Science has spoken: Sarcasm makes you smarter

It has taken more than 20 years, but there is finally scientific justification for this column/blog/whatever you want to call it. Of course, regular readers of Notes From the Field cherish it for its insightful analysis, considered reasoning, and well-tempered opinions on all things tech.

As if.

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But it turns out that Notes From the Field’s real value is the heavy dose of sarcasm contained in each post. Don’t take my word for it — Richard Chin says so. He’s the author of this piece about the science of sarcasm at Smithsonian.com, which is the best bit of news I’ve read in weeks. To wit:

For the past 20 years, researchers from linguists to psychologists to neurologists have been studying our ability to perceive snarky remarks and gaining new insights into how the mind works. Studies have shown that exposure to sarcasm enhances creative problem solving, for instance. Children understand and use sarcasm by the time they get to kindergarten. An inability to understand sarcasm may be an early warning sign of brain disease.

It turns out that in my own little way I’ve been helping to hone the brains of America’s youth. I think I may ask for a raise. (Hey, if Mashable’s Ben Parr can get a $250,000 bonus simply for regurgitating other people’s stories online, I think I deserve something a little extra, don’t you?)

It gets better. Chin continues:

Sarcasm seems to exercise the brain more than sincere statements do. Scientists who have monitored the electrical activity of the brains of test subjects exposed to sarcastic statements have found that brains have to work harder to understand sarcasm.

That extra work may make our brains sharper, according to another study. College students in Israel listened to complaints to a cellphone company’s customer service line. The students were better able to solve problems creatively when the complaints were sarcastic as opposed to just plain angry. Sarcasm “appears to stimulate complex thinking and to attenuate the otherwise negative effects of anger,” according to the study authors.

In other words, readers of this blog are smarter too. Doesn’t that make you feel better? See, there’s something in this story for everyone.

Sarcasm is also more likely to happen in places just like this one.

Among strangers, sarcasm use soars if the conversation is via an anonymous computer chat room as opposed to face to face, according to a study by Jeffrey Hancock, a communications professor at Cornell University. This may be because it’s safer to risk some biting humor with someone you’re never going to meet. He also noted that conversations typed on a computer take more time than a face to face discussion. People may use that extra time to construct more complicated ironic statements.

Excuse me while I come up with something suitably snarky in response to that. Just carry on reading, I’ll get there eventually.

In my long and (ahem) storied career writing for print and pixels, I have often encountered individuals who just don’t understand. They don’t get the joke, take satire deadly seriously, and would not recognize irony if it clanked them on the head from a great height. Over the years I’ve developed a theory that, due to some failure of brain chemistry or structure, these people are unable to hold two conflicting thoughts in their head at the same time — really, the basis for all nonphysical humor — and are thus doomed to a life of unmitigated dullness, not to mention a long string of really inane blog comments.

(Also, such people are unable to decipher this sentence: “Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.” Not sure what that has to do with anything, but I thought I’d just throw that in there.)

Now, thanks to Richard Chin, I have a scientific underpinning for this otherwise completely fabricated theory. He writes:

There are a lot of things that can cause our sarcasm detectors to break down, scientists are finding. Conditions including autism, closed head injuries, brain lesions and schizophrenia can interfere with the ability to perceive sarcasm.

Researchers at the University of California at San Francisco, for example, recently found that people with fronto-temporal dementia have difficulty detecting sarcasm. Neuropsychologist Katherine Rankin has suggested that a loss of the ability to pick up on sarcasm could be used as an early warning sign to help diagnose the disease. “If someone who has the sensitivity loses it, that’s a bad sign,” Rankin says. “If you suddenly think Stephen Colbert is truly right wing, that’s when I would worry.”

OK, quick show of hands: How many of you have friends who think Stephen Colbert really is a conservative (or at least, did until he was hired to host White House Correspondents Dinner in 2006)? Yeah, that’s exactly what I thought.

Don’t get the jokes? You musta done got hit on the head there, mister. Why don’t you set a spell and see if the punchline finally makes sense to ya.

Also: People in the north (and men) are much more likely to be sarcastic than people in the south (and women). Ya think?

Bottom line: If you’ve been reading this blog for years and don’t realize that it’s 99 44/100th percent pure sarcasm, I think it’s time to schedule a brain scan.

Do you find this blog sarcastic? Does the word “duh” mean anything to you? Post your snarky thoughts below or email me: cringe@infoworld.com.

This article, “Science has spoken: Sarcasm makes you smarter,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the crazy twists and turns of the tech industry with Robert X. Cringely’s Notes from the Field blog, and subscribe to Cringely’s Notes from the Underground newsletter.