Social notworking sites like Facebook
and MySpace may increase the risk of cancer, strokes and dementia by altering
the way genes work, according to a report in the journal Biologist.
Aric Sigman wrote in Biologist that the
number of minutes a day Britons interact with other humans has fallen by two
thirds in recent decades, from six hours in 1987 to two hours in 2007. Instead the amount of time they spend
doing things that remove them from physical interaction like watching
television, listening to iPods, playing video games or visiting Web sites, has
doubled to eight hours a day.
This lack of "real" interaction
combined with a dependence on technology is increasingly tied to physiological
changes known to influence morbidity, or the extent of disease, and
mortality. This stuffs up hormone levels, immune
responses and blood pressure, the function of arteries and the brain.
Sigman said that evolution helps those
who connect with other people. Anti-social people are doomed to an early death.