Prof Susan Greenfield (world renown brain scientist) makes the point that our screen culture is conditioned us to think in sound bites/short attention spans. She goes on to argue that this short attention span creates people who find prolonged concentration difficult. She raise the explosion of children being diagnosed as ADD and wonders if they are the consequence of our screen culture. She quotes a study that suggests that approx 40% of a child's (between 10/11th birthdays) time over a period is spent in front of a screen.
She shows how we become locked into process rather than content (my favourite context).
She demonstrates how the brain works and how the effects of gene network to create traits and how these can be modified by environment. She cites a famous experiment with mice with the only known single gene disease Huntingtons Carera by way of their synapse connections.

Watch the lecture .http://www.abc.net.au/tv/fora/stories/2009/10/09/2709586.htm

The professor flags the the intellectual and emotional problems inherent in this culture of the screen.
My question then is 'IS this what we want for our future?

Examinator,
It won't let me open that link but from what you stated re the good professor it really doesn't need a brain surgeon to see what's happening but good on her for speaking up on what is a catastrophe in the making. A nation of morons courtesy of IPod & video clips is a frightening scenario indeed.
Did you know that the TV psychologists use the mentality of age 12 for the majority of daytime programming ? Just look at documentaries made in the past few years, any clip longer than 4-5 seconds is deemed an eternity by editors. Just read up in video makers' forums & see the new "standards". Just about anything to do with any kind of education has been manipulated into progressive regress. Why ? because if you make an impressionable youngster believe he/she is clever by following the latest trends you have a moron consumer sign up for life.
I happen to sit opposite a young lawyer at times on public transport & from three metres away I can hear the thumping of her IPod "music" over the noise of an engine. Now there's a future pillar of society !

Oh come on you old fuddy duddies!
Don't you remember your parents or grandparents saying that your generation was doomed for one reason or another?

For goodness sake- the older people who were around when Elvis first twisted his pelvis on screen had all the young people of that generation damned to hell!

Young people who liked rock and roll music when it first came out on radio were called devil worshipers.
Some of these same people now hold important jobs in our society.

The young people of today are certainly brought up differently to us, and even more differently than our grandparents. That doesn't mean they are any better or worse than previous generations, just...different!

We had better deal with whatever they come up with anyway, because they will be responsible for all decision making when we are too old to do it! Vive la difference

In today's society we are constantly being
influenced by the media.

We take this barrage for granted.

Today, the media provides instant coverage of events
and social changes ranging from news and opinions
to fads and fashions. The media offers role models,
viewpoints, and glimpses of lifestyles that people
might otherwise never have access to. And let's not
forget about media advertising. Changing social norms
and values are quickly reflected in the media and may
be readily adopted by people who might not otherwise be
exposed to them.

There's not denying the fact that the most influential
medium is probably television. A television set is
switched on for more than seven hours a day in the
average home. If you doubt the influence of television
think back to the coverage on the war in Iraq. The
daily footage of scenes from that conflict undoubtedly
encouraged the growing domestic opposition to the war.
The same goes for the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
More recently, television coverage of the "Ute-gate scandal"
in Canberra brought the controversy to the
public attention in a way that traditional print could
not have done.

Television is often acclaimed as a marvellous
educational instrument. However, some critics charge
that the medium actually impedes learning by
hindering the acquistion of reading skills and encourages
intellectual passivity. We have to remember that although
television does bring a flood of information into the
home, much of it is highly selective or distorted.
As I've said earlier, news programs tend to feature visually
exciting or emotionally moving stories that draw large
viewing audiences - even if this means omitting issues that
are more sober but perhaps more significant also.

I guess the bottom line is - everything in moderation.
It's best to remember - television is a neutral
technology - it's people who decide how to use it.
Much of what's seen on television is inappropriate for
children (or just plain stupefying). Yet in families
where television viewing is an on-going part of daily life,
it has even become the moral authority for children, with
mostly bad results.

Ban it.

ban-aminator!

This is an extremely important topic.

>>She goes on to argue that this short attention span creates people who find prolonged concentration difficult<<

We should... oh look, a butterfly.