1. She argues that it was recklessness that lead to the financial crisis. Apart from being an over-simplification, it’s not at all clear that individual bankers were behaving recklessly from their own perspective. The bonus schemes in place at the banks rewarded large gains, without providing adequate downside where losses were made. It’s hardly reckless (from the individual’s perspective) to make high-risk investments where the upside is so high and the down-side is so low.

2. The underlying suggestion in the article is that games caused an increase in reckless behaviour. Even if a correlation could be shown between those who played computer games and those who are reckless, that doesn’t show causation. It could simply be the case that people with reckless tendancies are attracted to videogames. If this is the case, then the argument is reduced to an observation that reckless people may be attracted to both banking and to computer games.

3. The article reveals Susan’s bias when she talks about individuals who are “overexposed” to computer games. She doesn’t give any suggestion as to what “overexposed” might mean.

4. Again, she oversimplifies when stating that computer games only create short term incentives. Certainly some MMOs create longer term incentives (albeit measured in perhaps weeks and months rather than years) with consequences that cannot simply be re-set on another playthrough.

My point though is that were she an opinion columnist rather than the head of the RI no-one would bat an eyelid. Which is an indictment of (most) opinion-columnists.

I think we’ve found here a new career path.

But that’s really no worse than a hundred other pundits. When someone claims that, oh I don’t know, “permissive parenting” is causing “the crime surge”, say, that’s exactly as bad.

Greenfield only seems especially silly because she’s chosen to talk about a topic in which this kind of thing isn’t usually done. When you look at it 99% of political comment is basically of this form.

“Social networking websites are causing alarming changes in the brains of young users, an eminent scientist has warned. Sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Bebo are said to shorten attention spans, encourage instant gratification and make young people more self-centred.”

“She pointed out that autistic people, who usually find it hard to communicate, were particularly comfortable using computers. ‘Of course, we do not know whether the current increase in autism is due more to increased awareness and diagnosis of autism, or whether it can – if there is a true increase – be in any way linked to an increased prevalence among people of spending time in screen relationships. Surely it is a point worth considering,’ she added.”

[It's something I mentioned on my blog.]