German Hops
GAF's Nicest Lunch Thief
I don't watch television. I am a man in the 21-35 year age group, and in my age group 20% of us do not watch commercial television. This is not to say that I do not watch television transmitted media at all - if I perceive a television program to be especially enjoyable I will download it and watch it commercial free. I will occasionally watch the television news to critique it.
But otherwise, I do not watch it. And I believe that by not watching it I have made myself more intelligent.
Allow me to present hypothesis. I believe that television is a medium which directly encourages intellectual passivity by exploiting natural neuro-plasticity to condition individual human beings into uncritically believing narratives which they are told. I suspect that this occurs because television is the most 'spoon-fed' method of information gathering - the television viewer passively receives information/narrative in a way which requires minimal end-user interaction or input. Neuro-plasticity refers to the capacity of the human brain to physical alter itself as an adaptive mechanism in response to its environment.
Think of the typical day for your TV junkie: work 8 hours (often at a job requiring little critical thinking), go home and spend 3-6 hours watching TV (where the narrative is spoon-fed to the viewer), subtract transport time and feeding, and then sleep. Such a combination repeated for decades on end will result in the brain adapting to this routine, diminishing the neural pathways in the brain which are responsible for critical and pro-active thinking (as the brain shuts down activity in areas of itself which it hardly uses).
As a result, over the long term TV viewers become more credulous and especially trusting of what is shown on their ever familiar television set.
What do you think?
But otherwise, I do not watch it. And I believe that by not watching it I have made myself more intelligent.
Allow me to present hypothesis. I believe that television is a medium which directly encourages intellectual passivity by exploiting natural neuro-plasticity to condition individual human beings into uncritically believing narratives which they are told. I suspect that this occurs because television is the most 'spoon-fed' method of information gathering - the television viewer passively receives information/narrative in a way which requires minimal end-user interaction or input. Neuro-plasticity refers to the capacity of the human brain to physical alter itself as an adaptive mechanism in response to its environment.
Think of the typical day for your TV junkie: work 8 hours (often at a job requiring little critical thinking), go home and spend 3-6 hours watching TV (where the narrative is spoon-fed to the viewer), subtract transport time and feeding, and then sleep. Such a combination repeated for decades on end will result in the brain adapting to this routine, diminishing the neural pathways in the brain which are responsible for critical and pro-active thinking (as the brain shuts down activity in areas of itself which it hardly uses).
As a result, over the long term TV viewers become more credulous and especially trusting of what is shown on their ever familiar television set.
What do you think?
