This is Ben Worthen, a Wall Street Journal reporter, explaining recently to NPRs Diane Rehm why he took the iPad away from his son, even though it was the only thing that could hold the boys attention for long periods, and it seemed to be sparking an interest in numbers and letters. Most parents can sympathize with the disturbing sight of a toddler, who five minutes earlier had been jumping off the couch, now subdued and staring at a screen, seemingly hypnotized. In the somewhat alarmist Endangered Minds: Why Children Dont Thinkand What We Can Do About It, author Jane Healy even gives the phenomenon a name, the zombie effect, and raises the possibility that television might suppress mental activity by putting viewers in a trance.
Ever since viewing screens entered the home, many observers have worried that they put our brains into a stupor. An early strain of research claimed that when we watch television, our brains mostly exhibit slow alpha wavesindicating a low level of arousal, similar to when we are daydreaming. These findings have been largely discarded by the scientific community, but the myth persists that watching television is the mental equivalent of, as one Web site put it, staring at a blank wall. These common metaphors are misleading, argues Heather Kirkorian, who studies media and attention at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. A more accurate point of comparison for a TV viewers physiological state would be that of someone deep in a book, says Kirkorian, because during both activities we are still, undistracted, and mentally active.
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