Wednesday 23 May 2012

Imagination and Television

Some people claim TV is good for improving children's imagination and creativity. However scientific studies show otherwise, like this one which studied 400 short stories of kids aged 10-11 year old:
"the ubiquity and ease of access to television and videos perhaps robs today's children of the need to pursue their own thoughts and devise their own occupations". The scientific study also highlighted how children are becoming less creative and imaginative due to tv. ("Television and imagination" by Belton T, in Media, Culture and Society, 2001, 23)

Another good article is:
TV as hyposis

"Robert Kubey and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi did a study which appeared in Scientific American in 2002[1]. Participants carried a beeper which beeped several times a day and when it did, they wrote down what they were doing and how they were feeling.When beeped while watching TV, people recorded feeling relaxed and passive. What was surprising was that the relaxation ended as soon as the TV was switched off, but the feelings of passivity and lowered alertness continued.

Additionally, the participants had more trouble concentrating after viewing than before, and EEG studies showed less mental stimulation (identified by increased alpha brain wave production) while watching TV. Neither occurrences happened as a result of plain old reading.In other words, we associate "watching TV" with "being relaxed" (so we do relax), but after we finish watching we can't concentrate, feel sluggish, and become as stressed (or more so) than before.

Despite all this, of course, we keep on watching."

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