Happy Tuesday. May this day bring you many blessings.
Today is a new day. Yesterday is gone, and tomorrow is not promised to any of us. Therefore, take advantage of today.
If someone throws you lemons, make a glass or even a gallon of lemonade, depending on how many lemons are thrown in your direction. (LOL) I love life. There is nothing like it. Being able to communicate with my children, and other people that I hold near and dear to my heart. Having the opportunity to change.
Always remember, "without the rain, we may never appreciate the sun". Make this day your best ever, and live your dreams.
I want to discuss televisions. I will tell you right away that I have no TV in my abode. I made a decision at the end of 2004 that I had become consumed with the television. I would leave my home in the morning watching TV, whether it was watching "Good morning America or some other "Morning Show".
I would wake up in the morning with the TV on , and fall asleep at night with the T.V. on. I was literally watching other people live their lives, while mine life was on "hold". I became depressed. "Watching TV is a passive event. Children -- and adults -- remain completely immobile while viewing the box. Most viewing experiences, at least among Americans, are both quiet and non-interactive. All attention is given to the images". But can the steady flow of images watched nightly from television screens across the country be so easily dismissed as simply entertainment? If the sheer volume of absorbed images is considered, how can what is shown on television have no effect on one's own mental images? And if new mental images are created, shouldn't it be logical to say that they can and will have an effect on behavior?
I would purchase videos for my children to watch, until the T.V., became an unpaid, in-house babysitter. They would spend hours in front of the T.V. My position, however, that television has a significant effect on children should not rely on studies alone, but on common sense. When a child is placed in front of the television her focus cannot be diverted nor can her gaze be broken. That child only has eyes for the video screen. The bright colors, quick movements and sudden flashes capture the child's attention. Only the rare child finds the television completely uninteresting. Even if only cartoons are watched, most children find the images presented on the television set mesmerizing.
But this negative affect that TV can have on our children can explain why most children get "bored" with school so easily:
"Children’s programmers use a technique called the ”orienting reflex," known as OR, to capture and keep a child’s attention. OR works in this way: If we see or hear something the brain doesn’t recognize as the correct sequence or a typical life event — such as a dancing alphabet or quick zooms and pans, we focus on it until the brain recognizes that it doesn’t pose a threat. The problem with watching too many programs that rely on OR is that real life becomes slow and boring by comparison."
”We think that with continued exposure to high intensity, unrealistic action, you’re conditioning the mind to expect that level of input,“ Christakis explains. When the child doesn’t get the fast-paced input that television provides, he or she becomes bored and inattentive." - MSNBC (Sept 2004)
But what other effects does TV watching actually have on our brain, and other internal organs in our body? According to Scientific America, TV can become an addiction.
"Television Addiction Is No Mere Metaphor" - Scientific American (Feb 2002) and Full Text
"The EEG studies similarly show less mental stimulation, as measured by alpha brain-wave production, during viewing
than during reading."
"What is it about TV that has such a hold on us? In part, the attraction seems to spring from our biological "orienting response." First described by Ivan Pavlov in 1927, the orienting response is our instinctive visual or auditory reaction to any sudden or novel stimulus. It is part of our evolutionary heritage, a built-in sensitivity to movement and potential predatory threats. Typical orienting reactions include dilation of the blood vessels to the brain, slowing of the heart, and constriction of blood vessels to major muscle groups. Alpha waves are blocked for a few seconds before returning to their baseline level, which is determined by the general level of mental arousal. The brain focuses its attention on gathering more information while the rest of the body quiets."
"In 1986 Byron Reeves of Stanford University, Esther Thorson of the University of Missouri and their colleagues began to study whether the simple formal features of television--cuts, edits, zooms, pans, sudden noises--activate the orienting response, thereby keeping attention on the screen. By watching how brain waves were affected by formal features, the researchers concluded that these stylistic tricks can indeed trigger involuntary responses and "derive their attentional value through the evolutionary significance of detecting movement.... It is the form, not the content, of television that is unique.""
As clearly indicated above, we should limit TV, preferably remove them from your homes. However, I realize most people will not take the stand that I was compelled to take. I felt it was a necessary means by which my family and I would greatly benefit. And we did.
After the TV was removed, we began to converse more with one another. We began to find other forms of entertainment. We went to the bookstores more. We played games together. We found each other again.
Take time and come out from in front of the TV, maybe you will find your family members or even yourself.
L. for Love
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Somebody once said: "Theater is life, Cinema is art, and Television is....furniture". A piece of furniture which is very useful to Corporate America (CA) to reach the most intimate of all of our places, inside our own homes. CA sells, and dumb us down for its own nefarious benefit, to turn us into docile, and pasive consumers of the junk they sell. The sad part is that we allow it, and we allow them to poison our children, not only that, we sit our children in front of this "idiot box" to be entertainted, so we don't have to be bothered. We sell our own children to them, we turn them into subdued consumers, and then we wonder why they are not responsive to any other message that does not come from the flashing screen. Not easy to turn it off, when every part of CA is on the fix. Written media, sports, the internet, the music industry, even the political world, are all accomplices, working to make us believe that popular culture is so important and we don't want to miss any of it. So, we eat it up. We create our own delusion thinking that what passes as the trivial is essential.
ReplyDeleteAnd when a life is devoid of meaning, of personal interconnections, is easier to fall pray of the long tentacles of CA that come out of that flat screen on your living room.
Please, turn it off. Cancel the suscription. Easier said than done, I know.