Television Programming

Surgeon General Prescribes Less TV

As a result of many hours they spend in front of the TV, children are in effect being parented by network producers rather than by their own parents. Citing epidemic obesity levels among US children, Surgeon General Dr. David Satcher called April 21, 2000 for parents to limit the amount of time their children spend watching television. At a Washington press conference, Satcher and Under Secretary of Agriculture for Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services Shirley R. Watkins announced their support of National TV Turnoff Week, which runs from April 22 to 28. The campaign is run by TV-Free America, a nonprofit group that encourages Americans to reduce their TV viewing. Studies by Nielsen Media Research show that the average American watches 3 hours and 43 minutes of television each day, which adds up to 56 days of nonstop TV per year. We've mutated from citizens to consumers in the last sixty years.

Television Unhealthy For Young Minds

The first two years of life is when the greatest and most rapid development of the brain occurs. As all parents know, a child's mind is different from an adult's, and the differences go beyond children's innocent and often poetic perceptions of the world. While the adult brain has two distinct hemispheres, the infant brain is a single receptacle of sensory experience in which neither side has developed or overpowered the other. Until they learn language, children absorb experience using a kind of nonverbal "thinking," characterized later in the brain's development as a right hemispheric function. When language begins, each hemisphere seems to be equally developed. In its structural and biochemical sense, the brain doesn't reach its full maturation until about age 12. By maturation, the left hemisphere typically develops as the dominant side, controlling the verbal and logical functions of the brain, while the right hemisphere controls spatial and visual functions. For many years, such development was thought to be genetically predetermined and unaffected by life experiences. Today, however, this belief has changed. Although the acquisition of language appears to be universal, we now recognize that the abilities required for expression and reasoning are not automatic. Watching televison threatens the development of these abilities because it requires a suspension of active cognition.

The next time you take your kids to the doctor, you may be asked how much television they watch. Their "media history" will be examined as part of the American Academy of Pediatricians' (AAP) program to counter TV and other media's adverse effects on children's health. And the first step for doctors is to determine just how much TV, movie, video game and music content are being absorbed by their patients' pliant young brains. The media history includes a wide range of questions on content, supervision and behaviors, including: The academy, which spent two years developing the policy, suggested in 1990 that children be limited to one to two hours of "quality" -programming a day. In 1997, the AAP launched a campaign to educate pediatricians on the influences television can have on children. Groups including the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association and the National Institute of Mental Health have linked aggressiveness in older children to violence in movies and television repeatedly. "Do you watch TV with your child or know what your child is watching?" "Do you allow your child to eat meals or snacks while watching TV?" "Have you talked to your child about [music] lyrics you object to?" "Do you have any specific concerns about your child's own sense of body image or sexuality, [or] your child's displays of aggressive behavior or use of foul language?"

The ill effects of too much Power Rangers or Dawson's Creek for young kids fall into two categories, experts say. Forgoing physical activity and social interaction by basking in the blue glow can lead to obesity, depression and poor school performance. But even more troubling, experts say, is the tendency for children to emulate fictional characters whose behavior translates to real-world health risks. There's clearly a link between viewing violent television and more aggressive behaviors. It doesn't stop there: Eating disorders, smoking and drug and alcohol abuse have all been cited as behaviors encouraged by certain movies and television shows.

And then there's sex. The AAP notes that the average young viewer is exposed to more than 14,000 sexual references each year, yet only a handful of shows provide an accurate portrayal of responsible sexual behavior or accurate information about birth control, abstinence or the risks of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Under the new AAP guidelines, pediatricians are to advise parents to screen what their children watch, to view programs with their kids, and to discuss issues as they come up. The guidelines also strongly advise parents to ban television for children under two, who have a critical need for direct interactions for healthy brain growth and the development of appropriate social, emotional and cognitive skills.

The American Academy of Pediatricians recommends that children under the age of two not watch TV or videos, and that older children watch only one to two hours per day of non-violent, educational TV. Young children watching TV are routinely described as transfixed, passive, and nonverbal. One of television's appeals for parents is that it serves as an immediate way to silence and sedate toddlers. But such nonverbal absorption does more than simply relax and amuse preschoolers. Language spoken by actors on TV does not have the same effect as real-life language experiences. The Journal of Broadcasting reported that language skills among American children declined as TV viewing time increased. In real life, conversation is reciprocal and participatory; it allows time for reflection, questions, and encouragement. television, however, is a one-way street, and you had better stay glued, ask no questions, and take no time for thought, because the next scene will appear in seconds and there is no rewind. As a result, children learn not to think but to remain passive and unresponsive to whatever stimulus appears before them.

Television conditions them to absorb images without mental effort and to expect rapid change. Since young children's questions and imaginations are the cornerstone of their learning processes, remaining unresponsive hour after hour, day after day, year after year, surely affects their intellectual, emotional, and moral development. Fantasy play, a critical component of childhood, allows children to explore different situations with varying responses and outcomes. While books and storytelling nourish fantasy play, fantasy watching doesn't foster the same reaction. The US Department of Education reports that 81% of children ages 2 to 7 watch TV unsupervised, which means that young children enter a world of fantasy without the guidance and oversight of an adult. Research by the Yale University Family Television and Consultation Center reveals that imagination decreases as TV watching increases. TV teaches children to be amused by its images instead of encouraging kids to create their own. It dulls the mind by the power of its fast-moving pictures, supplanting the mental activity necessary to follow in the mind's eye a book or a storyteller's tale.

The Yale Center reports that complex language and grammar skills are directly linked to fantasy play, and that children who create fantasy play are more tolerant, peaceful, patient, and happy. Many children become habituated to TV by their parents, who desire a break from their child's activity and attention. However, the short-term benefit of a quiet, mesmerized child may actually lead to a greater dependence on adult supervision by creating children who are less capable of amusing themselves. By supplanting their imaginations, creating fast-paced pictures, and transforming active minds into passive recipients, TV teaches mental lethargy. For a child raised on hourly doses of TV, boredom is a common component of later childhood. In refusing to use TV during the preschool years, parents may save themselves from constantly having to create amusements for their children.

Tv Watching, Childhood Obesity Linked

A study by researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, along with experts at the CDC and the National Institutes of Health, concludes that a child's weight increases with the number of hours he or she spends watching television each day. These experts are calling it a US "epidemic" of childhood obesity. Many US children watch a great deal of television and are inadequately vigorously active. The researchers discovered that 20% of US children partake in two or fewer bouts of vigorous activity per week (Health experts currently recommend at least three periods of strenuous exercise per week). The problem stems from the fact that watching television is a sedentary activity--but it's much more than that. Children are watching TV, many times eating high-calorie/high-fat snack foods, and watching commercials for fast food, all of which encourage more eating.

The study also showed that 26% of US children watched 4 or more hours of television per day. Experts already label television viewing as the number one leisure-time activity of most school-age children. The study's authors point out that the average high school graduate will likely spend 15,000 to 18,000 hours in front of a television but only 12,000 hours in school. As television-viewing time rises, time spent exercising outdoors declines, especially among girls. A decrease in physical activity seems to occur as girls move from the 11- to 13-year age group to the 14- to 16-year age group. African-American and Mexican-American children had lower rates of exercise, and higher rates of television viewing, compared with their white peers. The researchers found that 48% of black children watched 4 or more hours of television per day--nearly double the national average. The Journal of the American Medical Association (1998;279(12):938-942, 959-960)

Expert Warns Of More TV-linked Seizures

One expert believes more cases of TV-induced epileptic seizures, like those experienced by hundreds of Japanese youngsters last autumn, are inevitable unless governments implement more rigorous broadcasting standards. While either high-speed flashes of light or rapid color changes are thought able to induce seizures in vulnerable individuals, researchers discovered that color was the culprit behind the Japanese seizures. Among susceptible individuals, rapidly changing stimuli can play havoc with the special cells in the retina called rods and cones that help the eye transmit visual information to the brain. Certain frequencies are known to raise the likelihood of seizure among certain susceptible individuals. After a similar incident occurred during the 1993 airing of a British television commercial, state regulators imposed a series of preventive guidelines on all programming broadcast in the United Kingdom. Similar safeguards were not in place during the Japanese seizure outbreak, and do not currently exist in North America or on the European continent. Nature Medicine (1998;4:265-266)

Tv Viewing Tied To Child Injury Risk

Children who watch a lot of television are more likely to sustain injuries than those who watch less TV. For every hour of TV viewed per day, the risk of injury rose by about 34% in the children studied. And the researchers found that children who watched 4 hours of TV a day--the average for American kids--were more than four times more likely to be injured than children who watched no television. Paradoxically, a child who spends more time watching television and devotes fewer hours to potentially more dangerous physical activities and games is at greater risk of experiencing events that cause physical injuries. Why might TV-watching increase the odds of injuries among children? Television shows often distort reality. In TV cartoons, characters get run over by trains, and are up and running in the next frame. In action adventure shows, heroes jump from rooftop to rooftop without a slip. By distorting the consequences of risk-taking, television may encourage it. A previous study showed that by age 70, the average child today will have spent between 7 and 10 years of his or her life watching television. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine July, 1998.

Heavy Television Viewing Linked To Trauma Symptoms & Violence Among Children

Children who view as little as 3 hours of television per day could be at risk of behavioral problems, depression and increased aggression. And children at highest risk for these three factors tend to be classified as heavy TV viewers. Children who reported watching greater amounts of TV per day (more than 6 hours) had significantly higher total trauma symptom scores than children who reported watching less than 5 hours of TV per day. Two thirds of the students reported watching at least 3 hours of TV daily; more than one third watched 5 or more hours of TV per day and approximately one fifth watched at least 6 hours per day. Dr. Singer also said in an interview that 70% of the children surveyed had access to cable or satellite TV, regardless of whether or not they lived in rural or urban areas. Studies have shown that cable TV carries shows with very violent content.

Watch Tv And Go Into Debt

Dr. Schor from Harvard University wrote the book The Overspent American that provides some marvelous insights on television watching. She conducted a large-scale study of American spending and saving habits and correlated the results with other lifestyle factors. She concluded that for every hour of television a person watches per week, the average American spends $200. Sitting in front of the television 5 extra hours a week (two sitcoms a night) raises your yearly spending by about $1000. Indebtedness as an outgrowth of TV watching arises not so much from viewers repeated exposure to advertising, but from their attempts to emulate the lavish lifestyles enjoyed by fictional characters in soap operas and prime-time television dramas. The more television people watch the more they tend to believe that ordinary citizens have servants, limousines, and huge houses. TV will show 24 year old waitresses with expansive lofts and exotic sports cars, not ratty one-room apartments and battered Geo Metros. In addition, folks who watch a lot of TV are more willing to go into debt in pursuit of what they believe is an accurate depiction of normal life.

Consumers rack up heavy credit-card debt chasing the televised fantasy or in academic jargon "engage in competitive consumption for the purpose of image management." Contrary to popular conceptions, Dr. Schor found a positive correlation with higher education and indebtedness. The further people have climbed up the educations ladder, the less likely they are to save money. The heaviest shoppers are women with graduate degrees, which may be attributed to their heightened awareness of the trappings of social status. Those most likely to live within their means and save money are the millionaires next door, folks with less formal education who have worked hard building their own businesses. Not surprisingly, the more successful people are with their own businesses the less time they have for watching TV.

Kids are by far the most voracious viewers. A report in a recent JAMA claims that children in the US watch 15,000 to 18,000 hours of television between he ages of 2 and 17 as compared to 12,000 hours of school. Many medical studies have correlated excessive TV viewing with childhood obesity and adult depression. Certain crime statistics also correlate well with the market penetration of television, larceny and burglary both increased as a corresponding rate following TV's rise in popularity in the 1950s. Stereophile October 1998 43.

Violence on Television

What do Children Learn? What Can Parents Do?

In a 2000 report on youth violence U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher stated that violent television programming and video games have become a public-health issue and that repeated exposure to violent entertainment during early childhood causes more aggressive behavior throughout a child's life. Violent programs on television lead to aggressive behavior by children and teenagers who watch those programs. That's the word from a 1982 report by the National Institute of Mental Health, a report that confirmed and extended an earlier study done by the Surgeon General. As a result of these and other research findings, the American Psychological Association passed a resolution in February 1985 informing broadcasters and the public of the potential dangers that viewing violence on television can have for children.

The American Psychological Association notes that children who regularly watch violence on televison are more fearful and distrustful of the world, less bothered by violence, and slower to intervene or call for help when they see fighting or destructive behavior. Ninety-one percent of children polled said they felt "upset" or "scared" by violence on television. A University of Pennsylvania study found that children's TV shows contain roughly 20 acts of violence each hour. After watching violent programs, the APA reports, children are more likely to act out aggressively, and children who are regularly exposed to violent programming show a greater tendency toward hitting, arguing, leaving tasks unfinished, and impatience.

What Does the Research Show?

Psychological research has shown three major effects of seeing violence on television: Children may become less sensitive to the pain and suffering of others. Children may be more fearful of the world around them Children may be more likely to behave in aggressive or harmful ways toward others. Children who watch a lot of TV are less aroused by violent scenes than are those who only watch a little; in other words, they're less bothered by violence in general, and less likely to see anything wrong with it. One example: in several studies, those who watched a violent program instead of a nonviolent one were slower to intervene or to call for help when, a little later, they saw younger children fighting or playing destructively. Studies by George Gerbner, Ph.D., at the University of Pennsylvania, have shown that children's TV shows contain about 20 violent acts each hour and also that children who watch a lot of television are more likely to think that the world is a mean and dangerous place.

Children often behave differently after they've been watching violent programs on TV. In one study done at Pennsylvania State University, about 100 preschool children were observed both before and after watching television; some watched cartoons that had a lot of aggressive and violent acts in them, and others watched shows that didn't have any kind of violence. The researchers noticed real differences between the kids who watched the violent shows and those who watched nonviolent ones. "Children who watch the violent shows, even 'just funny' cartoons, were more likely to hit out at their playmates, argue, disobey class rules, leave tasks unfinished, and were less willing to wait for things than those who watched the nonviolent programs," says Aletha Huston, Ph.D., now at the University of Kansas.

Real-Life Studies

Findings from the laboratory are further supported by field studies, which have shown the long-range effects of televised violence. Leonard Eron, Ph.D., and his associates at the University of Illinois, found that children who watched many hours of TV violence when they were in elementary school tended to also show a higher level of aggressive behavior when they became teenagers. By observing these youngsters until they were 30 years old, Dr. Eron found that the ones who'd watched a lot of TV when they were eight years old were more likely to be arrested and prosecuted for criminal acts as adults.

Remote Control Of Aggression

In spite of this accumulated evidence, broadcasters and scientists continue to debate the link between the viewing TV violence and children's aggressive behavior. Some broadcasters believe that there is not enough evidence to prove that TV violence is harmful. But scientists who have studied this issue say that there is a link between TV violence and aggression, and in 1992, the American Psychological Association's Task Force on Television and Society published a report that confirms this view. The report, entitled Big World, Small Screen: The Role of Television in American Society, showed that the harmful effects of TV violence do exist. Aggressive tendencies fostered in children by violent television shows and video games can be tempered if they cut back on their viewing and playing time, a new Stanford University study shows. Researchers found a 50% decrease in the level of aggression after an effort to get children to watch less television. Children who are already showing signs of hostility are most positively affected by the cutting down on hours spent watching TV. Another benefit is a closer relationship among family members. Research has shown an average of 43% of children having television sets in their bedrooms. Boys were seen being physically aggressive (touching, hitting, pushing, pulling or throwing objects) once every two minutes. For girls, it was once every five minutes.

What Parents Can Do

While most scientists are convinced that children can learn aggressive behavior from television, they also point out that parents have tremendous power to moderate that influence. Because there is a great deal of violence in both adult and children's programming, just limiting the number of hours children watch television will probably reduce the amount of aggression they see. The best way to keep TV from becoming an issue with children, of course, is not to begin using it. If a TV is present in the home, it is vital to establish clear rules on its use and to maintain these rules. Never make TV a reward or a punishment; this only heightens its power. When starting the withdrawal from TV, explain why you are making these changes and that it is not a punishment. The first month will be the most difficult. Children may cry or plead, but you can remain firm if you keep in mind that you are freeing them from an addiction. It is also imperative that you help your children learn how to fill the time that they formerly spent watching TV.

Work with them to nurture interests, discover hobbies, and explore new possibilities. Begin a nightly read-aloud for the entire family. Take walks after breakfast or dinner. Share your hobbies--sewing, knitting, baking bread--with them. Learn to play instruments and make music as a family. Encourage children to help with work around the house and yard. Visit neighbors and relatives. Tell stories and pass on your family history. Build a birdhouse. Go bowling. Go sledding. Finger paint. Color. Practice yoga together. Involve your children in the daily activities of the house, and encourage yourself and your family to rekindle the flame of exploration and discovery, away from the draw of the flickering blue screen.

In addition: Parents should watch at least one episode of the programs their children watch. That way they'll know what their children are watching and be able to talk about it with them. When they see a violent incident, parents can discuss with their child what caused them to act in a violent way. They should also point out that this kind of behavior is not characteristic, not the way adults usually solve their problems. They can ask their children to talk about other ways the character could have reacted, or other nonviolent solutions to the character's problem. Parents can outright ban any programs that they find too offensive. They can also restrict their children's viewing to shows that they feel are more beneficial, such as documentaries, educational shows and so on. Parents can limit the amount of time children spend watching television, and encourage children to spend their time on sports, hobbies, or with friends; parents and kids can even draw up a list of other enjoyable activities to do instead of watching TV. Parents can encourage their children to watch programs that demonstrate helping, caring and cooperation. Studies show that these types of programs can influence children to become more kind and considerate.

We have about 150,000 hours of living to expend between the ages of one and 18. We sleep about 50,000 hours of this time, and we dream about two hours of the eight we sleep each night. Sleeping and dreaming appear to be positively related to the development and maintenance of the long term memories that emerge out of daytime activities, because they allow our brain to eliminate the interference of external sensory/motor activity while it physically adds to, edits, and erases the neural network synaptic connections that create long-term memories. We spend about 65,000 of our 100,000 waking hours involved in solitary activities, and in direct informal relationships with family and friends, and these activities play a major role in the development and maintenance of important personal memories. We spend about 35,000 of our waking hours with our larger culture in formal and informal metaphoric/symbolic activities--about 12,000 hours in school, and about twice that much with various forms of mass media (e.g., TV, computers, films, music, sports, non-school print media, churches, museums).

Mass media and school thus play major roles in the development and maintenance of important culture memories. So on an average developmental day between the ages of l-18, a young person sleeps 8 hours, spends 10 waking hours with self, family, and friends, 4 with mass media--and only 2 hours in school. Our society has incredible expectations for those two hours! Young people tend now to spend much time/energy on such electronic media as video games, TV, and computers--at the expense of non-electronic media and socialization (although new forms of socialization are evolving around TV-watching and video-game-playing). The attentional demands of electronic media range from rapt (video games) to passive (much TV), but this is the first generation to directly interact with and alter the content on the screen and the conversation on the radio. Screenagers emotionally understand electronic media in ways that adults don't--as a viral replicating cultural reality, instead of as a mere communicator of events. For example, portable cameras have helped to shift TV's content from dramatic depictions to live theater, extended (and often endlessly repeated and discussed) live coverage of such breaking events as wars, accidents, trials, sports, and talk-show arguments. What occurs anywhere is immediately available everywhere. Our world has truly become a global village, where everyone knows everyone else's business.

Emotion drives attention, which drives learning, memory, and behavior, so mass media often insert strong primal emotional elements into their programming to increase attention. Since violence and sexuality in media trigger primal emotions, most young people confront thousands of violent acts and heavy doses of sexuality during their childhood media interactions. This comes at the expense, alas, of other more positive and normative experiences with human behaviors and interactions. Mass media tend to show us how to be sexy not sexual, and powerful not peaceful. Commercial sponsorship in mass media has led to a distorted presentation of important cultural and consumer-related issues. For example, TV commercials tend to be very short, superficial, and factually biased. Further, computer programs and TV editing techniques tend to compress, extend, and distort normal time/space relationships, a critically important element in the creation and use of effective long- term memories.

Our Brain and Electronic Media: Biological Systems, Cultural Issues

Brain Development

Our awesomely complex, yet elegantly simple brain is the best organized three pounds of matter in the known universe. Decidedly human but individually unique, it is a wary, curious, and exploratory organ that actively experiences and interprets its environment, applying a variety of cognitive models and systems that it develops (within established limits) to the reality it perceives. The brain, as a basic animal organ, developed in three successive layers over evolutionary time to meet survival, emotional, and finally rational challenges. Our rational cortical forebrain is unique among animal brains in its size and capabilities, but our sub-cortical survival and emotional systems play much more powerful roles in shaping our thoughts and behavior than previously believed.

Our brain is composed of tens of billions of highly interconnected neurons that interact electrochemically with surrounding and distant neurons through a complex system of tubular (dendrite/axon) extensions that receive and send messages. Cortical neurons are organized into a vast number of dedicated semiautonomous columnar modules (or networks)/ most of which are modifiable by the experiences that wire up our brain to its environment. Each module processes a very specific function (a tone, vertical lines), and groups of modules consolidate their functions to process more complex cognitive functions. And so, for example, sounds become phonemes become words become sentences become stories.

Genetics plays a much larger role in brain development and capability than previously believed. because biological evolution proceeds much slower than cultural evolution, we're horn with a generic human brain that's genetically more tuned to the pastoral ecological environment that humans lived in thousands of years ago than to our current fast-paced urban electronic environment. Our curiosity and inherently strong problem-solving capabilities allowed us to develop such tools as autos/ books/ computers/ drugs that compensate for our body/brain limitations--and very powerful portable electronic computerized instruments are now rapidly transforming our culture. We can thus view drugs as a fourth technological brain--located outside of our skull, but powerfully interactive with the three integrated biological brains within our skull.

Motivation, experience, and training can enhance generic capabilities (e.g., infants can easily master any human language, but they aren't born proficient in any of them), so brain development is a dynamic mix of nature and nurture. Thus, it's important to choose one's parents carefully--because of the genes they pass on, and because of the cultural environment they create--the appropriate mix of biology, technology, and society. Our brain is designed to adapt its cortical networks to the environment in which it lives (e.g., to master the local language). A socially interactive environment that stimulates curiosity and exploration enhances the development of an effective brain. Thus, excessive childhood involvement with electronic media that limit social interaction could hinder the development of a brain's social systems. Conversely, denying a child easy and extensive exploration of electronic technology helps to create an electronically hampered adult in an increasingly electronic culture. Surfing on TV, video, the Internet, and anything else that's electronic is the screenagers version of how to drive a car by first successfully mastering a tricycle/wagon/bicycle.

Memory Systems

Our short-term (or working) memory is an attentional buffer that allows us to hold a few units of information for a short period of time while we determine their importance. Since the system has space/time limitations, it must rapidly combine (or chunk) key related bits of foreground information into single units by identifying similarities/ differences/patterns that can simplify an otherwise confusing sensory field. The appeal of computerized video games may well lie in their lack of explicit instructions to the players, who suddenly find themselves in complex electronic environments that challenge them to quickly identify and act on rapidly changing elements that may or may not be important. Failure sends the player back to the beginning, and success brings a more complex, albeit, attractive challenge in the next electronic environment.

Our short-term memory processes frame the segment of the environment that we perceive. We attend to the things that are inside the frame, and we're merely aware of the context, the things that are outside of the frame. Mass media often eliminate a proper presentation of the context of an event, and so distort its meaning and importance. The result is that it presents a rare isolated event as being common, and people overreact. For example, a brutal park murder clears all the parks in the region. Children must develop a sense of context in the electronic media world they experience (and unfortunately, many adults who should assist them also equate rare with common. Even a President spoke normatively of welfare queens who lived in mansions and drive large cars).

The efficiency of our dual long term memory system depends on our ability to string together and access long sequences of: (1) related moto actions into automatic skills (procedural memory), and (2) related objects/ events into stories (declarative memory). Thus, story-telling activities dominate our culture, through conversations/jokes/songs/novels/films/TV/ballets/sports/etc. Young people must master various storytelling forms and techniques, and electronic media can both help and hinder this process (through their range, editing techniques, and interactive potential.

Response Systems

Our brain uses two systems to analyze and respond to environmental challenges, and electronic mass media often exploit these systems:

1. A relatively slow, analytic, reflective system (thalamus- hippocampus-cortex circuitry) explore the more objective factual elements of a, compares them with related declarative memories, and then responds. It's best suited to non-threatening situations that don't require an instant response--life's little challenges. It often functions through storytelling forms and sequences, and so is tied heavily to our language and classification capabilities. User-friendly computer programs and non-frantic TV programming tend to use this rational system.

2. A fast conceptual, reflexive system (thalamus-amygdala- cerebellum circuitry) identifies the fearful and survival elements in a situation, and quickly activates automatic response patterns (procedural memory) if survival seems problematic.

The fast system developed through natural selection to respond to immanent predatory danger and fleeting feeding and mating opportunities. It thus focuses on any loud/ looming/ contrasting/ moving/ obnoxious/ attractive elements that might signal potential danger, food, and/or mates. The system thus enhances survival, but its rapid superficial analysis often leads us to respond fearfully, impulsively, and inappropriately to situations that didn't require an immediate response, (Regrets and apologies often follow). Stereotyping and prejudice are but two of the prices we humans pay for this powerful survival system. Worse, fear can strengthen the emotional and weaken the factual memories of an event. Consequently, we become fearful of something, but we're not sure why, so the experience has taught us little that's consciously useful.

People often use mass media to exploit this system by stressing elements that trigger rapid irrational fear responses. Politicians demonize opponents; sales pitches demand an immediate response; zealots focus on fear of groups who differ from their definition of acceptable. The fast pacing of TV and video game programming, and their focus on bizarre/violent/sexual elements also trigger this system. If the audience perceives these elements and the resulting visceral responses as the real-world norm, the electronic media must continually escalate the violent/sexual/bizarre behavior to trigger the fast system. Rational thought development would thus suffer. We can see this escalation in mass media.

Conversely, if a person perceives these electronic-world elements as an aberration, and not normative of the real world, such electronic experiences could often actually help to develop rational thought and appropriate response. Those who will understand the normative center of a phenomenon must also know about its outer reaches--and mass media provide a useful metaphoric format for observing the outer reaches of something without actually experiencing it (such as how to escape from a dangerous situation one might confront).

So perhaps it's not what electronic media bring to a Developing Mind that's most important, but rather what the Developing Mind brings to the electronic media. Children who mature in a secure home/school with parents/teachers who explore all of the dimensions of humanity in a non-hurried accepting atmosphere can probably handle most electronic media without damaging their dual memory and response systems. They'll tend to delay their responses, to look below the shiny surface of things. Further, they'll probably also prefer to spend much more of their time in direct interactions with real live people. They will thus develop the sense of balance that permits them to be a part of the real and electronic worlds--but also to stand apart from them.

Marketing To Children

Children's happiness doesn't come from stuff, but powerful forces keep trying to persuade America's parents that it does. There now is a board game called Electronic Mall Madness, from Milton Bradley. The kids jam their "credit cards" into the plastic ATM machine and withdraw play money to spend in the mall. The object of the game, which retails for $40.00, is to buy the most stuff and get back to the parking lot first. It's a good introduction to the happy-go-spending, affluenza-infected, life of today's children. Spending by--and influenced by--American children twelve or younger recently began growing by 20% a year, and is expected to reach $1 trillion annually within the next decade. Marketing to children has become the hottest trend in the advertising world. Corporations are recognizing that the consumer lifestyle starts younger and younger. If you wait to reach children with your product until they're eighteen years of age, you probably won't capture them.

From 1980 to 1997, the amount spent on children's advertising in America rose from $100 million to $1.5 billion a year. Children are now also used effectively by marketers to influence their parents' purchases of big-ticket items, from luxury automobiles to resort vacations and even homes. One hotel chain sends promotional brochures to children who've stayed at its hotels, so the kids will pester their parents into returning. For the first time in human history, children are getting most of their information from entities whose goal is to sell them something, rather than from family, school, or religion. The average twelve-year-old in the United States spends forty-eight hours a week exposed to commercial messages. The same child spends only about one-and-a-half hours per week in significant conversation with his or her parents. Children under seven are especially vulnerable to marketing messages. Research shows that they are unable to distinguish commercial motives from benign or benevolent motives.

Polls show that nearly 90% of American adults worry that our children are becoming too focused on buying and consuming things. Advertising aimed at children is hardly a new phenomenon. By 1912, boxes of Cracker Jack already came with a toy inside to encourage children to ask for them. Long before television, children were saving cereal box tops to send in for prizes. The whole idea of children's TV programming came because advertisers were looking for ways to use the new electronic medium to sell their products. The first TV cartoon shows were created explicitly to sell sugared cereals. Ninety percent of food ads on Saturday morning children's programs still push high-calorie, sugary, or salt-laden items. Combine that with the time children spend in front of the tube and it's not surprising that children today are far more likely to be obese than they were in the early days of television. Today's children are exposed to far more TV advertising than their parents were--up to 200 commercials a day!

In the old ads, parents were portrayed as pillars of wisdom who both knew and wanted what was best for their children. Children, on the other hand, were full of wonder and innocence, and eager to please Mom and Dad. There was gender stereotyping--girls wanted dolls and boys wanted cowboys and Indians--but rebelling against one's parents wasn't part of the message. Now the message has changed. Marketers openly refer to parents as "gatekeepers," whose efforts to protect their children from commercial pressures must be circumvented so that those children, in the rather chilling terms used by the marketers, can be "captured, owned, and branded." They portray parents as fools and fuddy-duddies who aren't smart enough to realize their children's need for the products being sold. It's a proven technique for neutralizing parental influence in the marketer/child relationship. Companies selling beauty products are targeting younger and younger girls. By the age of thirteen, 26% of American girls wear perfume every day. Christian Dior makes bras for preschoolers. Jeans ads feature preteen girls in sexual poses. Such images may have dangerous implications; nearly half a million American children are victims of sexual abuse each year. Children in our society are seen as cash crops to be harvested.

We're seeing more and more commercialism in the public schools, with curriculum materials created by corporations for use in the schools. Students find out about self-esteem by discussing "Good and Bad Hair days" with materials provided by Revlon. They learn to "wipe out that germ" with Lysol, and study geothermal energy by eating Gusher's Fruit Snacks. They also learn the history of Tootsie Rolls, make shoes for Nike as an environmental lesson, count Lay's potato chips in math class and find out why the Exxon Valdez oil spill wasn't really harmful at all (materials by you guessed it--Exxon) or why clear-cutting is beneficial--with a little help from Georgia Pacific. Maybe we could turn around the steady decline of our children's SAT scores if we just asked them questions about good and bad hair days instead of about world geography. In nearly half a million classrooms, 8.1 million children watch Channel One, a twelve-minute daily news program that includes two minutes of commercials. Viewing is mandatory for students because advertisers, who pay as much as $200,000 for a single thirty-second spot on Channel One, is told they can count on a "captive audience."

Not only does the couch-potato-on-potato-chips lifestyle undermine our children's physical health, their mental health seems to suffer too. Psychologists report constantly rising rates of teenage depression and thoughts about suicide, and a tripling of actual child suicide rates since the 1960s. In a recent poll, 93% of teenage girls cited shopping as their favorite activity. Fewer than five percent listed "helping others." In 1967, two-thirds of American college students said "developing a meaningful philosophy of life" was "very important" to them, while fewer than one-third said the same about "making a lot of money." By 1997, those figures were reversed! Kids nowadays take everything for granted. They think they've earned it and the world owes it to them. They'll just take, take, take, and they won't give anything back. And our society's going to crumble if we don't have people that give.

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