Editor’s Note: Molly Wood is an executive editor and on-camera personality at CNETTV.com. Molly hosts the weekly Buzz Report video blog, a sort of "Daily Show" for tech news, and co-hosts the hilarious "Gadgettes" podcast, which proves that girls can (and should!) be geeks, too.

United Kingdom parents received a "chilling warning" this week when a British neuroscientist said social networking, video games, instant messaging and micro-blogging will permanently "rewire" the brains of young people and turn them into socially inept piles of mush with baby-like brains. She even went so far as to suggest, obliquely anyway, that extended computer use could be responsible for increasing rates of autism, although she presented absolutely no research, scientific or otherwise, that might back up that claim.

Obviously, the tech community disagrees with Lady Susan Greenfield’s assessment. But here’s the thing: For all her fear-mongering, there’s one thing Greenfield probably has right. She argues that the minds of the next generation will be fundamentally changed by their exposure to technology and computer interaction. And they will be. And we’re going to have to let it happen, because that’s the only way for this technology tug-of-war to work itself out.

I’m 33 years old, and since I was a child, the role of technology in my life has increased exponentially. And if you buy the concept of accelerating returns — that is, the idea that the rate of change itself is increasing, it’s clear that the technological impact on our children will be just as phenomenal. So I would actually go a step beyond what Lady Greenfield is arguing (but, hopefully, with a lot more optimism attached). Assuming that the Web, social networks, video games and instant messaging aren’t going anywhere, the next step is that our children will start interacting on multiple levels of virtual reality. They might start incorporating more and more biological machinery. Nanotechnology could become a huge reality in their lives and change everything about the way things are made and even experienced. Will the minds of the mid-21st-century human be different, as Lady Greenfield posits? To bring the level of discussion down a little bit, the obvious answer is, "Um, duh, lady."

Our minds are being rewired constantly. They’re evolving along with the evolving circumstances of our lives. And the only reason to be so afraid of the increasing impact of technology on the minds of our children is because we’re afraid we won’t be able to keep up — and hasn’t that been every parent’s lament? But we won’t keep up. That’s the nature of generations. No, we shouldn’t ignore the importance of balance, emotional intelligence, social interaction and fresh air in the lives of our children. But technology isn’t going anywhere, and we need for our kids to have the social and mental skills to navigate that world as well. And that might just mean easing up on the panic about the baby BlackBerry and letting boys release their aggression and learn about teamwork with video games. And even embracing the unadulterated evil that is The Facebook. Don’t cripple them while you’re trying to protect them. They’re the ones who have to live their futures. They need all the tools they can get.

That’s the topic of this week’s Buzz Report, as well as some thoughts on Apple’s newest version of the Safari browser, a possible PlayStation 3 price cut and the awesome power of celebrity gossip. Watch this week’s episode here:

Note: A version of this article appeared earlier this week on my personal blog.