…and this is your brain on local news.

Radley Balko | 7.15.2010 5:54 PM

Someone needs to tell News 9 and the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics that as far as facepalm-stupid attempts to scare the crap out of parents with hysterical "next new drug" stories go, the "digital drugs" thing is so 2008.

(Thanks to Michael Chaney for the link.)

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roystgnr 15 years ago

2008? The Ashley Judd episode of Star Trek came out in 1991!
1. Episiarch 15 years ago
  
  That was a Wesley-heavy episode, and I hate you for reminding me of it.
  1. Tulpa 15 years ago
    
    A Wesley hot-and-heavy episode, no less.
    1. Episiarch 15 years ago
      
      Now I'm even more disgusted.
    2. Astrid 15 years ago
      
      I just throw up in my mouth.
      1. Astrid 15 years ago
        
        I just throw threw up in my mouth.
R C Dean 15 years ago

Not even 2008. More like 1993. If memory serves, you should be able to Google up Jarod Lanier for some pathbreaking noodling on the mind-altering potential of the digital world.

Speaking of which, I wonder what he's up to now?
1. dbcooper 15 years ago
  
  Wired had something on David Byrne and a computer "halucination machine" (or words to that effect) back in the mid 90's.
oncogenesis 15 years ago

Speaking of digital drugs: watching that "news" report definitely increased my urge to kill.
anon 15 years ago

Anybody catch the clip at 0:45 of this East Buttfuck, Oklahoma TV station being told to upgrade from IE6?
Bingo 15 years ago

Are altered brainwave states now illegal? Are we going to have sleep monitors to make sure no one is having a lucid dream?

I don't even know what to say about this idiocy.
1. Episiarch 15 years ago
  
  Not if Eddie Jessup has anything to do with it!
Duckie 15 years ago

The stupid, it's... intoxicating.
Irwin Mann 15 years ago

Does it cause flashbacks?

I'm still waiting for my acid flashbacks, 38 years now.

I think this all means we can't trust the government or the news media.
Irwin Mann 15 years ago

Does it cause flashbacks?

I'm still waiting for my acid flashbacks, 38 years now.

I think this all means we can't trust the government or the news media.
1. Graham Wellington 15 years ago
  
  ?I see what you did there?
Jerry 15 years ago

Those Onion News Network clips keep getting better.
1. Isaac 15 years ago
  
  If only...
Playa Manhattan 15 years ago

They keep talking about how this causes "physiological effects"....
I had a double double from In 'N Out Burger this morning and there are still ongoing "physiological effects", namely mud butt...
West Texas Boy 15 years ago

I saw this yesterday and was dumbfounded.

What's next, meditation? Yoga? Holding one's breath?
1. Schempf 15 years ago
  
  Don't forget - dogs eating grass
2. jasno 15 years ago
  
  Would you really be surprised if meditation and Yoga are made illegal in Oklahoma?
  
  Huffing dust-off, on the other hand, is poised to become an intercollegiate sport.
Tulpa 15 years ago

Psychology Today with the straight dope on I-dosing:

Idozer (or I-doser as it is also known) is extremely old drug in a new package. And breathe easy my fellow parents?because it's not really a drug?it's binaural beat therapy.

In 1839, Heinrich Wilhelm Dove discovered that two constant tones, played at slightly different frequencies in each ear, cause the listener to perceive the sound of a fast-paced beat. Calling this phenomenon "binaural beats," Dove helped launch two centuries of legitimate research and, as is almost always followed by exciting empirical study, money-grabbing pseudoscience.

First, the facts: Binaural beat therapy has been used in clinical settings to research hearing and sleep cycles, to induce various brain wave states, and treat anxiety.
1. jasno 15 years ago
  
  Those scientists and their satanic schemes to steal our children's souls...
2. mr simple 15 years ago
  
  I thought it sounded a lot like my sleep machine.
Gene Berkman 15 years ago

In 1965 I saw Rev. David Noble on the Joe Pyne show warning that the Beatles used two-beat music to cause mental instability in our young people, making them easy targets for the Communist Conspiracy.

Seems vaguely similar, in an abstract way, to the issue here.
1. LarryA 15 years ago
  
  There were equivalent warnings about jazz.
  
  And the waltz.
Tulpa 15 years ago

Speaking of totally legal and harmless "gateway drugs", does anyone else remember candy cigarettes? Those things were the bomb when I was a kid. I saw someone eating them the other day and was surprised they're still legal.
1. Mister DNA 15 years ago
  
  Hard to find, but still legal. I got some for Christmas a few years ago.
2. Almanian 15 years ago
  
  Those things are the shit. Love candy cigarettes.
3. WTF 15 years ago
  
  I also remember bubble gum cigars. They were individually wrapped and even had the little paper band around them.
  1. Almanian 15 years ago
    
    Good call - those were (are) epic, too.
  2. Pope Jimbo 15 years ago
    
    When my kids were born, I handed out either bubble gum cigars or the real thing (even not so bad ones at that).
    
    It was amazing how fast the bubble gum versions went compared to the real thing.
hmm 15 years ago

I bet it helps if you drop acid or eat shrooms before listening and watching this.
1. Kate 15 years ago
  
  I smoked a doobie and then listened to this and it made me really hungry!!
2. Isaac 15 years ago
  
  Proof that local news is a gateway drug.
theocrat 15 years ago

Do they got digitall liquor?
John-David 15 years ago

A nice touch was the cell phone accessing YouTube... at 4:20 pm.
1. jasno 15 years ago
  
  Maybe the whole story is just a ploy by the stoners in the newsroom to divert attention from marijuana enforcement?
Mr Whipple 15 years ago

It sounds like a form of sensory derivation to me. There was this isolation tank place I went to a few times back in the 80s that had helmets that covered your entire head, with pretty blinking LEDs and some sort of tone. They said it was another form of sensory deprivation, like the isolation tanks, only cheaper and not as intense.
1. Mr Whipple 15 years ago
  
  It sounds like a form of sensory derivation deprivation to me.
  1. juris imprudent 15 years ago
    
    First Astrid then Mr Whipple - something about a drug thread causes mis-spelling.
    1. WTF 15 years ago
      
      Are you sure it's not sensory depradation? Or sensory depravity?
      
      Be careful - might end up in an Altered State.
Brian E 15 years ago

Ah, yes, the local news. They'll have you believing that twenty million kids are eaten by bats every second if it scares you into watching the program.
1. Kristen 15 years ago
  
  Awesome comic! She be goin' on Facebook right now.
cynical 15 years ago

Digital drugs harmless? Tell that to Da5id.
Jeff 15 years ago

Wait a minute, digital drug?...this is the plot of 'snow crash'.
Me 15 years ago

Someone, please shoot me. I'm waiting for the Congressional hearings. I'm hoping Tipper Gore takes up the cause.
gaoxiaen 15 years ago

We don't use computers in Muskogee...
1. Merle Fan 15 years ago
  
  I was just listening to Merle. I almost ended up with coffee all over my monitor!
BarryJV 15 years ago

But are they warning about the dangers of cake?

Cake started in the dance clubs of Czechoslovakia.

Unlike cannabis, which is natural, cake is artificial, a made up drug.
? 15 years ago

I downloaded one and it was just a digital version of Louie Louie.
But it did make me freak out a little and want to kill my parents.
Tim 15 years ago

Blog posting gives me pleasure. Am I a criminal?
AndrewGurn 15 years ago

Sergei Rachmaninoff's Op.21 no.5 "Lilacs" gives me chills. Maybe we should ban that too.
xenia onatopp 15 years ago

It's all a big joke to you people, but what about the children? I'm worried, because as a parent I have to be constantly on the lookout for new threats. The second I let my guard down somebody might expose them to something that feels good. Thank God they've removed all the potentially pleasurable foods from the schools here, but now I have to worry about music?
Raven 15 years ago

Being from Oklahoma can be so embarrassing sometimes (often, actually).

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