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terry33 — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 08:18:49 +0000

kill your tv.

Originally uploaded by yes, spaz.

Lately my anti-TV blogroll has increased substantially.

For some fun reading on TV, anti-TV and Instead of TV check out these new blogs:

Ellen Currey-Wilson – Confessions of a TV-Addicted Mom Trying to Raise a TV-Free Kid

I’m missing all of my shows

Plato’s Cave – The Effects of Television on Humanity, Culture, Society, & the Human Body

Television vs Children – TV is not child friendly and parents deserve to be informed

TV Free Living – Get Out and Live

TV Stinks – finding life away from the television

And, of course, don’t forget these great websites:

Bowling Alone

Instead of TV

Screen Time – Center for Screen-time Awareness

Screen Time – Forum

Trash Your TV – Your Complete Guide to a TV-Free Lifestyle

Turn-off Your TV – Kill Your Television

Unplug Your Kids – Living a TV-free life … with a few crafts and books thrown in!

White Dot – the international campaign against television

White Dot – Forum

Media by Choice

terry33 — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 06:07:09 +0000

Regarding screens in public places, there is a whole website devoted to the subject.

Check out: Media by Choice

For me “screens in public places” was not such a big issue, perhaps because where I live, blaring screens everywhere is not such a problem. But reading the excellent Media by Choice gave me a new perspective. I especially liked the description of the Ray Bradbury story in the Welcome page.

Baby Einstein Refunds

terry33 — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:39:53 +0000

Congratulations to the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) !

Note: for a list of studies looking at the effects of TV on very young children see: http://www.tvsmarter.com/documents/young.html

CCFC successfully pressured “the Walt Disney Company to offer a full refund to anyone who purchased a Baby Einstein DVD in the last five years.”

This is in addition to their ”2006 Federal Trade Commission complaint” which forced Disney to stop making false claims that Baby Einstein DVDs were educational.

From The New York Times article on the Baby Einstein Refunds:

Last year, lawyers threatened a class-action lawsuit for unfair and deceptive practices unless Disney agreed to refund the full purchase price to all who bought the videos since 2004. “The Walt Disney Company’s entire Baby Einstein marketing regime is based on express and implied claims that their videos are educational and beneficial for early childhood development,” a letter from the lawyers said, calling those claims “false because research shows that television viewing is potentially harmful for very young children.”

Perhaps “Baby Einstein” should be renamed “Baby Bozo” !

But it was the comments that were the most fun, here are a few that I especially liked:

I watched some of these videos with my grandson. All it teaches is how to watch television.

Einstein did not watch TV as a child. Neither did he play video games or text anyone. He played outdoors and did a lot of hiking in the mountains. So if parents want little Einsteins, maybe they should take away the TV, the cell phones and the video games and tell their kids to go take a hike.

There’s been evidence that these videos actually inhibit mental development. Studies also suggest that face to face interaction between a baby and a live person is far more beneficial. A parent’s reaction to a baby’s noises or attempts at speech is where the true benefit for linguistic development lies.

Make them offer refunds on all Disney productions that decreased intellect. No shortage of those.

For years I’ve also heard that putting any child under 2 in front of the tv can harm their later ability to concentrate and learn. I’m wondering, did the Baby Einstein videos not just not help – but possibly have harmed – the babies who watched them?

Fantastic news. I’ve been angry about those video’s for years already. I hope this is the start of recognition for the fact that tv does not make children (of any age) smarter. Children learn by playing, by interacting with the world and by imitating adults.

Folks, the fact that your child watched these videos and is now well-adjusted and above average means nothing. The evidence says that they would have been well-adjusted and above average without the videos as well – and that the only effect was that you very slightly increased their chances of having attention problems later in like. Anecdotal evidence is pointless here – in general, kids shouldn’t watch TV before age 2. Period. If your kid is doing well, great! Odds are, they’d be doing just a little bit better without the videos.
People managed to raise their children (and even bathe) 50 years ago without everpresent TV. Work a little less, buy less junk, and spend more time with your kids. It’s not impossible.

Remember when George W. Bush praised the founder of Baby Einstein at one of his State of the Union speeches? Just like “the ownership society” where everyone can get a mortgage or “being greeted like liberators”, is there anything he said or did that didn’t seem to get seriously questioned in the end?

TV Brain Wave Published Studies

terry33 — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 09:37:47 +0000

One more new page:

http://www.tvsmarter.com/documents/brainwaves3.html

TV Brain Wave Published Studies

from the textbook

The Neuropsychology of Everyday Life: Issues in Development and Rehabilitation

December 31, 1990

Edited by David E. Tupper and Keith D. Cicerone

Chapter 4 “Cognition and Watching Television”

written by John J. Burns and Daniel R. Anderson

Note: References listed on pages 106-108

Reading the chapter “Cognition and Watching Television” by Burns and Anderson, it becomes very clear that the authors do not believe that reading elicits faster brain waves than watching television. They believe that any slowing (or quickening) of the brain waves would be due to content rather than the medium.

“Despite the evidence of different patterns of EEG when comparing television viewing to other cognitive activities such as reading, this difference does not necessarily mean television is cognitively less demanding than reading. The fact that only one study effectively varied content differences across media points to a major deficit in much of the research comparing TV viewing to other activities. In fact, the most important finding may simply be that different kinds of content have different cognitive demand. ” – From page 105

Unfortunately there are very few studies looking at EEG brain wave patterns of television viewing compared to other activities. Of the 5 studies that have been done (as described in this chapter), three did find greater amounts of fast brain wave activity while reading than while watching television. One study found no appreciable difference, and one study found that complex TV content elicited more fast brain waves than simple reading content.

The authors concluded that the three studies finding slower brainwaves during TV watching were flawed. The one study that found little difference was not criticized. And the only study, Radlick (1980), which found that content mattered much more than medium, was lauded as a excellent, defining study. Note: All the studies were published except for the Radlick study which was an unpublished doctoral dissertation.

But to the vast and amazing credit of Burns and Anderson, what they did do was to publish descriptions of these studies comparing the EEG brain waves of people reading versus watching TV. They were willing to do this despite the fact that 3 of the 5 studies discovered results that Burns and Anderson do not agree with. This is a prime example of intellectual honesty.

Personally, I agree with the authors of the article “Television Addiction Is No Mere Metaphor” – Scientific American (Feb 2002) and Full Text. It is the frequency of the “Formal Features” (the camera cuts, pans, zooms), that trigger the “orienting response” that effect brain wave activity not complexity of content. Note, regarding the one study that found hardly any EEG difference between TV and reading, perhaps the experimenters picked TV shows or video that contained very few “formal features”, which would explain the lack of difference. Or it could be that they only looked at alpha and beta waves (where the differences between TV watch and reading are minor) and did not look at the very fast hi-beta and gamma waves where the drop-off while TV watching is quite large.

Here are excerpts from their chapter, describing the experiments:

Krugman (1971) - The Experiment – Page 99

“Early comparisons between EEG while watching TV and EEG while reading were based on the popular as well as academic belief that TV viewing is passive. Based on William James’ conceptualization of duel attention systems (voluntary and involuntary attention), Krugman (1971) posited that whereas reading involved a series of successive efforts to attend (demanded voluntary attention), TV viewing involved little or no voluntary effort. Using an EEG measure from the occipetal area, Krugman found a preponderance of slow waves (alpha, delta and theta frequencies) whereas the corresponding characteristic response for EEG during reading involved little slow wave activity and considerable high-frequency or beta activity. He interpreted these findings as supporting the idea that the two media are processed differently, consistent with James’ idea of two attentional systems.”

- Krugman, H. (1971). Brainwave measures of media involvement. Journal of Advertising Research 11, 3-9. Also reprinted in the book How Advertising Works

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Weinstein, Appel, and Weinstein (1980) - The Experiment – Page 99

“These hypotheses were expanded and examined in detail by Weinstein, Appel, and Weinstein (1980). The authors hypothesized that looking at magazine ads would generate more overall beta wave activity, as well as more left hemisphere beta wave activity, than would looking at television ads. They further hypothesized that advertisements that generated more beta wave activity would also generate higher levels of brand recall. Based on data from 30 women, they found support for their hypothesis that magazine ads generate more beta wave activity, but support for their hypothesis that magazine ads would generate more left brain beta wave activity and greater brand recall was less impressive.”

- Appel, V., Weinstein, S., & Weinstein, C. (1979). Brain activity and recall of TV. Journal of Advertising Research 19, 7-15. Brain activity and recall of TV

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Featherman et al. (1979) - The Experiment – Page 100

“The idea that television viewing may require less effortful processing than reading was directly examined by Featherman and colleagues (1979). They speculated that since the majority of people view TV to relax, this activity would involve a reduction in the frequency of saccades. They also hypothesized that, when compared with reading, television viewing would result in reduced levels of cortical activation in the occipital region. Decreased cortical activation was operationalized as increased alpha along with decreased beta and theta activity. In an effort to minimize the environmental differences between the two activities Featherman et al. (1979) displayed reading material on a television screen.”

“Featherman et al. (1979) found a significant decrease in both theta and beta activity during television when compared to reading. However, while television did produce a higher level of alpha than reading, this difference is not significant.”

- Featherman, G., Frieser, D., Greenspun, D., Harris, B., Shulman, D., & Crown, P. (1979). Electroencephalographic and electrooculographic correlates of television viewing. Final Technical Report: National Science Foundation Student-Oriented Studies (Grant No. SP178-03698). Hampshire College; Amhurst, MA.

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Walker (1980) - The Experiment – Page 100

“Walker (1980) had a group of university students engage in a variety of more or less demanding cognitive tasks, including resting with eyes closed, counting backwards, reading and viewing television. Walker recorded EEG during these activities, giving special attention to levels of beta and alpha. His results indicated that reading and television viewing were associated with the highest levels of beta and lowest levels of alpha. Comparisons between reading and television viewing revealed that although reading was characterized by slightly higher levels of beta and slightly lower levels of alpha, these differences were not statistically significant. The general pattern of results from these studies are slight, often non significant, differences between the media.”

- Walker, J. (1980). Changes in EEG rhythms during television viewing; Preliminary comparisons with reading and other tasks. Perceptual and Motor Skills 51, 255-261.

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Radlick (1980) - The Experiment – Page 100

“In a similar vein, Radlick (1980) used EEG recordings in an attempt to determine if television viewing could be characterized as different in terms of processing demands when compared to reading and resting. To assess the possible effects of within-activity complexity, however, Radlick included four television stimuli varying in terms of content complexity as well as visual and auditory complexity. Radlick’s results indicated that while reading produced more depth of processing, mental effort, and left hemisphere activation than the less complex television segments, the more complex television segments produced more depth of processing, mental effort, and left hemisphere activation than reading. This result indicates that content complexity is the determining factor in the EEG Studies comparing media. In most of the studies content was not controlled. Like Krugman (1971) and Weinstein et al. (1980), Radlick interpreted decreased alpha and increased beta as reflecting increased cognitive processing. Radlick also concluded that the rapid pace of visual or auditory television stimuli did not produce reduced attention or arousal.”

- Radlick, M.S. (1980). The processing demands of television: Neurological correlates of television viewing. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY.

Burns and Anderson’s Criticisms of 3 of the 5 studies:

Krugman (1971) - The Criticism – Page 99

“Krugman’s widely publicized findings were based on EEG recordings of one subject who was told to first look at several magazine ads, then to watch three commercials. The subject spent 15 minutes looking through the magazines before viewing the commercials, which were repeated several times. Though his findings are interesting, the use of a single subject limits their generalizability.”

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Weinstein, Appel, and Weinstein (1980) - The Criticism – Page 99

“While Weinstein and colleagues provide justification for acceptance of the hypothesis that looking at magazine ads produce more beta, subsequent interpretations and manipulations of the data used in assessing their remaining hypothesis are open to question. For example, they based their conclusions on data based on 18 of the original 30 subjects, those 18 subjects selected in order to maximize differences between conditions. In addition, the authors contended that since beta waves are indicative of increased attention, the magazine ads were more close attended to than the television ads. It is relevant to note that although there was some effort made to control for content differences in the two media by matching print ads with their corresponding TV ads, this manipulation does not eliminate the possibility that content differences accounted for their findings. A difference in task difficulty as a function of content may explain why subjects exhibited proportionally more beta wave activity when looking at magazine ads than when looking at TV ads.”

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Featherman et al. (1979) - The Criticism – Page 100

“With regards to saccades, these authors found that the frequency was somewhat reduced during television viewing when compared to reading. They pointed out, however, that these results may be confounded because content differences within TV viewing and between media viewing conditions were not controlled. These latter results are, in many respects, similar to those obtained by Krugman (1971) and Weinstein et al. (1980).”

When they wrote this chapter, Burns and Anderson were quite skeptical of the published experiments showing that the brain waves of people watching TV are slower than the brain waves of those same people while reading. Similarly, I am quite skeptical of the published study showing hardly any difference. And I am especially skeptical of the unpublished study finding that content is all-important.

The reason I am skeptical of these 2 studies, is that I have done the experiment numerous times myself and have consistently found that reading a novel elicits much greater amounts of hi-beta and gamma brainwaves than watching TV (especially TV with frequent “formal features”). Drawing and playing guitar elicited even more hi-beta and gamma brain waves than reading or watching TV.

All these published studies were done before 1980, back when computing power was very expensive, and only scientists and doctors had access to EEG machines. But now, amazingly powerful personal computers are available to anyone, and EEG machines have also come down in price. That is, anyone with access to an EEG machine can do the experiment for themselves. Just 10 minutes of TV watching, compared to 10 minutes of reading, compared to 10 minutes of whatever mental activity of your choice. Most importantly compare the hi-beta and gamma brainwave results. Then, I would most appreciate it if you were to email me the results at terry at tvsmarter.com or post at Comments and Feedback or anywhere else on my blog: http://tvsmarter.wordpress.com/

These scientific studies were done before the rise of the internet, which is one reason why it is almost impossible to find descriptions of these studies. It is very important for scientists to do well-designed versions of these experiments, using up-to-date equipment, and publish the results. Scientific results would provide an objective basis for people to decide for themselves whether TV is a mentally stimulating and engaging medium or just an effective way to zone out and relax. Also, results would provide a rational basis for deciding which, from a brain development point-of-view, is the better show, “Mr. Rogers” (few formal features) or “Sesame Street” (frequent formal features).

“But why does television have such a negative effect on children of this age? “We believe that one reason is the fact that it exposes children to flashing lights, scene changes, quick edits and auditory cuts which may be over stimulating to developing brains” says Professor Christakis. “TV also replaces other more important and appropriate activities like playing or interacting with parents.” – Scientific Blogging (Jan 2009)

Note: scientists have done a large number of EEG studies, looking at what makes a commercial more effective. On the other hand, scientists have only completed 4 published studies comparing the brain waves of people watching TV compared to them reading or some other common activity. Considering the huge amount of TV that young children watch, this oversight is mind-boggling and disgraceful.

For example:

- “Attention and Brain Activity While Watching Television: Components of Viewer Engagement”

- “By scanning the brains of volunteers, advertisers can discover which brands consumers respond to.”

- “Brain scans are helping advertisers find out how to light up customers’ brains, reports Paul Bray”

- “”This is the next generation in market research,” said Hans Lee, chief technology officer for EmSense Corp. The San Francisco startup also is using electro encephalograph, or EEG, technology to correlate brain activity with physiological cues such as skin temperature or eye movement to gauge how people react to ads, computer games, even presidential candidates.

New tvSmarter Pages

terry33 — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 07:30:16 +0000

I’ve added a few new pages to tvSmarter.com, hope you’ll check them out.

Playing versus TV

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

Young Children (babies & toddlers) and TV

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

My Democracy page had gotten too unwieldy, so I divvied it up into:

Democracy & TV

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

Civil Society & TV

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

Propaganda, the News & TV

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

Covert Propaganda & TV

http://www.tvsmarter.com/documents/propaganda2.html

Torture & TV

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

Please let me know if I should change and/or add anything or any other suggestion.

Dove Campaign for Real Beauty

terry33 — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 10:42:51 +0000

Jon Hanson has written an excellent takedown of the “Dove Campaign for Real Beauty”.

Here are a few excerpts:

Several weeks ago, as part of its much lauded “Dove Campaign for Real Beauty,” Unilever released “Onslaught,” a video (above) examining disturbing images of women in beauty-industry advertising. The video ends with this admonition to parents: “Talk to your daughter before the beauty industry does.”

But is talking “to your daughter before the beauty industry does” an effective solution?

It seems peculiar, therefore, that Dove would offer a film demonstrating the ubiquitous attack of the beauty industry that ends with the suggestion to parents that they are the ones to make a difference by simply talking to their kids. If the industry is the problem, it strikes me as odd that the parents are supposed to be the solution.

Hanson, makes a very interesting point, about parallels with Philip Morris ad campaigns.

Telling parents to talk to their children is not unusual as a public relations Philip Morris Talk to your Kids; They’ll Listen strategy. For instance, Philip Morris, among other companies, has long been pushing that message in its “public service” ads, particularly since the industry began to face a real threat of tort liability in the 1990s. The message seems public-spirited, but most industry analysts believe that Philip Morris is delivering, not a public-service message to parents, but a responsibility-shifting message to the public: kids smoke because of uninvolved or irresponsible parents, not because of anything that Philip Morris has done.

This has been a long-time pet peeve of mine. Whatever the negative messages of TV (or the media in general), the solution that is inevitably trotted out, is that “parents should just talk to their kids”.

There is some evidence that parents talking to their kids about what they see on TV does have a small ameliorative effect. But there is no evidence that such talk eliminates the many negative effects of TV.

Plus, watching a lot of TV with your kids and then continuously lecturing them the negative effects of the media seems like a case of mixed signals. Kind of like serving burgers and doughnuts for dinner (night after night), while at the same time lecturing on the importance of healthy meals.

A simpler, and more effective solution is to just turn-off the TV. For some reason this solution is rarely mentioned.