Dumb and dumber

The other night I was just telling Karen that I read this book called 'The Odd Brain' which affirms other research that draws a correlation between child intelligence and TV consumption. It writes:

TV programs artificially manipulate the brain into paying attention through the use of frequent visual and auditory changes. Healy claims that TV programs and advertisements, including those designed specifically for children, "are planned to capitalize on the brain's involuntary response to zooms, pans, loud noises, and bright colors, keeping it unnaturally alerted - but at a responding level rather than at a thinking level".

In short, if kids watch TV as the main thing in their life, they're not going to be very smart. And TV happens to be very addictive to them too, and also for teenagers.

Read this account by a columnist in the US who had this long-time teacher reporting to him that schooling kids over there are so unbelievably stupid nowadays. I'm glad our kids knows how to use a ruler at least, but that's small consolation given the fact that their standard of language use is poor.