Part Four: CLASHING CULTURES
CHAPTER 10: TV, Video Games, and the Growing BrainIt turns kids into zombies!
Children are active while viewing.
Television shortens attention spans.
There is no evidence that television viewing affects children's attention spans.
Video games make people right-brained.
Children today are smarter because of television.
Video use is killing off literacy.
Everyone has opinions about the effects on learning of television and other uses of video. What is the truth? What does viewing do to the developing brain? How much does growing up in the culture of visual immediacy affect a child's performance in the culture of academic learning?
When I began writing this book, one of my first questions was how much video use has played into the changes observed in children's learning habits. I soon found out: (1) good research on TV is hard to find, (2) much of what is purveyed as "fact" has not been thoroughly documented, (3) according to the most recent studies, television's effects may be more subtle, but also more powerful and pervasive than most people believe and (4) virtually no research is available on the effects of video tapes or computerized video games on children's mental development. Moreover, because more children now spend more hours with all video media than ever before, effects which might not have become apparent in previous decades may just now be showing up in schools.
Calling a Very Large Duck a DuckAll video has effects on mental activity; some of its uses are clearly more positive for academic learning than others. Good television programming has made a wealth of information available to children, although this benefit alone does not make them smarter if they lack the habits of mind to use it effectively. Good-quality videocassettes for children may also enhance cognitive and perhaps even language development if they encourage response from the child and if viewing is mediated by an adult. Many young children now use a familiar videotape as a sort of security blanket with which to relax. Rock videos, on the other hand, have aroused concern, not only about their effects on young brains, but on other aspects of development as well.
Let us first consider television. I was surprised to learn how much a part of young children's lives TV has become. American youngsters, on average, now spend more hours in front of the set than at any other activity except sleeping. Sesame Street has helped institutionalize the viewing habit for preschoolers, many of whom begin watching several hours a day of varied programming at about age two. By ages three to five -- the height of the brain's critical period for cognitive and language development -- estimates place viewing time of the average child at twenty-eight hours a week. For many children, extended hours in front of the set have drastically curtailed active playtime. Average viewing time for elementary students runs at about twenty-five hours a week, and for high schoolers, twenty-eight hours a week, approximately six times the hours spent doing homework. [1-4] No estimates are available on time spent with videotapes.
In many households, even infants are constantly exposed; programs replace family conversation that builds language and listening skills, reading aloud, and games and activities in which adults show children how to solve problems, talk out future plans, or deal with their own emotions. Many parents who would earnestly like to redirect their family time find the kids so "hooked" on viewing, says Marie Winn, that they "reject all those fine family alternatives" -- mainly because watching television is easier. [5] Children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds watch the most of all. [6]
Where Is the Research?Scientists are acutely aware that large doses of any type of experience have shaping power over the growing brain. Have they, therefore, been hotly researching the effects of large doses of television? No!
A relatively small number of studies have looked at TV's effects on learning, but when I initiated computer-assisted searches of all studies and articles ever published in the fields of medicine, psychology, child development, and education on TV's effects on brain development, I came up with a virtually empty net. As I queried experts and burrowed further into sources of professional information, I learned the truth: no sustained effort has been made to find out how TV might affect the basic neural foundations for learning. Moreover, many of the "facts" purveyed about television's effects -- not only on brains but on learning in general -- are based on wobbly research.
Appropriate, non harmful technology for studying living brains while they are reading, learning, remembering -- or watching the tube -- has become increasingly accessible. For example, by pasting electrodes to the scalp and hooking them up to a computer, scientists can monitor brain waves and map mental activity in living color! [7] Good research is admittedly hard to do, but I find it surprising that no effort has been made even to get it started. Since the scientific community's research proposals tend to cluster around any topic where funding is available, the obvious conclusion is that the interest -- i.e., money -- has not been there. Most of the few available studies, in fact, were done by advertisers who wanted to know how to grab and hold the brain's attention -- whether the "subject" chose to be spellbound or not. (More about this later.) When some early results began to indicate that the actual physical act of viewing may cause the brain to enter a hypnotic, nonlearning state, the research trickle abruptly dried up.
One might certainly be tempted to conclude that no one is very eager to get the answers to the questions. And, of course, it is more comfortable to believe that TV's effects on learning are not particularly harmful. As I began writing this chapter, headlines throughout the United States were seized by a new, quasi-scientific "review of research" which seemed to suggest just that. Statements such as the following were quoted:
"There is little evidence to show that brain viewing reduces children's attention span. . . ."
"There is no evidence that television makes children cognitively passive."
Unfortunately, these articles were, in the words of the study's author, Dr. Daniel Anderson of the University of Massachusetts, "badly distorted." They failed to mention, first, the primary reason there is "little evidence" is that there has been little research! Moreover, some of the few reliable studies which have been done suggest just the opposite! Here are some other statements from that report that didn't make the headlines:
Television may indeed:• overstimulate children and create passive withdrawal
• cause attention and listening problems (e.g., paying attention to an activity such as drawing pictures instead of to a teacher delivering instruction)
• make children need "the classroom equivalent of special effects" to maintain attention
• emphasize skills which do not transfer well to reading or listening [8]
"No, I am not at all satisfied with the quality of the research that has been done," Dr. Anderson told me. "There has been no agency willing to consistently fund research on the cognitive effects of television.'' [9]
"There is really no satisfactory data," agrees Yale's Dr. Jerome Singer, another of a handful of well-respected national authorities on children and television. "But it's amazing how we fail to appreciate the fact that children spend more time in front of TV than in school. Of course there are cumulative effects!"
Dr. Singer believes that it is best to withhold television completely until reading and learning habits are well established. He mentioned during the course of our conversation that his son, who has been a father himself for several years, delayed purchasing a television set as part of "an active decision" to significantly limit family viewing. [10]
Cognitive Consequences of TV ViewingOne problem with studies comparing viewers and nonviewers is that it is now impossible to find large numbers of American children who have not been exposed to the medium. Research clearly shows, however, that better students tend to watch less. Moreover, as viewing goes up, academic achievement scores eventually go down.
In a thoroughly documented and objective review article published in the Reading Research Quarterly, two scientists from Leiden University in the Netherlands culled the most reliable data on the relationship of viewing and reading, including some obtained when television first became available in several different countries. They found that television's negative effects on reading skills were particularly strong for the more advanced abilities needed for higher-level comprehension. Among other conclusions, they stated that television:
• displaces leisure reading and thus inhibits the growth of reading skills
• requires less mental effort than reading
• may shorten the time children are willing to spend on finding an answer to intellectual problems they are set to solve
• has particularly negative effects for heavy viewers, socially advantaged children, and intelligent children [11]
Curiously, these quotes never made the headlines either.
Much more research is needed to establish guidelines for the constructive use of this enormously influential medium. We know far too little about how media in general, and "educational" programming in particular, can aid literacy, school learning, and knowledge acquisition.
VIDEO AND THE BRAINDoes viewing cause brains to become hyperactive? Passive? Tuned out? Can it change brain structure and function in ways that alter learning potential? Attempts to study brain activation and/or patterns of brain waves of viewers have been the main means by which studies -- reliable or otherwise -- have searched for answers to these questions. Babies', children's, and adults' brain waves change in response to television, but little has been proven about the types of changes that occur. [12] Three effects on learning abilities, all related to attention, have been suggested: (1) some television and videotape programming artificially manipulate the brain into paying attention by violating certain of its natural defenses with frequent visual and auditory changes (known as "saliency"); (2) television induces neural passivity and reduces "stick-to-it-iveness"; (3) television may have a hypnotic, and possibly neurologically addictive, effect on the brain by changing the frequency of its electrical impulses in ways that block active mental processing.
(1) Forcing the Brain to Pay AttentionStudies sponsored by advertisers have suggested the best way to get viewers to pay attention to their messages is to capitalize on the brain's instinctive responses to danger. First, sudden close-ups, pans, and zooms are effective in alerting the brain because they violate its reflex need to maintain a predictable "personal space" -- a certain distance between oneself and others. Second, "salient" features such as bright colors, quick movements, or sudden noises get attention fast, since brains are programmed to be extremely sensitive to such changes that might signal danger.
Television advertisers and most children's programs, including Sesame Street, are planned with an eye to capitalizing on these involuntary responses. When the Sesame Street format was initially designed, pilot studies were conducted in which children were shown program segments alongside competing "distractors" such as colorful slides. Thus the programmers learned that the use of many "salient" effects would keep children watching -- whether they wanted to or not. [13]
In a sense, these carefully planned manipulations separate the natural responses of brain and body; although the viewer's attention is alerted, there is no need for physical action. The brain registers specific changes after a camera zoom, for example, responding as if to real danger. [14] Yet the impulse has no outlet. Researchers soon began to suggest that children thus stimulated, without natural physical outlets for the pent-up response, might develop overactivity, frustration, or irritability. [15,16] In 1975, two Australian researchers predicted with increasing viewing time spent by children there would be a proportionate increase in disorders of attention. [17]
It has been hard to "prove" that this prophecy has come true, although virtually every teacher I interviewed is convinced that it has. Dr. Dan Anderson's review report summarizes several studies in which "there does appear to be some effect of TV on attention, although the importance, generality, and nature of the effect is unknown." [18]
One reasonably well-documented fact, also according to this report, is that children's attention to TV programs tends to be fragmented, in the sense that they are actually watching it only about two-thirds of the time they spend in viewing. They may simultaneously engage in other activities or simply look away for "reduction of stimulation" -- until they are drawn back by another special effect.
Television is physiologically arousing, confirms Dr. Byron Reeves of the Department of Communication at Stanford, who conducted studies of viewers' electrical brain activity. Their brains did, indeed, respond to movement as if it were actually present, causing the nervous system to prepare for a physical response. Personally, Reeves told me he also believes these habits show up in school, as children become habituated to "surprise and circus-type" presentations.
"I see it with my college sophomores," he remarked wryly. "We all know a Sesame Street presentation gets more attention these days." [19] Manipulations of "arousal mechanisms" that separate brain and body may be related to reports from psychologists and teachers that today's children are increasingly "touch starved." A heavy diet of vicarious viewing that replaces real sensory involvement is directly antagonistic to the most basic principles of a young child's learning. Much early development of physical and mental skills -- and of their foundations in the brain -- comes from experimenting and solving problems with real-world materials. The long-term outcomes of forcing children's attention unnaturally may have even more serious implications than we have realized.
Jerking children's attention around may cause a certain amount of emotional withdrawal, as well. Young children, while involuntarily captured by novelty, really need repetition and familiarity. Anchoring experience in this way helps them gain a sense of organization and mastery. Parents who laughingly complain about how tired they are of reading the same book ("Sometimes I think if I have to do Goodnight Moon one more time ... ") or seeing the same story on tape are the best witnesses to a child's overriding need for familiarity. Such predictability may be particularly necessary for learning to make sense out of a world that is already sufficiently confusing.
(2) Passive Brains?Good learning and good problem-solving require active involvement and persistence. Failures at this level are related to many types of learning disabilities. Many people intuitively feel that exposure in early childhood to a great deal of television may create passive learners who give up too easily. Proof is now starting to emerge.
One prominent researcher, Dr. Jennings Bryant of the University of Alabama, is personally convinced that TV "certainly changes things" as far as active learning is concerned.
"One thing we do know," he explained recently, "is that it reduces what we call vigilance [the ability to remain actively focused on a task]. If they watch lots of fast-paced programs and then we give them things to do afterward such as reading or solving complex puzzles, their stick-to-it-iveness is diminished; they're not as willing to stay with the task. Over time, with lots of viewing, you're going to have less vigilant children. This is especially critical with relatively young children -- about three to five years seem to be particularly vulnerable times [emphasis added]."
Dr. Bryant, who served on a research and planning committee for Sesame Street's sibling, The Electric Company, told me he now believes that choosing such a fast-paced format for both programs was a mistake.
"Unfortunately," he said, "I don't think Sesame Street is one of the good examples. We worked so hard to grab the child's attention in the competitive media environment that sometimes I'm afraid we forgot the learning. We may have been teaching the wrong thing -- learning externally instead of internally. We may have created a child who was so reinforced to go after the excitement, the blazing stars, etc., that the learning was almost secondary."
Dr. Bryant says he decided, on the basis of his research, to sit down and watch with his own children to make them aware of "how this medium can manipulate." Now they're good students, active problem-solvers, and "very selective and cynical TV consumers."
Dr. Bryant also thinks that it is probably a mistake to let children do homework in front of the set. He says that his newest research shows how competing video messages get in the way of learning and cause homework to take longer and be done less well. Programs with many auditory-orienting devices to call attention to the screen make it especially hard to focus actively on learning. [20]
Research, overall, strongly suggests that fast pace and special effects can interfere with development of active learning habits. A few studies have shown that children try to organize meaning, follow plots, and make sense out of what is happening in programs or tapes that are of interest to them, but only if they are old enough and can understand the material presented. Studies show attention tends to wander when the material is seen either as "boring" or not readily understandable; then, when something salient happens, attention is drawn back. This conditioned pattern of sporadic, externally directed attention corresponds precisely with what teachers are reporting. In class or when doing homework, one can't just let the mind change channels or wander away when things become a bit difficult or "boring."
If "receptive" learning (e.g., reading, listening) is affected by TV-induced passivity, the more active "expressive" skills, such as organizing and getting ideas down in writing, are in even greater jeopardy. Even television's staunchest defenders admit that it is primarily a receptive medium that in itself provides little practice in expression of any kind.
Dr. Anderson, who has been accused by other authorities of interpreting the research too generously in favor of television (some of his work, in fact, has been commissioned by Children's Television Workshop, which produces Sesame Street [21]), himself admits that "television viewing probably does not require many of the self-generated cognitive processes required by writing; as receptive cognition it is likely different in many ways from productive cognition." [22] Moreover, he acknowledges, it is likely that it "reduces task perseverance and this affects reading comprehension." [23]
(3) The "Zombie" EffectDoes television suppress mental activity by putting viewers into a trance? The few studies made of the human brain in the process of viewing, while hardly definitive, suggest that it may, at least in some individuals and with some kinds of content.
In one early experiment, an electrode was pasted to the scalp of a woman while she first looked through a magazine and then watched television commercials. As she was reading the magazine, her brain registered active alertness, but switching to TV viewing "instantly produced a preponderance of slow (alpha) waves," which are classically associated with lack of mental activity. [24]
Unfortunately, little research followed. In 1980, researchers Merrelyn and Fred Emery, at the University of Australia, reviewed a meager crop of studies and found reason for concern that prolonged television viewing might cause a syndrome of mental inactivity that would interfere with thinking and concentrating. In an article titled "The Vacuous Vision," they suggested that as viewing time by youngsters increased "this prolonged idleness of the prefrontal cortex" would have serious consequences. [25]
Although it has been shown that alpha levels can be altered by training, [26] no one has conclusively proven that persistent viewing invariably changes basic brain patterns, although several other studies have also given loose support to slower brain activation (more alpha) from TV when compared with magazine advertisements. Only three can be found comparing brain waves during television viewing versus reading of regular text. Two of the three confirmed higher levels of more passive alpha while watching television and higher levels of fast-wave beta activity during reading. [27, 28]
The third study, an unpublished doctoral-dissertation, may be the most important of all: it suggested that active brain response depended more on the subject's involvement with the material than on the medium itself. [29] This researcher found that interesting, more complex (but still comprehensible) reading or television could be used to elicit fast brain activity, while more simple, uninteresting, or incomprehensible material induced more slow alpha activity, irrespective of the medium. It seems probable that if the subject "tunes out" because the content seems incomprehensible, brain waves would follow. Research to be examined in the next chapter suggests that even programs specifically directed at children may be largely incomprehensible to them, even when adults think they are understanding what they see.
Other studies have described a phenomenon apparently related to the "zombielike" responses of some viewers: "attentional inertia." The longer a look at TV continues, the greater the probability it will be maintained. For example, if a child gets "glued" to the set during a program, the more likely he is to remain fixated when the scene breaks to a commercial. Mothers who have trouble summoning their children to chores, homework, or even supper are already aware that the longer a child has been watching TV, the slower he is to respond when someone calls his name. While Dr. Anderson and colleagues take this only as a sign of "increased engagement with the TV," others fear that such nondiscriminating responses verge on "mindlessness." [30] Anecdotal reports suggest that this phenomenon is more severe in some individuals than in others.
"You raise kids on sweets, they become addicted to sweets. You raise kids on alpha, they get addicted to alpha, just like any hypnotic state," commented one neuropsychologist, himself a member of the TV generation and the father of a young child (who is allowed to watch TV in highly selected quantities). He recognizes that parents in high-stress jobs may crave a soothing dose of alpha for themselves after a hard day's work, but believes this habit is not desirable for immature brains that have not yet firmed up all their connections. "The brain is programmed to repeat the same experience; neurons learn to replicate a pattern, that's how people learn, but we don't realize that what we are really learning is habits. Whenever children are doing something for a lot of the time, we should ask: Is this a habit we want them to have?" [31]
Taken all together, this sorely limited research suggests that children may be physiologically compelled to "space out" when viewing fatuous, overly difficult, or confusing content. Since the brain builds its internal connections primarily in response to active mental effort, I am willing to make the leap and suggest, by inducing our children to habituate their brains to too much easy video pleasure, we may truly risk weakening their mental abilities. Studies have shown, when young animals are placed in an enclosure from which they can merely watch others playing, that their brain growth is proportionately reduced, no matter how stimulating the visual environment.
THE VIDEO GAME ADDICTIONIf I didn't make him eat, sleep, and go to school, he would be at that thing twenty-four hours a day! -- Mother of an eleven-year-old boy
Computerized video games appear to be even more addictive for many children than television. Why do they exert such a hypnotic force? What will happen to kids who spend every available moment seeking ever greater conquests in a fantasy microworld? Could this preoccupation possibly be educational? Will it build up imagination and nonverbal abilities -- or will it limit them by keeping the child from normal play and human interaction? Will children learn new strategies of problem-solving -- or will they lose the ability to initiate ideas unless prompted by a machine? Unfortunately, even less is known about the long-term implications of this new "addiction" in American life. The child-development experts I have queried have given only cautious responses -- most of them negative. One of the main points they always mention is the issue of "transfer," that is, how much we can expect experiences with one type of input -- such as video games -- to build up abilities that can be used elsewhere -- such as reading or more general types of reasoning.
The Problem of "Transfer"One of the main problems with speculations on the effects of machines is that what may seem "obvious" about what children are learning from them may not be true at all. For example, we might reason that anything improving children's visual-spatial skills (e.g., playing fast-paced video games where objects coming from all directions at once must be shot at or avoided) should also improve their reading speed, or even their geometry abilities, which are known to call heavily on visual spatial reasoning. Many people have similarly reasoned that teaching children to program a computer, with its immutable demands for logical, linear thought, must certainly teach them to think more logically.
Unfortunately, however, the brain often seems to have difficulty applying skills it has learned in one specific arena to other kinds of problems. When teachers ask, "How well will this learning transfer?" they are referring to the fact that teaching children how to outline a story in English class does not necessarily mean they will automatically apply the same skills to their history textbook -- unless someone specifically shows them how, and they practice the same outlining with the history book. Expecting some kinds of learning to transfer is a little bit like expecting jogging to build up finger dexterity; just because the body (or the brain) is exercised, we cannot assume that the activity will "take" other than in the specific area that receives the practice.
The brain has many millions of separate cell networks or "assemblies," and does not seem to generalize very readily from one set to another. For example, after hundreds of studies showing that eye exercises involving complex designs have little effect on reading ability for most children, experts concluded that reading is the best way to improve reading. There is no evidence that the general visual stimulation of watching TV improves visual reasoning abilities in other domains. Nor does listening to music improve auditory skills for language, because words and melody are processed by totally different cell networks.
Training in more fundamental "habits of mind," such as planning organized steps to reason through problems -- at home, at school, or anywhere else -- may well be more generalizable. Showing children how to apply critical analysis to both reading and video is a good example of "teaching for transfer" in today's world.
Another issue raised by video games is that children may be accomplishing higher-level tasks with low-level strategies. Just because a child appears to have "mastered" a game where he is required to work his way through various levels of decision-making does not necessarily mean he has learned any new mental operations. He may simply have mastered a routine through trial and error.
It seems fairly safe to say that much of children's experience with such games will have little, if any, transfer value to traditional school tasks. While the schools should think about how they might make use of skills learned outside the classroom to further learning, no one has figured out how to make intellectual capital out of "Space Invaders." On the other hand, we do know that lack of use can definitely affect potential for brain connections. If a child spends an inordinate amount of time on video games (or television, or even other types of computer use) instead of playing and experimenting with many different types of skills, the foundations for some kinds of abilities may be sacrificed. These losses may not show up until much later, when more complicated kinds of thinking and learning become necessary. Tender young brains need broad horizons, not overbuilt neural pathways in one specific skill area. This point is extremely important as we return to the topic that has many parents worried -- for good reason.
Mania for MasteryVideo games such as "Nintendo" augment some of the most riveting aspects of television viewing with the built-in reward systems of computer games. These are many children's introduction to the computer's "artificial intelligence." Much like their elder counterparts termed "computer hackers," children enmeshed with this powerful alter ego seem to be hooked by lures that ordinary activities simply do not exert. [32] Here are the games' secret weapons:
• feelings of control and mastery by the players
• exact calibration of the level of difficulty to the player
• immediate and continual reinforcement
• escape from the unpredictability of human social/emotional relationships
As with television viewing, moreover, human brains are easy prey for the demanding, colorful, fast-paced visual formats.
Human nature drives us all to master problems. A golfer may think her life's goal is to break 100, but once she is consistently scoring in the high 90's, is she content -- or, more likely, does she set a new goal to break 95? Video games are perfectly designed to promise mastery -- in gradual degrees, which keep the player coming back for just a little more of this heady potion. The child is always presented with slightly greater challenges, individually calibrated and always tantalizingly within reach -- with continued practice. Each effort, successful or unsuccessful, is promptly reinforced; the machine becomes a personalized tutor. Even children with attention problems in other settings respond to such immediacy.
Mastery leads to a sense of power, which feels especially good to a child in a world where things seem pretty much out of control, and where teachers order children around a lot of the time. Many of the games play directly on this need.
Can these games be educational? Some have suggested that they may be training children in skills which will be needed in the future but for which we don't yet know the uses. Many teachers comment, however, that frequent players have trouble readjusting from the microworld to that of a classroom, which offers much less sensory "saliency," not a whole lot of power, and less individual attention and gratification. Some, of course, suggest that what we really need to do is make school as personally rewarding as the games.
"If we could just convince children that learning to read, and do math would make them powerful, too . . ." one teacher wistfully suggested.
Although some preliminary research suggests that perceptual-motor (specifically, eye-hand) skills may be improved by the games, there is apparently little transfer to school tasks, including writing. In addition, although the player's attention is, indeed, riveted, there has been no evidence of transfer of attention to other kinds of learning. [33]
Do such games teach children to be better problem-solvers? After all, success in many is predicated on making a series of correct decisions. Dr. Linda Siegel, authority on child development and education, has wondered about this possibility. She suspects, however, that the ability to use logical thinking may actually be impaired rather than improved in children conditioned to this visual, holistic environment.
"We should be thinking hard about what these games really encourage. I'm not convinced they really promote decision-making," she told me. "I watch these kids playing and I wonder if those decisions are made on a rational basis, or if it is just chance. Are they developing systems of rules in their minds, or are they just responding intuitively? They seem to be in control, but how much control do they really have? And if it's intuitive rather than logical, is it thinking?" [34]
It would be nice if we had some answers to these questions. In the meanwhile, parents should remember that they are still in charge of the household. Aren't they?
BRAINS THAT READ VS. BRAINS THAT WATCH TVOne thing television does is it keeps kids from reading. Reading triggers certain experiences in the brain that just don't happen if you don't read. I think our brains are designed to symbolize and represent information in the way that we call language. If we don't exercise it, we lose it. Television, even Sesame Street, is not very symbolic. It makes things very tangible and easy to understand, but reading is the kind of exercise that causes the brain to develop differently because it uses that symbolic capability. -- Dr. M. Russell Harter [35]
Children's brains develop connections within and between areas depending on the type of exercise they get. A "good" brain for learning develops strong and widespread neural highways that can quickly and efficiently assign different aspects of a task to the most efficient system. Such a brain is able to "talk" to itself, instantly sending messages from one area to another. Such efficiency is developed only by active practice in thinking and learning which, in turn, builds increasingly stronger connections. A growing suspicion among brain researchers is that excessive television viewing may affect development of these kinds of connections. It may also induce habits of using the wrong systems for various types of learning.
The only sources of data -- both direct and indirect -- on this topic are studies comparing the effects of viewing with those of reading. Although, as always, the data are slim, they suggest that reading and watching TV make quite different demands on the brain and thus encourage different kinds of development. As with any activity, repeated exposure, particularly during sensitive periods, has the potential to cause lasting changes.
"If a certain part of the brain is available for reading and that part doesn't serve a reading function, a reorganization may take place that allows another function to become more developed," adds Dr. Harter, a major investigator in one of the first large-scale studies of reading and the developing brain, now being conducted at the University of North Carolina.
Intensive viewing has the potential for at least three effects on the growing brain, any of which could interfere with a child's natural potential for intelligence and creativity: (1) it may reduce stimulation to left-hemisphere systems critical for development of language, reading, and analytic thinking; (2) it may affect mental ability and attention by diminishing mental traffic between the hemispheres; (3) it may discourage development of "executive" systems that regulate attention, organization, and motivation. Without a solid research base, we can take only a speculative look at each of the three.
Does Television Unbalance the Brain?The medium (at least in the United States), by maximizing quick cuts, which permit little critical analysis, and the visual presentation of violence or disaster, assures retention of global imagery content (right-brain functions?) at the cost of the more orderly and logical verbal and analytical processes (left brain?). Reading, by contrast, can present equally sensational information. . . but it requires a more active stance by the reader who must project his or her own imagery onto a more orderly array of verbal information. [36] -- Dr. Jerome Singer, Yale University
The fear most often expressed about extended television viewing is that it robs the left hemisphere of developmental time and space. Over a decade ago, Marie Winn speculated that television's "repeated and time-consuming nonverbal, primarily visual activity" and negative patterns of "nonverbal cognition" [37] might interfere with "left brain" functions, disrupting language and reading development. Two years later the Emerys suggested that non-verbal systems in the right hemisphere were being overstimulated by TV and that even "advantaged" children would be harmed if neural pathways essential to the development of spoken and written language and critical thought were not fully developed. [38]
Little credible research has been conducted to compare hemispheric activity during viewing vs. reading. What is available suggests that, relative to television, print media generate more left-brain than right-brain activity. [39]
Syntax vs. SaliencyWhile it is physically impossible to stimulate one side of a normal brain without engaging the other as well, it may be possible to "unbalance" development by neglecting certain types of input. Skilled reading depends heavily on (left-hemisphere) auditory language abilities. [40, 41] (Many good readers may not even be aware that they "hear" sentences in their head as they read.) Children who lean too heavily on (right-hemisphere) visual, holistic strategies (they remember or guess what a word says only by the way it "looks" -- first letter, shape, etc.) run into trouble when the text gets harder, when words get longer, and when they must read or spell accurately. Symptoms include inaccurate oral reading ("vacation" for "vacancy") and difficulty reading or spelling syllables in the right sequence ("renuramate" for "remunerate"). Children who never learn to process (understand and remember) language without pictures attached also have difficulty in school when they must listen to a teacher or to the author of a textbook. They keep looking around for meaning instead of creating it inside their own heads.
As we saw in Chapter 4, television is a poor teacher of language because it is not interactive and because it cannot tailor conversation, as can parents, to the needs of the individual child. Even seriously disadvantaged children do not seem to gain linguistic benefits from extended hours of TV. A number of studies have shown that children get information from television primarily through attention to visual action and nonverbal sounds (booms, crashes, music), not through following the dialogue. [42] To understand a complex plot or make sense of speech on television, they would have to overlook the highly salient features and focus instead on such "nonsalient" aspects as low action or normal human speech. Yet, as programs are increasingly designed to attract attention, the child viewer gains the habit of ignoring language in favor of visual and auditory gimmicks. Syntax is a very poor second to saliency.
As I watch children's programming, I am struck by the following (L or R indicates the hemisphere presumably more involved in each case):
• Holistic visual action (R) dominates oral language (L).
• Sound effects are mainly novel noises (R), not sequential speech (L).
• Language modeling consists primarily of vocabulary words -- semantic (R and L) rather than grammatical -- syntactic sequences of words or phrases (L).
• Rapid movement and novelty (R) are almost continual.
• Exaggerated emotional tone (R) characterizes many of the characters' responses.
• Color (R) is a predominant feature.
• Immediacy (R) dominates logical sequence (L) of episodes.
• There is little time for analysis (L) of anything, particularly what the characters say.
• Perception of the sounds (L) in the speech of the characters is very difficult, even for an adult brain.
Robbing left-hemisphere systems of valuable developmental exercise may tip the balance for brains constitutionally at risk for learning problems. Could it put more normal brains at risk? As the hours add up -- who knows? Will minds schooled by television relinquish the special form of intellectual precision afforded our species by the evolution of language in the left hemisphere? No one can answer this question, either, but a lot of teachers have their own opinions.
Changing Brains: Neural Imprints of LiteracyWhile research has yet to show whether watching television permanently changes the brain, it has suggested that literacy does. Because reading and writing are skills not innate or even inevitable for the human brain, they require training and practice. The practice, in turn, seems to develop both brain and thought patterns in certain specialized ways.
Indeed, I am considering the possibility that the adoption of the alphabet by Western cultures has had a reordering effect on the brain and the whole nervous system of literate people. . . . [43] -- Derrick de Kerckhove in The Alphabet and the Brain
Scientists are having fun trying to find out how learning to use an alphabet, particularly one that is read from left to right, might change the way a human brain functions. Clues have come mainly from two types of studies, as yet far from conclusive: some showing that illiterate people tend to have less strongly developed left-hemisphere language-processing than people who can read, and some showing that people who learn to read both a letter-type and a picture-type script, as in Japan, tend to process language more equally between the two sides of the brain than do people who read only letter-type scripts. [44, 45]
Good and poor readers commonly show up with differences in brain function. Part of the reason may be that brains that read more develop differently. "Good readers may spend more time reading than poor readers, and this could conceivably affect brain lateralization," reports one noted team of researchers. [46]
Brains that read in unusual ways also develop differently. Studies similar to those discussed in an earlier chapter show that deaf readers use the two sides of their brain divergently. Deaf readers, we must recall, rarely process beyond third- or fourth-grade-level reading ability in spite of intelligence and teaching; not surprisingly, they tend to use right hemisphere (more visual) systems instead of left (more auditory). [47] Is it only a coincidence that the reading abilities of today's hearing students also begin to level off and then start to drop at/about the same point where most deaf readers get stuck?
Teaching That Changes BrainsDr. Dirk Bakker, of the Free University and Paedological Institute in Amsterdam, believes that the way children use their hemispheres can be changed with surprisingly little effort. Using different methods of reading instruction, he has altered brain function and also improved reading scores.
Bakker insists that reading problems result when children use their hemispheres inappropriately. Part of this "functional overdevelopment" may be inherited, but experience can at least partially restore the balance. To get these brains more effectively organized for reading, Bakker uses training in which he tries to strengthen the weak system causing the problem.
Bakker's students improve their reading, but, more important, they also show "training-induced electrical changes in brain asymmetry" (changes in relative strength of brain waves over the two hemispheres) that correlate with the changes in their reading abilities. It is particularly notable -- and a little frightening -- that the teachers achieved these changes in hemispheric activity with only twenty-two weekly sessions of forty-five minutes each! [48, 49] Although it has not yet been shown that the brains were permanently altered in any major way by such brief training, these experiments offer hope that early elementary school years still provide an opening for reeducating underactive neurons. [50]
Most researchers are skeptical of what Marcel Kinsbourne terms "dichotomania" -- the tendency to look at everything in terms of right versus left hemisphere. Children must learn to use -- and thus help develop -- both sides and the connections between them. Higher-order reasoning and putting language meaning together with the visual input are particularly important. In these respects skilled reading is a much better trainer than television.
Mental and Physical Effort -- or Withered Brains?TV isn't tapping any higher-order integrative processes. It's much more dangerous than simply engaging children's right hemispheres. Both hemispheres can watch TV, but they do it with lower-level systems, mainly visual ones. The issue is not right or left, but the type of processing that gets stimulated. -- Dr. Wendy Heller. [51]
Authorities now suspect that the ability to activate and coordinate the work of both hemispheres may be even more important than developing individual systems in either side. They argue we should not allow viewing to replace physical play (e. g., running, kicking, climbing, throwing), handwork (e.g., building, working with clay, needlework, origami), doing puzzles, playing games, or other activities through which the two sides of the body -- and their related connections in the brain -- learn to coordinate with each other.
The corpus callosum, the thick bridge of fibers connecting the hemispheres, is one of the brain's latest-maturing parts. It ultimately makes possible important skills such as flexible manipulation of ideas, mature creative imagination, and effective interplay between analytic and intuitive thinking (e.g., seeing the way details fit inside the "big picture"; implementing an action plan for a creative idea). Poor development of this critical link between the hemispheres can result in learning and attention problems. [52]
Because of its late maturation, the corpus callosum may be extremely vulnerable to lack of practice. After an initial spurt of growth during the first two years of life, it probably continues to develop at a slow, relatively steady pace until somewhere between ages eight and fourteen. As the connections mature, the youngster must practice using them -- through physical and mental activity. If the brain remains relatively passive during childhood and/or adolescence, it will be much more difficult to develop these skills later when the brain is less flexible. [53]
Dr. Jerre Levy, biopsychologist at the University of Chicago and an internationally known authority on hemispheric development, believes that mental effort of all kinds is what firms up these connections.
I suspect that normal human brains are built to be challenged and that it is only in the face of an adequate challenge that normal bihemispheric brain operations are engaged. [54]
Dr. Levy insists that children need "a linguistic environment that is coordinated with the visual environment they're experiencing," not the "linguistically depleted" environment of TV. In other words, they need to pay attention to words as well as to pictures.
Dr. Levy feels that older children may actually be more affected by the low-level linguistic content of much television programming than little ones. "Furthermore," she added, "the main thing that worries me about TV is not even its intellectual level. To the extent that children commit time looking at TV, they're not spending time reading. When a child reads a novel, he has to self-create whole scenarios, he has to create images of who these people are, what their emotions are, what their tones of voice are, what the environment looks like, what the feeling of this environment is. These self-created scenarios are important, and television leaves no room for that creative process.
"I think brains are designed to meet cognitive challenges," she concluded. "It's just like muscles; if you don't exercise them they wither. If you don't exercise brains, they wither." [55]
POOR SCAFFOLDING FOR THE BRAIN'S EXECUTIVEEqually troubling is the growing suspicion that the brain's executive centers may be compromised by too many hours in front of the tube. This concern was repeatedly expressed by neuropsychologists whom I informally polled at a recent conference, most of whom, incidentally, said they allow their children to watch [TV] -- but on a limited and selective basis.
"It's too simple to say TV makes kids 'right-brained,'" commented Dr. Sid Segalowitz, an authority on children's hemispheric development. "It's important that parents realize how complex the brain is. They hear all this stuff about stimulating their child's brain; it's important to realize that you can't stimulate just one isolated part of it. Brain function is a system; we need to get away from this right and left idea. When we look at slides of blood flow in the brain when kids are reading, we can see so many different areas lighting up at once. Good readers tend to use both left and right hemispheres, including the prefrontal systems."
Spending time with something that doesn't challenge their brains much could impinge on development of prefrontal executive functions, such as control of thinking, attention, and general planning skills, said Dr. Segalowitz. "The frontal lobes are late enough developing that they can definitely be affected by environmental variables, but we still don't know how much is programmable hardware, and how much is not." [56] Like several colleagues, he would like to initiate research to find out more about how environmental influences affect this mysterious -- and influential -- brain area.
As reviewed in Chapter 8, frontal-lobe development continues throughout childhood and adolescence. It is closely related to the vigilance (persistent attention) that seems to be particularly affected by TV viewing. Growth in these executive systems probably accounts for the dramatic shift usually seen in children's control over their own reasoning abilities between ages five and seven. [57] During this period they become much better able to understand and plan strategies for what they are learning, as well as for controlling their own behavior. Parents don't need to be reminded, however, that many "control functions" don't become dependable until much later! How television may affect this course of development is unknown, although we may safely assume that extensive viewing has some effects.
Prefrontal development enables higher-level learning. Conversely, thoughtful, mentally challenging reading, reflecting, planning, and problem-solving nourishes these neural circuits. It is possible to read words without much help from these higher-level control centers, but comprehension and application -- as well as motivation and persistence -- require their use. These endangered skills appear to be the ones most related to our national crisis in learning. How much can be blamed on a generalized willingness to let TV "scaffold" children's development?
CONCLUSION: VIDEO CAN BE HAZARDOUS TO BRAINS AND LEARNINGThe overall effects of television viewing and other forms of video on the growing brain are poorly understood, but research strongly indicates that it has the potential to affect both the brain itself and related learning abilities. Abilities to sustain attention independently, stick to problems actively, listen intelligently, read with understanding, and use language effectively may be particularly at risk. No one knows how much exposure is necessary to make a difference. Likewise, no information is available about the overall effects on intelligence of large amounts of time taken from physical exercise, social or independent play, pleasure reading, sustained conversation, or roaming quietly about in one's own imagination.
The notion that television overdevelops the right hemisphere is giving way to the much greater possibility that it underdevelops several areas and/or the connections between them. Not only left-hemisphere language systems, but also higher-order organizational abilities, including the all-important control, motivation, and planning functions of the prefrontal lobes, may be in jeopardy for children who watch without expending much mental effort. All these functions may have sensitive periods when they are particularly susceptible to variations in stimulation, but it is difficult to determine which age periods are more critical than others or how much exposure is needed to cause physical effects.
The fact that reports from teachers so precisely mirror the "symptoms" of these same deficits should give us all pause. Surely, with the amount of time children in this country spend in front of the screen, we should demand better research on its effects. There must be a great untapped teaching potential there somewhere. Meanwhile, the best advice to parents seems to be the usual caveats:
• Place firm limits on television and video use; encourage children to plan ahead for favorite shows and games.
• Participate with children whenever possible.
• Talk with the child about television content, methods of audience manipulation, point of view, etc.
• If you want children to become readers, show them how to turn off the tube and pick up a book.
• Remember, what is pleasantly relaxing to your brain may not be good for theirs.
• Give substitute caregivers strict guidelines regarding TV and video use.
• Read the next chapter before you encourage preschoolers to watch Sesame Street.