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How technology makes your children dim
AMONGST THE TIDE of filth delivered by our multi-channel, multi-media, monosyllabic youth-oriented technology world, one word stands out as the dirtiest of them all: convergence.
Well, that’s according to eminent scientist Dr Aric Sigman, author of Remotely Controlled – a searing exposé of how screen technology is literally warping the minds of our youth.
Speaking to The INQUIRER, Sigman said lobbyists from the entertainment industry have even tried to bribe him to endorse their pollutants.
They know the damage they are doing, but they’re making a fortune out of it, so the best they can do is buy people’s silence.
“If the medical councils really thought TV and computer games made kids smarter, they’d come right out and say it. Their silence means they obviously don’t. But there must be a reason why they don’t strongly condemn our children’s screen addiction,” he said.
Some of the worst offenders are the makers of educational DVDs and children’s TV, says Sigman.
It’s not the content of the shows per se – it’s the obsession with modern, flashy editing: the jump cuts, the wobbly cameras, flashing lights and constant zooming in and out of focus, all of which are creating a new generation with a massive attention deficit.
Today’s TV has a far more detrimental effect on youth than it did in, say, the seventies, he says.
“Our studies show jump edits happen eight times as rapidly on modern screen productions … The assumption is that we all have limited attention spans, so we have to subject kids to some editing pyrotechnics to get them to watch.”
This ‘Janet Street-Porter’ effect has a tragic results when foisted upon young developing minds. Children whose synapses have yet to be fused are influenced by the bright colours and flashes of light and constant movement they are subjected to. “By exposing kids to these images we are changing the way their brains function – for the worst,” says Sigman.
So even that educational DVD you bought – the one about measuring the money supply, with a sound track by Mantovani – is unlikely to be helping little Sophie, because the rules of modern editing dictate that directors must use every special effect known to man.
Says Sigman: “It doesn’t really matter what programme you watch, it’s flashiness is going to affect your brain,” says Sigman. But the deification of youth among today’s content makers certainly doesn’t help. “Any content seems to validate disrespect, which isn’t a great lesson to be passing on to young minds in their formative years.”
“Kids seem to be portrayed as the wise elders on TV. On EastEnders the other day, Sonia was giving her grandparent sexual and moral advice,” he lamented.
Children have been deluded, by content providers eager to suck up to their buying power. “They say we have to respect them, because a man with a gold chain says so, on the TV. Well actually, you little piece of shit, you need to earn to earn my respect, as you’re financially dependent on me.”
One technology PR bunny, who refused to give her name, secretly reckons Sigman is right, and her clients are wrong uns.
“My friend has a 10 year old - who has no imagination at all. Cannot play, make things up, never really draws unless someone else is doing it and gets bored easily. All she does is watch the TV and DVDs. She had a telly in her bedroom from the age of about one year old.”
But another friend has an only child and lived in countries where there were no toys, no TV, no nothing. But this child grew up highly creative.”
Technology? Pah! We’re mad as hell, and we’re not going to take it any more.
Readers who got this far can win a copy of Sigman’s book, Remotely Controlled. Funniest flame wins. µ
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Personally I think the insertion of blatant plugs for books into my IT reading is damaging my concentration span (for the Inquirer at least).
Not the author of the book, of course, I mean the people that made the above comments.
So a kid gets put in front of the tube from year 1 and someone is surprised that he's a vegetable ?
And of course, instead of berating the adults (sorry, I cannot bring myself to call them "parents") for not doing their job (ie. actually taking care of their offspring), this nutjob blames the TV content.
To the author of this splendid waste of paper : Sir, I don't know you, but you've just blown all credibility you might have had.
The fact that you go on to accuse the medical experts of being in cahoots with the TV moguls is typical of conspiracy theorists : find someone who, in your logic, should speak up but doesn't, and there has to have been money exchanged, right ?
Wrong. Conspiracy theories only prove one thing : that there is a lunatic that believes them.
Personally, if I were a doctor, I'd drag your ass to court for libel.
In any case, many thanks to Nick Booth for bringing my attention to yet another pile of recyclable paper I don't need to waste my time with.
when literacy first spawned, humans rejected it because of a fear of "stopping memorising".

when the press first spawned, humans rejected it because of a fear of "stopping writing".

ad infinitum. THE MASTER IS THE MONSTER. kill the idiots behind the idiocies, don't blame the idiot box!
Sadly, I know parents that rely on children's shows like Veggie Tales to raise their children.

It allows the parents an excuse to escape their children, and unfortunately the TV is no substitute for real flesh and blood...the kids are coming out of it warped and are developing slower than normal.

Just like video games, food, or any other object in life, usage without any self-control or moderation can turn it into a poison.
I am willing to bet "gazillion buckaroos" that even before TV was invented, there were people with no imagination, people who were highly creative and people who knew at least one of each.
"She had a telly in her bedroom from the age of about one year old.” And somehow this is the content providers fault, not the parents? C'mon people do a little real parenting! 
And thinking about it, I started to build things because of the stuff I saw on tv, I started coding because of the computer games I played. Without tv or computers I wouldn't have been an engineer. This guy is just over generalizing his little observations (well, he is not an engineer)
Reading is fundamental. Just turn on yer closed captioning, and the problem's solved! I get plenty of exercise writing comments for The Inquirer. And if I do say so, I'm quite the multi-tasker. . . Watcha this? Ahoy! It's Dopless Tarts in MySpace! I love this show! You never know what will come out of that Pandora's Box!

Children see more, flash of light, in there first five years than their grandparents ever did, the suited man enters, of course they are qualified to give them advice, smashes the easle and desk, and a story's form is completely irrelavant to its content, makes a fire of the kindling. This article was atrocious.
I've been running for three days on a new copy of W2000 on the D: because my server won't let me logon. Dig this, I'm in 16 colors, EVERYTHING LOOKS DIFFERENT and some part of my brain doesn't mind. Maybe it's like TV fast edits, wow man everything is so cool. I'll bet you didn't even know that the "The Inquirer" banner isn't even the same as it's background. A new reality! argh it must be quantum. Actually though I know my mind is fried as the article suggests, c'mon, you know your are too.
I could read Nick Booth's articles all day. Funny, informative and you can just tell that the author is a sexy and well groomed individual.
THIS GIVES US THE RIGHT TO PERPETRATE TEH GENOCIDE OF ALL TELETUBBIES!!!

(except repetition's probably a good thing)
There is no way that is true, we're not a bunch of attention deficit... oohh shiney...
Television has been called "the idiot-box" for a long time already, not surprising to see other media devices being put in the same box.

I still think it's more of how the parents handle the child's activities. Of course leaving the kid the bake in front of the tv, or wandering round the internet is going to leave them a little uninspired. Most of it is junk with little motivation to look at anything else or investigate. TV, with a computer, with a walk to the shops or the local grassland/park/heath/farm, with a visit to the library. Just try and stimulate them with a variety of things so that all that flash from technology is just a small part of the current experiences. 

It probably doesn't help that all this technology is given to us via a flat rectangle of a screen, almost a tunnel-vision effect. Or that it can essentially provide hours of material without repeating (i.e. there's only so many hours you can play skip-rope before you want to do something else while TV channels have whole day/week/season schedules where the only repetition is the news).