caution screen! Consumption of electronic media and its impact on brain development
after me today declared once again a student of eighth grade, that there are now studies that show that computer games to 2 hours daily good for children is, I finally roused to write the long waiting summary of the talk by brain scientist Professor Dr. Spitzer.
first needs to be made clear that our brain always learn. Learning is not a conscious decision in itself, but you decide WHAT you learn. Spitzer is a crash course in brain research, and he explained that the process we call learning, based on the brain is nothing other than the trail of information that we process.
is this, that these tracks are the more pronounced, the more often a piece of information is processed and the more emotionally charged the Enjoy the experience. How anyone can easily understand their own daily lives, we shape ourselves to things that caused us great joy, but also a lot of pain, physically and mentally, once and for all time. Just unforgettable experiences.
describes organic brain Spitzer the learning process with the emergence of a beaten track on a snowy meadow. The meadow is the millions of synapses in the brain, which are each a piece of information. By the information processing, the synapses are connected, so connected.
In view of the winter prairie: Runs only once a person from A to B on the track is soon blown away again. Run, however, several people again and again the same Route is a footpath from the trail and finally a way. The brain researchers say, therefore, assume that processing patterns are paved in the brain. The connection between synapses is measurably thicker. The deeper this facilitation is done, the faster and more reliable the information available.
on just this way, therefore, is how our thinking routines. For this too, any number of examples are found in everyday life. Very clear the character is when you experience no longer even aware of how you go through a routine, such as when you do not know how you got home (without drugs) or you are not sure afterwards if you completed , etc. has turned off.
summary So does that mean, not matter what information I supply to the brain, they will be paved by repetition. Active learning is called practicing the sport and Automation - trained reflexes.
Now back on screen media. Spitzer refers in his paper on a long-term study in New Zealand, published in the journal Lancet in 2004 (excerpt on TV consumption of young and adult body weight: http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140- 6736% 2804% 2916675-0/abstract). Their findings can be predicted using only the basic knowledge of the above-given insight into the workings of the brain.
show First German statistics show that children sleep in this country an average of 7-8 hours, or about one-third of the day. In second place comes with about 5.5 hours of daily consumption of screen media. It can be divided in 3.5 h and 2 h PC TV.
In third place comes the school with about 4 to 4.5 h (all calculated on 7-day week). In other words, the largest source of information (always in the sense of data regardless of the content) of the screen consumption.
The aforementioned study in New Zealand has recorded more than 1,000 newborns and assists more than thirty years, the findings on the relationship of child and adolescent behavior and the adult people in every to win respect.
list without the individual numbers of the statistics, can cover the following links:
more TV consumption between 5 and 15 years, the more overweight the subjects had, the more likely they were smokers, the worse was their general fitness at age 30.
have already explained this purely biological observations. TV consumes considerably less energy then sleep. In addition to the viewing experience is part of many high-calorie foods such as chips, peanuts and candy. The embossed patterns in youth gather therefore purely metabolic moderately over the years the bacon.
More Results The study in brief:
- the higher the consumption of television with 1 year, the safer and more ads with 7 years
- the higher the consumption of television at age 5, the safer and more reading and spelling problems at 8 years
- per higher the consumption of television to 5 years, the lower the educational level and social status at age 30
the last point a little more detailed information:
TV viewing at age 5
- daily for 1 hour: 40% Uni- degree, 40% vocational qualification, 10% have no qualifications
- daily 1 to 2 hours: about 25% of university degree, about 45% of vocational qualifications, about 5% with no qualifications
- 2 to 3 hours daily: 20% university degree, about 40% of vocational qualifications, about 15% with no qualifications
- daily for 3 hours: about 8% of university degree, about 40% of vocational qualifications, about . 25-30% with no qualifications are
As mentioned above the average German youth in the latter consumer group. Spitzer has expressly dismissed claims that the results are dependent on IQ, or the social status of parents. These factors have been excluded from the results already mentioned. Therefore, the incomplete percent totals.
Building on the basics of brain function Spitzer said these negative consequences from the perspective of brain research as follows. It is common knowledge that childhood lays the foundation for understanding the world and the subsequent handling of it. Even before the modern brain research reported sayings such as that of Matt and Hans pointed out.
Now, if a child makes such an impressive first experiences with the world of screen media, it takes about only two instead of five possible senses of sight and hearing.
Everyone knows the strong instinct of small children to touch everything and even better to have stuck in his mouth. It is touches and taps, cast and sniffs. It is stored in the brain all the sensations and experience the property in question, specifically associated with the appropriate Term. When you hear the word "apple", should be able to recall an image, a scent, a sound and a tactile feel to finish, shape and weight. A strong sensation, such as fragrance or image can evoke whole experience again. This is exactly the networked information in the brain.
Now the so-called average children get in Germany (and elsewhere) their experiences about their environment and the people largely through the vision of blurred images, flickering and hearing the noise from more or less bad speakers. First, on this way, the other senses or not trained hard and wither. This is evident in stunted fine motor skills, Just look at manuscripts. Second, language is not networked with extensive experience. This is evident in the developing power of expression in the heavy-understanding of the relationships in the real world, and finally in the school grades.
Spitzer observes, that it can be shown that an average intelligent children are affected much more so than the average intelligent peers. So the gap is thus further apart.
For these grades, in turn, result in the above statistics on skills and consequently to social status.
is hereby established full focus and again to understand the operation of the brain, that the expression of predetermined screen use as an adolescent my future social status, apart from bequests and other misfortune and see.
As Spitzer notes pointedly, yet not a single word about the contents of the screen consumption was said. It was only about perception and information processing in the brain.
The explanations can now be easily derived, the potential consequences of the contents. Countless hours to the mentioned low energy consumption and depletion of the senses when screen use the thousands of repetitions of commercials to get high-energy food, the orbital planes and their traces in the brain. The result I always enjoy the most on advertising in ethics education: Assigning students (and not only) can be in complete perfection advertising slogans, product or brand, and often still hum the jingle to it.
The saying "It's like in the film / cinema / television," shows where we take our benchmarks.
If Spitzer 80%, according to the German television program now have power to content, it is not surprising that a German study has shown in the analysis of crime statistics that the TV consumption predicted at 14 years, the frequency of violence as an adult does.
be mentioned all the information learned more, the more it emotionally be experienced. The quality of video games is measured for most of the quality of the graphical representation and the fun that the game allows. Fun and learning success are our strongest emotions. Just as children's successes are memorable, just as serious failures.
PC gamers often lend to outsiders almost unbelievable in their virtual worlds. You can reach speeds in the operation of their hardware that often the audience is no longer comprehensible. There are charts of actions per minute, measured at the level where the player can (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actions_per_minute). Better can the correctness of the findings summarized here no evidence of brain research.
The question is then how are these incredible abilities of the people in his daily life, useful in school, work and social environment. If I decide to perfect me in hundreds of hours of practice in playing a single role-playing, we should at least ask who benefits from these "costs" it pops out for me.
Although the market for PC-game developers and testers just expanding, it is worth considering whether my career will go in that direction, and whether a rudimentary communication skills and social impoverishment is a reasonable price for it.
The study from New Zealand has also shown that consumption screen for most young people do not seem to fame and wealth, such as in the media or computer-game industry leads. my
The accuracy of the presentation of Spitzer observing a day I can. Young people who are frequently talk about TV programs and computer games, or worse still use the same mobile device at school, their grade point average is not very reliable at the peak.
Coming back to the eighth grader and his studies on the usefulness of screen use among adolescents: Spitzer looks at the pointing out that the TV and PC game industry is a market of around 20 billion EURO is. A few years ago flew the dozen supposedly reputable "scientists", which would have proven that tobacco smoke is quite healthy. Now, smoking is still far too many people. Probably not a claim but still, he was doing himself and his health so that something good ...
The DVD:
(for 5.95 EUR http://www.jokers.de/3/13710471-1/dvd/vorsicht-bildschirm- dvd.html) are
The underlying point here:
caution screen! : Electronic Media, Brain Development, Health and Society (Paperback) German Paperback Publisher (July 1, 2006) ISBN-13: 978-3423343275
http://www.amazon.de/gp/product/3423343273/ref=cm_rdp_product
costs ... and sometimes the luck just four euros. 
function. The -1 in the exponent means inverse function (see, eg 
