only is it ok to use your imagination wildly, it’s highly recommended to set them apart from their peers.

I have read the Twilight novels several times now, as has my teenage son. So far, his mind hasn’t changed that much – that I can see at least! As for my own mind, I think I am regressing into teenagehood and on the lookout for my very own vampire boyfriend….

By: Imoscar

Imoscar — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 08:29:17 +0000

Reading Mind Hacks might alter the brain in ways we don’t understand

I’m off to the bunker….

By: DTL

DTL — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 23:19:53 +0000

As someone with an MA degree in English Lit who is now doing a degree in the biomedical sciences, I am all in favour being interdisciplinary, but, er, not in this way.

Neuroscience has very little to do with the analysis of literature, and considering how flexible the adolescent brain is, you can’t draw very useful conclusions based on this.

There are loads of influences on the adolescent brain, so it’s not like you can easily decide what influence a phenomenon like Twilight is going to have.

A literary analysis of Twilight, and how adolescents respond to it, would be very interesting, but not necessarily to neuroscientists.

By: Bradley Voytek

Bradley Voytek — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 21:32:14 +0000

I love your framing of this in contrast to the tech-scare stories.