Effects of television and computers on learning and emotional intelligence
As a counselor and life coach, I have always taken a firm stance. against have a television or computer in any child’s or adolescent’s room, period. Yes, we use this rule in our own home. Sometimes we had objections and that’s fine. It did not change our actions.
My rationale is twofold. First, I see social isolation, declining socio-emotional skills, declining interaction with peers, and increasing disrespect for authority on the part of children and teens who have electronic gadgets in their bedrooms.
Having visual electronic devices in children’s bedrooms decreases the amount of time families spend together, increases the risk of early exposure to pornography and children behave sexually, decreases the number of family dinners, and decreases the amount of time spent spending time together. social play with other young people. The negative impact of this is also evident in the school. These children have shorter attention spans, more often want to get away with it, have lower-than-average social skills, and often feel socially isolated.
The second reason is to know a thing or two about brain development. He knew that the use of television and the computer does not influence normal brain development or the brain stimulation necessary for our young people to be healthy and happy. We now have a lot of research to back that up.
Let’s see the summary of the research of Joseph Chilton Pearce, academic, scientist and professor. He says, “First, if you want to have intelligent, successful, and healthy children, they must have positive emotional experiences. This begins at home through unconditional love, appropriate loving contact, and a safe and secure environment. It then extends to our lives. learning environments. we want true learning, learning that involves the upper frontal lobes … the creative intellectual brain … the emotional environment must be positive and supportive. The defenses of the reptilian brain. ” Bottom line: to have a better functioning child, we need to nurture the head and the heart. The heart and brain communicate with each other in an intricate symphony of ganglion cells, neural networks, and neurotransmitters.
Pearce talks about the damaging effects of television and computers on growing brains Nonetheless of content. “Television literally stunts neural growth in children’s developing brains. When young children watch too much, it suppresses their brains’ ability to develop imagination.” This has to do with the way the brain reacts to radiant light. Children’s brains “shut down” (stop the thought process).
The television industry has countered this by introducing “startle effects” into children’s programming. This makes the brain think there might be an emergency and alerts the brain to pay special attention. This is accomplished by dramatic changes in the intensity of light, sound, and rapidly changing camera angles. According to Pearce “Every 10 years, the television industry ups the ante by making the startles bigger, now there are an average of 16 episodes of violence every half hour in children’s cartoons. receives any hint of negativity or danger, it disappears from its usual harmonic mode into an incoherent one, triggering the release of the most potent hormone in the human body, known as cortisol. Cortisol instantly awakens the brain and causes it to produce billions of neural links to prepare the individual to face the emergency “.
Computer monitors have a similar effect due to radiant light. The researchers assigned the students to 3 groups where the same information was presented at a fourth grade reading level in 3 different media. Group A had a sheet of plain paper; Group B was shown a movie with the page; Group C saw a computer monitor. The students were then assessed to verify retention of the information.
Group A averaged 85% retention after viewing an article; Group B had an average retention of 25% to 30% after watching a movie screen; Group C had an average retention of 3% to 5% after viewing a computer monitor. “Computers and television are changing our children’s brains. We must encourage our children to develop the ability to think first and then give them a computer. Pearce locates Piaget’s developmental research” The first twelve years of life are spent putting into practice the structures of knowledge that allow young people to capture abstract, metaphoric, symbolic types of information … the danger is that the computer and television interrupt this development “.