A leading British psychologist has questioned the recent, widely-publicised claims made by Oxford professor Baroness Greenfield that the web is making us stupid.

Htting back at Greenfield's recent comments on the debilitating aspects of spending too much time on the internet, author and senior lecturer in psychology at Bath Spa University Dr Nigel Holt told TechRadar that while the story was "quite a headline grabber," it must be taken with a pinch of salt.

"Greenfield is clearly a well-known and once very powerful academic who certainly has a lot to say about neuroscience and her recent book on the subject," said Holt.

Very little good science

"That said, I'd be wary of these kinds of comments. She has been concerned very publicly like this about the influence on our brains of the internet and gaming.

"She knows, as does every other scientist with an interest, that the brain is a changing, dynamic organ. It is partly its plasticity that makes it so amazing, as it changes to adapt and cope with the demands placed upon it.

"Any stimulus at all can influence our neurology like this. Singling out the internet is unhelpful and scaremongering. It makes good press and sells books but it needs to be measured with good science and I can find very little of it."

Instead, Dr. Holt calls for a discussion about the effects of the internet "on society, the loss of communication skills, the possibility of an attention span reduction and so on, rather than blankly dismissing the internet as the cause of all out problems."

Brains navigating information faster

As far as Greenfield's comments about the real and 'cyber' worlds being blurred by IT, Holt points to his own students' experiences as indicating quite the opposite, telling TechRadar:

"The access to information, and the efficiency with which it is navigated by my students amazes me and it improves each year. Rather than getting lazy, they are getting better, more efficient and more able to manage huge amounts of data. What we need to do is teach them how to gain a healthy sense of scepticism rather than instilling a fear in their parents that their brains are turning to mush.

"As for a chip that helps paralyzed people move… Bring it on… As fast as you possibly can. I don't think gaming is evil. I don't think it will turn our brains to mush. They may well excite people to engage in real-life projects or science, or imaginative thinking that they would otherwise not have the motivation or the stimulation to find their way to.

"Embrace the technology I say. I wish we'd had it when I was growing up."

Yet another new internet addiction treatment centre has opened its doors, this time in the online gaming capital of South Korea.

As many of us begin to struggle to control our various forms of addiction to gaming, always-connected smartphone and web technologies, with the younger online gaming demographic in South Korea particularly prone to debilitating forms of web addiction.

For example, Blizzard's Starcraft/ Starcraft II real time strategy (RTS) games are immensely popular in South Korea, with TV channels dedicated to reporting what is happening in these virtual game worlds.

Getting angry IRL

In response to this culture of MMO gaming, the latest net addiction clinic based in the hills outside of Seoul has recently opened its doors.

The new clinic in South Korea is focused on treating the entire family unit, helping and encouraging game and web addicted youngsters to start to socialise with their parents and siblings once more in the real world beyond the screen.

"When I'm not on the internet, I'm really friendly to my family, but when I'm on the internet, I'm angry when they call," one young gamer being treated at the centre told the BBC. "I don't know why, but it's bad. I'm trying to fix it, but it's hard."

Neurologist Dr Lee Jae-won from Gongju National Hospital has also recently opened a brain clinic to help web and gaming addicts.

"Some people question why we need to use medical treatment for a habitual disorder," said the doctor. "But if the condition has got so bad that the brain is not functioning as it should be, medical treatment is very effective.

"The results from internet addicts were very similar to patients with ADHD, and also other forms of addiction - in the way the brain functionality had been depressed."