Doctors Recommend Against TV For Kids Under 2 210
An anonymous reader writes "The American Academy of Pediatrics has issued a recommendation to parents that kids under the age of two should be limited in their time watching television and using computers. They say there's 'no such thing' as educational programming for kids that young, and that they benefit much more from real human interaction (PDF). Psychologist Georgene Troseth said, 'We know that some learning can take place from media, but it's a lot lower, and it takes a lot longer.' The article continues: 'Unlike school-age children, infants and toddlers "just have no idea what's going on" no matter how well done a video is, Dr. Troseth said. The new report strongly warns parents against putting a TV in a very young child's room and advises them to be mindful of how much their own use of media is distracting from playtime. In some surveys between 40 and 60 percent of households report having a TV on for much of the day — which distracts both children and adults, research suggests.'"
Yeah... (Score:4, Informative)
I think most of TV is below the 2 year-old mentality.
This 1 year old doesn't understand printed images (Score:4, Interesting)
Do you laugh or do you weep for the future.
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Re:This 1 year old doesn't understand printed imag (Score:5, Insightful)
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The corners aren't rounded, I think the magazines might have a slim chance.
Slim not allowed. Prior art.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I had to; it was right there.
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Most children today may not be reading books off printed paper in the future anyway, so I consider it funny.
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Mike!
Haven't seen you for a while. Nice to see you back on /. Where've you been? Did you bring us anything?
Youtube songs are good family fun (Score:5, Interesting)
Introducing music to kids is great and I'd add that its fun for me to do too.. I'd have to say that this is different than plugging her into a TV set to watch the eye-candy slackjawed n drooling and I noted the ADHD link with fast edit kids media recently It is a much more interactive thing where she picks her favourite videos to watch as a treat. We talk about the characters and animals and sometimes do drawings after. Another favorite is a Woody Guthrie classic [youtube.com] and we sing it together sometimes. She digs the iPad since she can click on suggested videos at the end of one... OF course it is a supervise activity.
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What's funny is the Sesame St video is of much higher quality on YouTube. (Also, I like the song better than the original too and so does my 1.8 yr old toddler.)
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I'm in the same boat. My daughter is 1 1/2 and loves sesame street. I keep tv to a minimum and always sit with her, but honestly, I don't really get the arguments that always focus on the educational value of TV. Isn't it ok to want to just wind down sometimes after a long day, even for children?
Not every second needs to be filled with learning. I can see times where my child is almost overstimulated from a long day and will wind down a bit when I give her the choice (yes she understands choices at this
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Oh, also my daughter tends to prefer the Will.I.Am song they did: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyVzjoj96vs [youtube.com] :)
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So does my toddler; when we say "strong" he flexes his bicep like will.i.am. Though when comparing this with Feist's, if you pause at the end of hers you can tell she was super-happy about doing the performance, while it seemed [at first] that Will.i.am was hung-over or really tired and kinda bored looking. Upon many views later, I've mostly decided he's trying to downplay his "pumped up & party" persona (though he still probably hit it hard the night before :). There are many popular songs that artist
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(ps, how the bloody hell do you post links on this godawful new AJAX abomination of a comment system? <a href= didn't work!)
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href works fine, though it appends in brackets the name of the site you are linking to.
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Woah..
That is a great way for a musician to build brand recognition...
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Kids know the difference between real and make believe...
There are a few studies that disagree with you on that. Kids as old as 8 and even 10 have problems separating real and imagined events.
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Not to mention that there are several psychiatric (psychological and/or neurological) disorders found in adults that are caused in part by a failure to completely distinguish real and imagined events.Assuming that young children fully understand the difference seems unwarranted.
Now even young children can distinguish some events as definitely imagined, but not all such events will be distinguished, and by default, events not believed to be imagined are assumed to be real.
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Kids know the difference between real and make believe...
There are a few studies that disagree with you on that. Kids as old as 8 and even 10 have problems separating real and imagined events.
Adults sometimes have the very same problems, only their belief shifts from "Santa Claus" to some other imaginary friend as they get older
The AAP has always been extremely conservative (Score:5, Insightful)
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Is it a "boat-load" or a "bit"?
See, this is what matters. I agree, it's not a surprise that keeping the TV on all day is detrimental to developing minds. Common sense? That sounds fine.
So why do we need a "huge grain" of salt? Your quantities are very confusing.
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Way too busy? Of their own accord or being loaded down by work?
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By after school activities of their own choosing (dance and swimming) and some that we as parents want them to do (mostly religious education). The rest of the time is taken up by homework and of course downtime. TV usually stays off all day on school days mostly because nobody is missing it.
You're effectively going against what the article originally states. You're paying attention to your kids. You're giving them human interaction. You're also giving them a structure to follow. The article refers to parents who try to let the TV do the teaching. Long version short, you're one of the many 1-offs.
As compared to... (Score:5, Interesting)
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is there ever a good answer to distracting kids so you can do laundry, make food, take a shower or other necessary tasks?
Playpens with TVs?
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is there ever a good answer to distracting kids so you can do laundry, make food, take a shower or other necessary tasks?
Playpens with TVs?
For our kids that works about as well as caging any animal. They scream and cry and carry on. Would you want your managers to put you in a cage at work. (Granted hopefully you're better at looking after yourself than an infant).
Re:As compared to... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:As compared to... (Score:4, Informative)
The biggest problem I see here is that you should approach this as crating your child, not caging him (or her). A proper crate should be more or less covered to act as a sort of "den" or "cave" in which your child may seek refuge. You should feed your child in his (or her) crate to train him (or her) to develop positive associations. Please note that because it is a refuge, your child must be allowed and encouraged to urinate outside of the crate rather than soil his (or her) own den. Over time, you'll find that the screaming subsides and your child will be able to spend more time in the crate—up to 8 hours, if you must work away from home—without issues.
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I really hope you are making a sarcastic analogy.
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[...] is there ever a good answer to distracting kids so you can do laundry, make food, take a shower or other necessary tasks?
This finding seems to be specifically about kids two and under. It's not that hard to wrangle those kids and make dinner at the same time. They will slow you down for sure, but, for much of the time they can't even walk. The thought of an 11-month-old being plopped in front of a TV or a tablet for "much of the day" frankly makes me sad.
Re:As compared to... (Score:5, Insightful)
You have obviously never had kids. You have NO idea how rowdy they start getting around dinner time.
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You have obviously never had kids. You have NO idea how rowdy they start getting around dinner time.
I have multiple kids and no spouse, so I think I am familiar with how to handle making dinner among kids of various ages.
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I kind of agree with you about extended periods. I still play with my kids and read to them and take them to the zoo and the park and the library. But mixing in some TV time won't kill them either.
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Of course they definitely still need a attention. I read to them every day, play trains, take them to the zoo, the park, and my wife does crafts with them while I am at work. We also go to the little gym. TV is not that bad as long as they aren't in front of it 24/7.
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I have two kids...one very well behaved and self sufficient, and one very clingy who wants to
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Especially if they've been sitting around all day watching' stuff...
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What, feed them the meal before you prepare it? How does that work?
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Playpens _are_ the answer, if you want to interact with an under-2, while working with dangerous tools (cooking, ironing, soldering).
Even a crawling baby can move very fast.
Though these days, with open-plan homes, it is usually easier to put a gate on the kitchen area and have the parent in the pen.
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Proper parenting would be to put the child in a playpen with a badger. Teaches the kids to be ready for Thunderdome in about 30 years.
Back in what day? (Score:2)
In times gone by women worked the field and carried their babies with them. As the children learned to walk to would first play work and soon work for real.
Or are you talking of days gone by in which very young children were send down the mines because they fit in the narrowest spaces, don't get paid much and nobody cared to much if they died?
What yesterday are you talking about?
This is just stupid (Score:2, Interesting)
infants and toddlers "just have no idea what's going on" no matter how well done a video is
This is just plain stupid. It isn't even a good lie. The "The American Academy of Pediatrics" us a self selecting group. It is one that has always seen TV as evil. My son was beating multiple levels of Pac-Man before he was 1 year old. Literally before he could walk. There is no way that this would have been possible if children couldn't understand what was happening on the screen before the age of 2.
Anyone that has bothered to talk to an 18 month old knows that they understand what is going on on
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Put them in a cage with the people who advocate against TV for kids under 2 because of the marketing effects and watch the idiocy feedback levels reach supercriticality.
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TV has been great for our kids (Score:5, Interesting)
This is just nonsense.
My son wouldn't talk till he was over 2 years old. We were starting to worry. Then he discovered Thomas the Tank Engine. Suddenly he wanted to say the names of the engines and he learnt his colours too. That led to shapes. At 3 he's now on to identifying numbers on the sides of the engines, he's got an incredible imagination. With no prompting he drew a passable clown face on his face when momentarily left alone with a texter (and showed how he'd close his eyes when he was warned that he could poke his eyes out). He's been to the circus exactly twice. I'll bet he got that from TV. He knows some letters because he's learnt H is for horn for example when we play Trainz with Thomas characters, or that you hit W to go forward. He has limited mouse and keyboard skills but his comprehension impresses me. He goes to preschool now so that's helping his social development. He is not allowed to sit there and do nothing but watch TV. My wife plays and draws and bakes cookies and everything else you would expect a young child do.
My daughter's developing speech sooner. She's not 18 months old yet but she's asking for certain objects with abbreviated words "bub" for bubble etc. She loves TV shows too. She usually prefers to watch with her brother and she's a very social little creature indeed.
Young children may not have the skills to understand at high level concepts, but they sure as hell can follow a kids TV show. And as long as it's not all they do, I think it's very important to their development.
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This is just nonsense.
My son wouldn't talk till he was over 2 years old. We were starting to worry. Then he discovered Thomas the Tank Engine. Suddenly he wanted to say the names of the engines and he learnt his colours too. [...]
Billions and billions of kids have developed fine without any TV at all, it's not necessarily nonsense. There are always outliers and special circumstances that are contrary to "normal", but that is not to say that spending "much of the day" with a TV is helpful to most kids under two years old. There is a big difference between a kid who is over 2 years old discovering Thomas The Tank Engine compared to someone who has not even turned one spending much of the day watching TV.
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Billions and billions of kids have developed fine without any TV at all, it's not necessarily nonsense. There are always outliers and special circumstances that are contrary to "normal", but that is not to say that spending "much of the day" with a TV is helpful to most kids under two years old. There is a big difference between a kid who is over 2 years old discovering Thomas The Tank Engine compared to someone who has not even turned one spending much of the day watching TV.
I did not say that TV was a requirement for a child to develop, so why the straw man?
All children should have limited time in front of the TV, because they should be out doing things with family and friends. But there is no way to severely restrict or eliminate TV, nor to suggest that it isn't a good avenue for learning.
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No way you should severly restrict is what I meant to say.
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I did not say that TV was a requirement for a child to develop, so why the straw man?
All children should have limited time in front of the TV, because they should be out doing things with family and friends. But there is no way to severely restrict or eliminate TV, nor to suggest that it isn't a good avenue for learning.
I did not intend a straw man at all. You seemed to be implying that TV was needed (or significantly helped) your son to develop speech, therefor this science is nonsense. I was countering that with the fact that your son was over 2, and this study is specifically about kids under 2. Also, for a ~2 year old who is not in school, "much of the day" must be like 6-8 hours.
What works for your kids does not debunk general scientific guidance or support a position that it is nonsense. I'm glad you found some
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Re:TV has been great for our kids (Score:5, Interesting)
I have to agree. I have a daughter who is 2 years old next month, and we allow about one hour of TV per day - about 30 mins in the morning and about 30 mins at night - enough for one or two of her favorite educational cartoons. She asks for them by name (clearly and persistently...), and I feel that as long as she's learning from them, then I'm ok with them.
And learn she has. Everything from identifying airplanes, airports, dump trucks, numbers, colors to concepts like "on/off", "go/stop", etc. We're lucky to have my mother-in-law watch her every other day and she works with her constantly, so she gets plenty of direct people interaction.
She's also allowed about 30 minutes of iPad time per day, which she loves - she plays games that identifies animals, concepts, and such. She can pick out and say aardvark, beaver, lemur, or any of 50 other non-basic animals from a large list of pictures in a matter of seconds. Critical life skills, no, but this is about learning the world around her.
Having said all this - it's not about TV in particular. It's about what type of media they are exposed to, in what quantity, and the type. Moderation in everything, and this is no exception. Before I get raked over the coals, I'll state that she spends as much time daily with me outside in the grass, at the playground, at the pool, with her wooden blocks, etc, etc as she does watching TV. Again, it's not about the medium - it's about moderating exposure and parental involvement.
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Let me counter your anecdote with two of my own. In the house of one of my childhood friends, multiple TVs were on almost 24 hours a day. You could not speak to any member of that family while in the same room as one of those TVs without their gaze migrating away from you and back to the TV.
Needless to say, this was not a healthy family and it did not stay together long.
My parents severely restricted my access to TV and incidentally I went to better schools and I earn more money than my childhood friends
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And as long as it's not all they do, I think it's very important to their development.
You've shared a nice anecdote, but I have one too. My 2 year old daughter watches zero TV and is doing pretty well. She speaks in full sentences ("daddy, come join us for breakfast"), counts to 13, knows her ABCs, can identify almost every animal at the zoo... whenever we're out in public people comment on how articulate she is.
I'm not claiming she's exceptional or that her progress has anything to do with our avoidance of television. I think it's probably more about personal attention from her parents and
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It's easy to say you'd take that bet when there is no way of actually proving one way or another.
And no, I didn't miss the part about children under 2. BOTH my children have been watching TV since their eyes could focus. But they have been doing plenty of other things too, so they don't miss out. At no stage did I say that TV should be their entire world, at any age.
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argument from authority. that one anecdote could be right, you never know until you determine the facts. TV is not any worse than any other influence in the environment.. too few can severely limit a child's worldview.. of course we're talking about the under 5yo set, so much of this is N/A anyway.
maybe if you quit worshiping wingnut politics and focus on the fact that most 'science' concerning heavily politicized issues (like child development) is highly suspect due to many so-called scientists sacrificing
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My wife plays and draws and bakes cookies and everything else you would expect a young child do.
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Excellent, but I thought this was about children, not child brides.
If you think it's healthy for children not to have an adult willing to engage in play with them, then I pity you. Of course I suspect that's not the case and that it's just a poor attempt at a troll.
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Get a native English speaker (there must be some out there) to correct and explain what you originally wrote.
the main problem with things like television (Score:3, Insightful)
it trains your mind to be led by something other than your mind itself.
so even if television wasnt full of violence and myriad sexual innuendis (which it is), but instead filled only with decent people doing decent things, it would still exert a tremendous and unquantifiable amount of damage to the normal healthy mental fitness of any human cognitive enough to interpret any part of its message at any basic level.
i hate to say it but technology has dehumanized humanity. many have seen it pervading the social fabric already, decades ago. they were ridiculed and derided by people much like myself until a few years ago when the evidence became too overwhelming for me to continue living a lie.
our society is now filled with people that cannot concentrate on anything important for too long, seldom dwell on any actually important topic, and have very little desire to muse on anything. we all want fast paced, lots of colors, quick shallow messages that can be digested without any heavy mental thought given.
i am reading a book right now that echos my feelings on this far better than i can articulate. it is called 'high tech heretic' by clifford stoll (better known for his non fiction book 'the cuckoos egg' when he tracked down hackers that were working for the kgb and were breaking into the vms / bsd box's at his university decades ago)
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our society is now filled with people that cannot concentrate on anything important for too long, seldom dwell on any actually important topic, and have very little desire to muse on anything. we all want fast paced, lots of colors, quick shallow messages that can be digested without any heavy mental thought given.
Funny, I thought we'd made some pretty ground breaking scientific discoveries, and tech had helped us all push the boundaries of both art and science. But I guess that's too glass half full for you?
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It is true that some individuals have and continue to achieve the things you mention. However, the parent is making a critique of our behavior as a group.
While I neither agree nor disagree, your hasty reply intended to dismiss as pessimistic an opinion that hits close to home only seems to make his point wouldn't you say user 465911?
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i am reading a book right now that echos my feelings on this far better than i can articulate...
It's not because he watched less TV than you, he's just a better writer.
And why should they be allowed TV after age 2? (Score:4, Insightful)
Just wondering. TV isn't just bad for babies.
No Control Group (Score:3)
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*gently steps off lawn*
If You Think I'm Going to Wait . . . (Score:3)
huh? (Score:2)
F those people and their guilt trip (Score:2)
Its meaningless marketing. Find something almost all parents occasionally do thats mostly harmless, as the greeks said, all things in moderation. Make the parents feel guilty about it. While they feel bad, make some suggestions that are easier than burning the TV and are highly profitable, like maybe bring your child in for a checkup every 4 weeks from birth to 18 years. Also its hard core authoritarian trip, use guilt to prove their superiority and authority over the lowly stinking masses and use their
Comprehension issues (Score:2)
'Unlike school-age children, infants and toddlers "just have no idea what's going on"
That's why it's best to have them watch shows like the Teletubbies. That way, nobody of any age can figure out what's going on, and the toddlers don't feel like they're being left out.
Good advice (Score:2)
Re:Damn, I've been lettting my new baby watch TV (Score:4, Informative)
I recommend against TV for children under 99.
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ADD is the logical consequence of doing everything ever faster. It is not caused by TV as such, but rather by the way the world has changed.
We used to have the middle ages, where everything significant done was thought over probaby 50 years at the very least.
Then we went from "water + green sparkly stone heats up" to nuclear power plants (with a detour to the bomb) in about 15 years.
Then things accelerated and technology advanced, so cost decreased to the point where 10 year planning was enough to travel to
Re:Damn, I've been lettting my new baby watch TV (Score:5, Insightful)
ADD is the logical consequence of doing everything ever faster. It is not caused by TV as such, but rather by the way the world has changed.
We used to have the middle ages, where everything significant done was thought over probaby 50 years at the very least. Then we went from "water + green sparkly stone heats up" to nuclear power plants (with a detour to the bomb) in about 15 years. Then things accelerated and technology advanced, so cost decreased to the point where 10 year planning was enough to travel to the moon. We went from 1 baud to ~150 Tb/sec with roughly the same amount of minds behind it, in about 40 years, rising exponentially year-over-year. Now things are accelerated to the point that we plan for a few hours, a few weeks, maybe a few months for the really, really big projects.
And "strangely" this results in a short attention span ... how is this a surprise ? How exactly do you think our brains would adapt ? It is physically impossible (in non-geological timespans) to get any smarter, so what was the brain to do ? The acceleration above happened in 500 years. The last 4 in less than 100 years. The last 2 in 30 years. ADD is only the beginning, it'll expand to the point that large amounts of people do not have sufficient attention span to get anything done at all, to the point where it can rightly be called a disease.
ADD is simply a result of how we've "chosen" to run the world (perhaps more accurately : how the dollar has chosen to run the world). It will get much worse than it is today. The shortening of attention spans and the lack of depth of thought is running along an exponential curve.
How then do you explain those who can deal with the pace of modern life, including those who love and work frequently with technology and information, yet retain the ability to concentrate and focus and pay attention at will?
I have an entirely different theory. It's not a matter of something new that has recently appeared. It's a matter of something old that is no longer valued as it once was. The heightened pace of modern life merely increases the contrast, makes the nature of the problem more evident and observable. Without that, you'd have to look for it much harder before you would see it.
It's simply a matter of discipline mixed with expectation and most people grossly sell themselves short on both counts. The lack of depth is absolutely caused by the decline of personal introspection and self-evaluation, things which naturally lead to an internal embracing of the good and rewarding kind of discipline. This isn't the kind of discipline externally imposed by some authority. It is a desire to appreciate and to invest in things that are valuable and significant.
If you buy a car, you take good care of it and learn a little bit about how it works so you know how to do that. If you buy a computer, you pay attention to experienced users, you learn from your mistakes, and you do a little reading here and there so you can get the most out of it. All of that has now been shoved into the exclusive domain of experts. All of that is "too hard", which is code for "requires a small investment of effort that repeatedly pays off forever afterwards".
All of that is not passive enough, not comfortable enough for those who want to be served more than they want to help themselves. That kind of creative, relaxing "me time" would also mean you don't judge your social standing by how hectic and burn-out your schedule is, you make time for things you value more than you say "I just don't have the time". In short, that would make you a nobody, because if you were really somebody, you'd be drowning in appointments instead of bothering with things like working on your character and learning new things.
The only real change has been to what you might call a value system. The pace at which a given value system is applied is completely irrelevant.
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How then do you explain those who can deal with the pace of modern life, including those who love and work frequently with technology and information, yet retain the ability to concentrate and focus and pay attention at will?
It's an illusion that you can do those things as well as you think you can.
http://www.physorg.com/news170349575.html [physorg.com]
"People who are regularly bombarded with several streams of electronic information do not pay attention, control their memory or switch from one job to another as well as those who prefer to complete one task at a time, a group of Stanford researchers has found."
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How then do you explain those who can deal with the pace of modern life, including those who love and work frequently with technology and information, yet retain the ability to concentrate and focus and pay attention at will?
It's an illusion that you can do those things as well as you think you can.
http://www.physorg.com/news170349575.html [physorg.com]
"People who are regularly bombarded with several streams of electronic information do not pay attention, control their memory or switch from one job to another as well as those who prefer to complete one task at a time, a group of Stanford researchers has found."
I wasn't talking about multitasking or "several streams". I was talking about being able to focus and concentrate on a single thing indefinitely, i.e. until you are actually done with it. That's something the ADD crowd cannot do. Many of them wouldn't last one minute.
The next time you watch a news program, pay close attention to how often they change (flash) scenes. They suddenly switch scenes and put something else on the screen several times a minute, usually as frequently as every 10-20 seconds.
Re:Damn, I've been lettting my new baby watch TV (Score:5, Informative)
Sufficient genetic deviation in the population should allow such people to exist. If these people are successful breeders relative to the ADD folks, then, Darwins law of evolution shall explain the rest for you.
Darwinism doesn't apply when the penalty for stupidity (i.e. lack of fitness) is less than death or at least, sterilization.
Darwinism in that classic sense hasn't applied to human beings for a very long time because of technologically improved production capabilities, social safety nets, and modern medicine. Please don't offer explanations based on things you clearly don't understand.
It's particularly shallow to offer a genetic explanation in a one-size-fits-all manner in response to my post about nurture and voluntary decision-making.
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When a couple only produce one child and this child only has one child in coupling with another only child, the relative amount of their DNA in the gene pool diminishes. Compared this to their neighbour, who produces three offspring every generation. It's simple enough to create a proof by induction that you have either not understood what I wrote, or, that you have no idea what you ar
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When a couple only produce one child and this child only has one child in coupling with another only child, the relative amount of their DNA in the gene pool diminishes. Compared this to their neighbour, who produces three offspring every generation. It's simple enough to create a proof by induction that you have either not understood what I wrote, or, that you have no idea what you are talking about... please refrain from posting rubbish.
To suggest that this is due to "nature running its course", based on competition, with the end of making the objectively fittest thrive as implied by Darwinism and any notion of natural selection, and not at all influenced or if you will, perverted, by the flaws in those artificial constructs we call societies, is simply absurd.
Thus the notion of who breeds more eventually becomes who makes poorer decisions. You wind up with situations where the smart, careful, responsible, prudent people who take the t
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Natural selection applies in any instance where the probability of reproduction is affected. It's got jack all to do with death or sterilization except insofar as those things affect probability of reproduction. If you have a gigantic nose and that makes it less likely for you to find a mate and procreate, then your giant nose is selected against, even if it has no impact on your own personal survival, because people without gigantic noses will have more kids who also don't have gigantic noses than you and
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How does the fact that projects that used to take years now take months account for people who cannot keep their attention on anything for more than a few minutes at a time?
Is there any evidence for this or are you just hypothesizing? Sure sounds like you are pretty certain of it.
Wouldn't it make a lot more sense that people can't keep their attention for more than a few minutes because they watch shitloads of TV from the day that they are born where there is a commercial break every few minutes?
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It's not so much a symptom of things that go faster as it is loonies deluding themselves that they can actually multi-task and expecting others to do it as well.
They end up ADD because they never learn what focus actually feels like. They're as likely to accomplish any sort of focus as a couch potato is to break a record in the long jump and for similar reasons.
Re:Damn, I've been lettting my new baby watch TV (Score:4, Interesting)
There's a fair bit of evidence to show that ADD is heritable. There's some that suggests that it has been around a lot longer than just the modern period, but that in the past there was a greater variety of work that allowed people who aren't comfortable with a 9-5 office routine to still be useful and productive.
Decrease access to certain types of work and increase the number of children who don't get to grow up with adult males who can teach and show them ways of using AD in useful ways (it's Y linked) and you are going to see more people who are 'disordered'. The 'attention deficit' part contains a large chunk of people who are just not suited to focusing on a single task for eight hours at a time and/or who aren't primarily audio/visual learners and thinkers.
Perhaps calling your argument 'nonsense' is going too far - social change has resulted in more people exhibiting 'symptoms', but it's not some kind of adaption or reaction to the rate of change.
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Nonsense. There's a fair bit of evidence to show that ADD is heritable. There's some that suggests that it has been around a lot longer than just the modern period, but that in the past there was a greater variety of work that allowed people who aren't comfortable with a 9-5 office routine to still be useful and productive. Decrease access to certain types of work and increase the number of children who don't get to grow up with adult males who can teach and show them ways of using AD in useful ways (it's Y linked) and you are going to see more people who are 'disordered'. The 'attention deficit' part contains a large chunk of people who are just not suited to focusing on a single task for eight hours at a time and/or who aren't primarily audio/visual learners and thinkers. Perhaps calling your argument 'nonsense' is going too far - social change has resulted in more people exhibiting 'symptoms', but it's not some kind of adaption or reaction to the rate of change.
Here's the nonsense part. It's one thing to not be "primarily" an audio-visual learner. It's quite another to be so completely stuck in one and only one form of learning that you are completely dysfunctional in any other. It's a choice one makes and it's really that simple.
It's also another thing to say, "hmm, I have a definite weakness in this area and my very best possible move is to never, ever work on this weakness until, with time and patience, I become at least proficient at it even if I never b
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It's quite another to be so completely stuck in one and only one form of learning that you are completely dysfunctional in any other. It's a choice one makes and it's really that simple.
I agree and as someone capable of the meta-cognition necessary to recognise my own preferred learning methods and to adapt to the ones being offered, I understand the value of that choice.
And also how few people are equipped to recognise it, let alone make it.
I am not sure of your educational background, but I was certainly never taught to think about thinking. That was something that a fortunate combination of aptitude and circumstance allowed me to develop on my own. I'm far from unique, but equally,
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I'm simply not one of the passive sheeple who waits for someone else to hand out knowledge and understanding. I am my own person. By trying to understand myself, I understand the world around me. By trying to understand the world around me, I understand myself. Between the two, I discover things about how processes such as learning work and I pay attention as they unfold in front of me.
I know you didn't mean it this way, but the idea that I
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There's a fair bit of evidence to show that ADD is heritable
True, but it doesn't actually contradict my argument. You're falling for the fallacy of the inverted consequence :
A -> B, therefore it must be that B -> A. *Bzzzt* not true.
Every genetic effect is heritable. But because an effect is heritable does *not* mean it is genetic. Religion is almost exclusively heritable (yes even given the supposedly massive shift to atheism, which is in reality but a pathetic trickle), yet it is not genetic, to give but one obvious example.
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Of course, he's a kitten, and he probably just sees the motions anyway, but did you really think I'd had a baby? Here, a slashdot poster?
Apparently not a very alert /.er. Only slow cats can see something resembling an image, the rest see a moving dot of light (for those with CRTs) or just a flickering stutter for slower LCDs. [pawnation.com]
There's other links out there for those that thought their "bright" animal watched TV. It certainly explained why the cat was never bothered by silent cats on TV, but had the shock of his life walking around the corner and seeing himself in the new full length mirror. Poof! Twice his normal size. :)
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Not sure I believe this, as I've seen several cats chase butterflies and other small, edible creatures on the screen.
Re:Damn, I've been lettting my new baby watch TV (Score:4, Informative)
Not sure I believe this, as the only show my cat likes is Fringe, which she watches religiously.
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Don't let her fill up the DVR with it.
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Yeah, but if they really saw that fast then they'd pretty much always see a moving blob of light. Our cats seemed to like butterflies and occasionally other wildlife.
Fully willing to admit that either my cats were special/dumb or I'm suffering from confirmation bias here, that's hjust the way it seemed to me.