tvSmarter

You’ve probably already read about this new study
that found that Obesity can spread from friend
to friend.

According to the New York Times article:

The answer, the researchers report, was that people were most likely to become obese when a friend became obese. That increased a person’s chances of becoming obese by 57 percent. There was no effect when a neighbor gained or lost weight, however, and family members had less influence than friends.

It did not even matter if the friend was hundreds of miles away, the influence remained. And the greatest influence of all was between close mutual friends. There, if one became obese, the other had a 171 percent increased chance of becoming obese, too.

The same effect seemed to occur for weight loss, the investigators say. But since most people were gaining, not losing, over the 32 years, the result was, on average, that people grew fatter.

But how does obesity (or weight loss) spread
from person to person?

Read more »

Lisa of The Toby show wrote a very heartening
piece about being inspired (partly by Unplug Your
Kids and tvSmarter!)  to cut back on her son’s
TV watching.

She writes about having the best of intentions to
keep TV to a minimum, but how easy it is for it to
creep up to higher levels. Educational and “age-appropriate”
videos can seem so benign and innocuous that watching
more is completely easy (like falling off a log).

Read more »

Here is a comment I posted at the Scientific
American website regarding Television Addiction
Is No Mere Metaphor

Read more »

The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC)
has forced Disney to stop marketing “Baby Einstein”
videos as “Educational”.

Excellent work CCFC !!!!

Here is a copy of CCFC’s announcement:

Read more »

“Self-regulation is a critical skill for kids.
Unfortunately, most kids today spend a lot of
time doing three things: watching television,
playing video games and taking lessons. None
of these activities promote self-regulation.”

- Alix Spiegel

Unplug Your Kids has a very interesting post about an
NPR article and interview. In this NPR article,
Alix Spiegel describes how creative play is essential
for the development of self-regulation and
“executive function”.

Read more »

At allexperts.com I posted a question about Alpha/TV/Orienting:

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Neuroscience-2933/2008/1/Brainwave-Paradox.htm

Kai Schreiber, the expert helping me out here, gave an excellent
an thoughtful answer.

Thank you Kai !

Note,  Kai Schreiber has a Graduate Degree in Neuroscience
and a PhD in Physiology.

Read more »

There are numerous excellent anti-tv
websites out there (see my blogroll),
the reason I decided to create tvSmarter
was because I felt there were some facts
about TV and arguments that needed to be
more widely known.  Namely:

Read more »

As Marshall McLuhan said “the medium is the message”.

*How* you get your information and entertainment
is extremely important.

For example reading the news as opposed to watching the news:

- TV: information is conveyed to the viewer very quickly.
      If you didn’t understand the argument or discussion,
      you can’t go back and instantly re-watch it, or slow
      down the discussion to make things more clear. Also
      it’s easy for facts and figures to get muddled because
      of how fast things move on TV (kind of like listening
      to a fast talking used car salesman).

- print: information is conveyed at the reader’s speed.
      The reader can read slowly or reread a section
      that is particularly complicated or involved.
      If something peaks your curiosity, or something
      doesn’t seem logical, you can easily google the
      terms to find out more from different sources.
     

Read more »

In “Twilight of the Books”, author Caleb Crain
notes that “… a series of British studies
in which people who read transcripts of television
newscasts, political programs, advertisements,
and science shows recalled more information
than those who had watched the shows themselves.”

For more info on these studies see:

Read more »

According to the latest NEA analysis, reading for
pleasure in America is continuing to decline.

Now, author, Caleb Crain, writing in the New Yorker,
looks at this decline in reading (having been replaced
with TV and video) and what this means for society.

Read more »

In March, 2007 I put up a new page:

http://www.tvsmarter.com/documents/reading.html

which is also the new homepage www.tvsmarter.com

The inspiration for this page is the book

“The Power of Reading, Second Edition: Insights
from the Research (2004)”  by Stephen Krashen

I just finished reading this book in January, and
it absolutely blew me away. I had no idea reading
for pleasure was so beneficial.

We know that learning to speak is instinctual for
children, that as long as the adults around them
talk to them, that language will come naturally.

Reading, on the other hand, is not quite so
natural. Children need to be taught the mechanics
of sounding out words, and helped along as they
learn the basics. But, according to Dr. Krashen’s
book, once these basics are mastered, becoming
a good reader is also instinctual and natural
as long as certain conditions are met.

These conditions are:

Read more »

Since my last post, I’ve made a large number
of changes to tvsmarter. Especially to the
Democracy page, Aggression page and the
Consumerism page.

   *   *   *   *

A big thank you to Chris who sent me these links:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/persuaders/

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/persuaders/interviews/rapaille.html

Despite the fact that Frontline is a TV show, these have
great video clips describing the effort and sophistication
used to get us to buy.

Also, this is where I got the great Frank Luntz quote
(now near the top of the Democracy Page) and inspired
me to add a “Product Placement” category to the Democracy
and the Consumerism pages.

Read more »

My pet peeve is scientists who use the term
overstimulating when discussing the deleterious
effects of TV on small children.

“The rapidly changing images and sounds of
television, even in educational children’s
programming, are certainly mesmerizing to
young children but can be *overstimulating*,
scientists say.”

Read more »

Regarding the shocking Pro-torture bill just passed
by the senate, here is an overview by Glenn Greenwald:

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/09/legalization-of-torture-an_115945829460324274.html

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/09/george-bushs-vast-new-powers-of.html

Alternet also did article on this bill. And here are my comments:

Public Support for Torture

Read more »

This amazing Guardian article describes how Bhutan,
a Buddhist sanctuary (Shangri-la), was transformed
by the 1999 introduction of satellite TV.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,3605,975769,00.html

From the www.whitedot.org  (Letters Section)

http://www.mfbb.net/whitedotboard/whitedotboard-about55.html