The Tooth Fairy Rots Your Brain

JAMES HAMBLIN

"Children's beliefs in the reality of fantastic phenomena [may] give rise to genuine constructive memory errors in line with their fantasies."

“To examine how children’s fantasy beliefs can affect memory for their experiences, 5- and 6-year-olds with differing levels of belief in the reality of the Tooth Fairy were prompted to recall their most recent primary tooth loss in either a truthful or fun manner. Many of the children who fully believed in the existence of the Tooth Fairy reported supernatural experiences consistent with the myth..., whereas those who realized the fictionality of the myth recalled mainly realistic experiences."

Define "supernatural" and "realistic," science.

If you're looking to purchase children's drawings of the tooth fairy, consider this one, available in 5 x 7 for $7.49 plus shipping.

Keep in mind, you're buying a print, not the original. 

If you're looking for the original, hand-drawn kid tooth fairy drawings, stained with the tears shed as the they watched their parents sell them, talk to me.

-

[via]

Everyone's Quitting Facebook

More news to support my sad theory that Facebook is in its "bloated purple dead-on-a-toilet phase": 100,000 British people quit Facebook last month. Even I'm shocked by that number, though. 100,000? What are they all doing with themselves?

Your first inclination is to think, ah, that's great, they're probably getting out into the world, living life instead of clicking through somebody else's. But with society having grown so social media-centric, quitting Facebook can seriously hurt their chances of finding a boyfriend or girlfriend, leaving them depressed and emaciated. Also if they go out and climb a tree, they'll probably just fall because their arms are so weak from technology. This Facebook exodus could be the most ill-fated British surrender since the Siege of Yorktown. There, I said it.

What would it take to get you to quit Facebook? I think this question has already been asked on lots of sites, but let's pretend I just thought of it for the first time. For me, I'd quit if it meant saving the life of a single anonymous child somewhere in the world. Anywhere, even someplace I don't like. Would you? What if you couldn't even use someone else's account to brag about it?

-

British Children Are Growing Weaker

Finally.

10% of them can't even hang from a bar, and their arm strength is 26% less than it was ten years ago. The study, from London Metropolitan University, thinks it's either due to computers or lawyers:

"Falling off a branch use to be a good lesson in picking yourself up and learning to climb better. Now fear of litigation stops the child from climbing in the first place." (A branch?)

At this rate, in 40 years -- assuming we'll be able to type with our eyes by them -- British kids probably won't have arms at all, just little flipper nubs. They'll still be able to play cricket, technically, but it'll be a different verison that's mostly tragic to watch and gets cancelled when it's too sunny.

-