There are many interesting things in this article about young children watching TeeVee.
http://thecelebritycafe.com/features/1250.html
“The study showed that children, especially young ones, got way too engrossed in the shows, and often became agitated if the shows were turned off.“
I have a nickname for the infernal device, the Hypmo-tizer. I watch as kids sit down, tune in, and turn off. You can’t talk to them, they will hear, nod their heads and not understand a word you say.
Adult: “Hi Suzy, how was your day?”
Suzy: “Mmph.”
Adult: “Oh, by the way, Suzy, your hair is on fire.”
Suzy: “Mmph.”
Walk in front of the Hypmo-tizer and they will scream, “get out of the way!”. It is not only children who exhibit this, growed-ups do it too, they just don’t get quite as agitated, unless the Game is on.
And this is even more interesting to me.
“Scientists involved in the project said that television can ‘reprogram the brain’.“
The concept that our brains are in many ways programmed. I’ve always thought that we become programmed to think in certain patterns by the environments we develop in. I was actually thinking about this last night in regards to music and the music we listen to as we grow up. See Halley for a related musical item (my Beatles ablums were a hand me down from my older brother, I got the old worn out mono versions when he upgraded to the Stereo versions. Makes me wonder how many times over the decades we will re-purchase all those songs). I wondered if the music I listened to as a young person helped to develop patterns in my brain that have affected the way my mind works now as an adult?
Can you say Neal Stephenson’s “Snowcrash?” This reviewer describes it here:
http://www.spies.com/~rawdon/books/sf/stephenson.html
“Stephenson postulates that the human brain is like a computer which can be “programmed”. Modern humans run a certain set of programs, but this virus (among others) bypasses the “high-level” programming and works at a much lower level, effectively rewriting our software.”