All it takes is for a journalist to ask her if she has published data.
1) Clever person doesn't like something unpopular that adolescents tend to do a lot of. Take your pick: texting, video games, raves, punk rock, skateboarding, disco, heavy metal, The Monkees, comic books, the Jitterbug, Zoot Suits, dungarees, bloomers... hell, we could probably take this clear back to curdled milk. 2) Clever person toys with the idea that "something unpopular that kids tend to do a lot of" hinders said adolescents in something that clever person happens to be an expert in. NOTE: If the clever person is a psychologist/behavioral scientist/village elder/shaman/wiseman, said clever person's idea will gain much more traction. 3) One of clever person's associates repeats the idea to social media/local beat reporter/town crier, whom immediately repeats claim for entertainment value, because everybody hates "something unpopular that adolescents tend to do a lot of" (with the notable exception of the kids, whom everyone also hates because they tend to act like teenagers) 4) Clever person finds themselves the center of attention, with concerned "think of the children" types around them 24-7. Concerned "think of the children" types breathlessly hound clever person for an elaboration on his "theory" (which was actually more of a "wild hair") but prove themselves fundamentally incapable of following along with the clever person (their cleverness is typically inversely proportional to their passion and directly proportional with their need to find a scapegoat for the behavior of one or more adolescents in their immediate care). Clever person meets with the most enthusiasm the less evidence, reason or fact-based analysis he uses. 5) Other clever people who are clever enough to follow along with the first clever person's reasoning ask for it... often in a skeptical tone of voice. Now acclimated to slavish adulation from stupid people, the original clever person deflects this unwelcome threat to their new social status by turning the mob on their questioners. 6) The clever person and his mob run rampant over public opinion until they've annoyed enough bystanders that a few of them are pissed off enough to ask the skeptical clever people to explain their doubts. The mob then reverses and vilifies the original clever person. 7) The town crier/local beat reporter/social media then focuses on the vilification of the clever person, because people are stupid and shouldn't be forced to think for themselves. 8) Monty Python makes a movie about it. Steps 1-7 are all too common and step 8 is all too rare.
Who is this woman? What has she wrought upon the sponge-like minds? Such farcical tales of technological woe do not instruct according to OUR will. These devices were built to be bought. These systems were built to be utilized! This the path of OUR will. This woman has no place in that ivory tower. She spoils her privileges on selfish poppycock! Get in line, Ms. Baroness Greenfield. Baroness!?! What times are these? Good Lord.
The question for me is how do these people get (and hold onto) such prestigious positions? There are so many talented scientists who can't get tenure-track jobs that it blows my mind when I hear about quacks who have them. Sad.
The guys in the middle aren't really advancing anything fundamental; they're moving incrementally. Anyone not making incremental moves (either forward or backward) is going to be called a kook by someone. Semmelweiss died in an insane asylum, for example, and Galileo was excommunicated not because the church thought he was wrong, but because the church thought the public couldn't handle it.
That's most of what is going on. However, although I have little interest in this type of science, this filling-in-of-holes is purposeful stuff. Sometimes it takes the guy that spends 30 years in a corner to find out that we can build robots that swim like frog sperm or something crazy like that. But yeah, it's numbing to see the number of articles that are basically: "we did this and saw that". Even so, I think ideology can drive science, but it can't inform it. That's the mistake that is made time and time again. Especially by those that have been rewarded when their ideology and science matched before.
My whole point is that when you make more than an incremental change you're going to run into trouble. You get a buy if what you're doing has no fundamental impact on the day-to-day lives of the proles - Newton, Hawking, Einstein, Mendeleev, etc - but if your research will actually change the behavior of society you're going to run into trouble. Likewise, if your research says that society has fundamentally changed (the ID guys, etc... although I'm loath to call them "researchers") you're in the same boat. Knowledge must be pursued for its own sake. Knowledge in support of ideology never ends well.