[RhetoricThug]

Posters on PoFo may not wish to acknowledge the physiological impact that comes from staring at screens.
The virtual denial of organic reality.

When cognitive scientists argue over the influence of violent video games & violent entertainment in general, they miss the mediums massage entirely. The technology behind the flickering screen that delivers our entertainment has more influence than any content absorbed through one media's form. Again, the form dictates content, and the form of any information system has a greater impact than the informational content.

Neuroscientists know how sped up forms of light flickering continuously change our internal brain wave patterns after prolonged exposure. In 1969 Herbert Krugman studied these changes inside the brain.

A seminal study conducted by Herbert E Krugmen in 1969 found that thirty seconds after watching television, viewers' beta waves, indicative of alert, conscious attention, switched to alpha waves, characteristic of an unfocused, receptive lack of attention, much like daydreaming. Further research revealed that the left hemisphere of the brain, which processes information analytically & logically, becomes inactive when a viewer is watching television, which allows the right hemisphere of the brain to process information emotionally & noncritically. Thus Krugmen's study supports the notion that television images are processed more by an oral logic than by an analytical, formal logic characteristic of print media.

-A New Beginning: A Textual Frame Analysis of the Political Campaign Film
By Joanne Morreale

Marshall McLuhan had deciphered this screen brain conundrum when he suggested that the electronic information age will usher in the acoustic all-at-once life that resembles the preliterate tribal society where seeing & hearing is believing. The television retribalizes the Gutenberg culture, going from left-hemisphere dominated communication and involvement to right-hemisphere dominated communication and involvement. As I continue to promote this knowledge in almost every thread I create, I am trying to drive this one point across- The media/technology used to disseminate information shapes the behavior and society we live in. America's greatest artistic achievement, the advertisement, uses this knowledge to build brand loyalty, start trends, and teach through corporate education each passive learner how to behave in a commercial society dominated by impulse release and other primitive emotional computations.

Electronic screens the opiate of the masses?

The signs of addiction are all around us. The average American watches over four hours of television every day, and 49% of those continue to watch despite admitting to doing it excessively. These are the classic indicators of an addict in denial: addicts know they're doing harm to themselves, but continue to use the drug regardless.

Recent studies on laboratory rats show that opioid-receptor stimulants induce addictive behaviors. The evidence is conclusive: all opioids are addictive! Even the ones your body produces naturally. The television set works as a high-tech drug delivery system, and we all feel its effects. The question is, can an addiction to television be destructive? The answer we receive from modern science is a resounding “Yes!”

First of all, when you're watching television the higher brain regions (like the midbrain and the neo-cortex) are shut down, and most activity shifts to the lower brain regions (like the limbic system). The neurological processes that take place in these regions cannot accurately be called “cognitive.” The lower or reptile brain simply stands poised to react to the environment using deeply embedded “fight or flight” response programs. Moreover, these lower brain regions cannot distinguish reality from fabricated images (a job performed by the neo-cortex), so they react to television content as though it were real, releasing appropriate hormones and so on. Studies have proven that, in the long run, too much activity in the lower brain leads to atrophy in the higher brain regions.

It is interesting to note that the lower/reptile/limbic brain correlates to the bio-survival circuit of the Leary/Wilson 8 Circuit Model of Consciousness. This is our primal circuit, the base “presence” that we normally associate with consciousness. This is the circuit where we receive our first neurological imprint (the oral imprint), which conditions us to advance toward anything warm, pleasurable and/or protective in the environment. The bio-survival circuit is our most infantile, our most primal way of dealing with reality.

A person obsessed with the pursuit of physical pleasure is probably fixated on this circuit; in fact the Freudians believed an opium addiction was an attempt to return to the womb. We could logically deduce that such addictions occur when higher brain functions are anesthetized and the newly dominant lower brain seeks out pleasure at any cost. Taking this into account, television is like a double edged sword: not only does it cause the endocrine system to release the body’s natural opiates (endorphins), but it also concentrates neurological activity in the lower brain regions where we are motivated by nothing but the pursuit of pleasure. Television produces highly functional, mobile “bio-survival robots.”

Herbert Krugman’s research proved that watching television numbs the left brain and leaves the right brain to perform all cognitive duties. This has some harrowing implications for the effects of television on brain development and health. For one, the left hemisphere is the critical region for organizing, analyzing, and judging incoming data. The right brain treats incoming data uncritically, and it does not decode or divide information into its component parts.

The right brain processes information in wholes, leading to emotional rather than intelligent responses. We cannot rationally attend to the content presented on television because that part of our brain is not in operation. It is therefore unsurprising that people rarely comprehend what they see on television, as was shown by a study conducted by researcher Jacob Jacoby. Jacoby found that, out of 2,700 people tested, 90% misunderstood what they watched on television only minutes before. As yet there is no explanation as to why we switch to the right brain while viewing television, but we do know this phenomenon is immune to content.


For a brain to comprehend and communicate complex meaning, it must be in a state of “chaotic disequilibrium.” This means that there must be a dynamic flow of communication between all of the regions of the brain, which facilitates the comprehension of higher levels of order (breaking conceptual thresholds), and leads to the formation of complex ideas. High levels of chaotic brain activity are present during challenging tasks like reading, writing, and working mathematical equations in your head. They are not present while watching TV. Levels of brain activity are measured by an electroencenograph (EEG) machine. While watching television, the brain appears to slow to a halt, registering low alpha wave readings on the EEG. This is caused by the radiant light produced by cathode ray technology within the television set. Even if you're reading text on a television screen the brain registers low levels of activity. Once again, regardless of the content being presented, television essentially turns off your nervous system.

http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/5jcl/5JCL59.htm

The nervous system is metaphorically placed outside our body and is manifested in the electric grid.

This science will be used against the modern consumer of electronic entertainment before it is used to safeguard the cognitive development of our collective organism.

Scientists have found a way to tell if a television series will be a hit or flop by hooking viewers up to an EEG and monitoring their brain waves.

The study, led by Jacek Dmochowski from City College of New York, looked at how brain activity reacts to mainstream television viewing. Dmochowski and his research team had 16 people watch scenes from "The Walking Dead," as well as commercials from the past two years' Super Bowls. Researchers hooked the participants up to EEG electrodes that measured their brain waves as they watched.

Generally speaking, the television industry turns to Nielsen Research and social media when studying feedback on shows and ads. However, this method isn't always accurate and the feedback usually comes after the fact, when viewers' responses may already be tarnished by outside factors, such as bad reviews and friends' opinions. However, using an EEG while a viewer watches something allows for real-time information about how the brain responds when it sees something engaging. And that usually applies not to just that specific viewer alone, but to a mainstream audience.

The researchers tested this by monitoring social media discussion and Nielsen ratings. The brain activity of the volunteers watching "The Walking Dead" accurately predicted 40 percent of the discussion on Twitter and 60 percent of Nielsen ratings for that show. For the Super Bowl ads, the accuracy was even higher, at 90 percent.

"When two people watch a movie, their brains respond similarly-but only if the video is engaging," says Lucas Para, the study's senior author. "Popular shows and commercials draw our attention and make our brain waves very reliable; the audience is always 'in-sync.'"

So what exactly happens to the brain when we watch engaging television? The regions of the brain responsible for vision, hearing and attention become more active. This explains why EEG monitoring can more accurately predict specific ads' popularity.

"Interesting ads may draw our attention and cause deeper sensory processing of the content," says Matthew Bezdek, one of the study's collaborators.

Of course, Nielsen can't enter homes and force its viewers to wear EEG electrodes, but this sort of research might be handy with focus groups when testing a new television series or ad.

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/11773 ... -shows.htm


Electronic screens will rewire the human brain, exactly how exposure to the printed word rewired the human brain. This is what McLuhan had meant when he said, quite cleverly, The media is the massage, therefore the media is the mass age. I'm rather disappointed by the majority of peoples understanding of electronic communication, the noosphere, and neuroscience.

6 shocking ways TV rewires your brain
The average American watches more than four hours of television per day (five times the amount dedicated to socialization!). It makes sense that it would change us, the same as doing anything for four hours a day changes you. Yet, it's surprisingly hard to get people to accept this.

But the science is pretty much overwhelming. Enough television rewires your brain in a bunch of unexpected ways. For instance ...

#6. It Changes You, Even if You're Too Young to Know What You're Watching
It's easy to assume that impressionable children can be affected by TV shows, but what about toddlers? They aren't even aware of what's going on around them. Besides, they don't do a whole lot besides chew on furniture and inflate their diapers, so it's not like they could be doing something better with their time.

Scientists tracked more than 1,000 29-month-old babies and their television habits and the effects of excess TV were downright startling -- even after researchers accounted for all the other factors that would explain differences in behavior. The more television a child watched as a toddler, the more likely it was that he'd be fat, bullied, bad at math, inactive and prone to misbehavior in the classroom.

Again, that's not a result of watching violent TV shows or anything else that would encourage them to do bad things. Not that a 3-year-old would be able to absorb those lessons anyway.

Nope, it's just the act of watching television. And again, it's not just that the type of parent who plants a kid in front of a TV all day probably also runs a bad household -- the results hold up even if you account for all other factors in the kids' upbringing.

And the research holds up around the world. A New Zealand study found that more hours of television viewed as a toddler led to a higher probability of dropping out of school later in life. In a stunning display of initiative, France has even banned shows from having children younger than 3 as their target audience, because French adults are the only ones allowed to have their intelligences insulted.

#5. Yes, TV Lowers Your Attention Span

Since television -- especially children's TV -- is lightning-fast and loaded with stimuli, it isn't outlandish to think that a person's brain might become adjusted to that pace over time. When a teacher cannot supplement his or her lectures with dinosaurs and explosions, a child's television-altered attention span may be so deprived that the child cannot stay focused.

But most of us who don't buy into "the modern world is destroying the children!" alarmism have trouble believing that too much TV can actually rewire your attention span in any significant way.

But an Iowa State University study sure enough found that students who stare at a screen for more than two hours per day are twice as likely to be diagnosed with attention problems, which is awesome when you consider that the average amount of time a child spends watching television and playing video games is 4.26 hours a day.

The study followed 1,323 children in grades three through five and 210 college students. The results make it fairly hard to argue that television doesn't literally change the way the human brain functions, with enough exposure. But even stranger, other studies have shown (just like with the example above) that the amount of television watched as an infant can affect attention habits later in life.

So again, if you want your kids to be able to pay attention to anything for longer than 38 seconds, you need to move into a hotel and wheel the television out onto the balcony like Craig T. Nelson in Poltergeist.

#4. It Alters Your Dreams
Television can change your dreams, and not just by making you wish you could master time travel to become an advertising executive in the 60s.

According to science, television can alter your actual dreams, the kind that happen while you're asleep. Research has found that some people have monochrome dreams (that is, they dream in black and white), and it's apparently all their televisions' fault.

In a study of 50 people, half under 25 and the rest over 55, the subjects filled out a questionnaire related to the color of their dreams, their contentedness with their marriages and the colors of their televisions in their formative childhood years. Then the subjects were asked to keep a dream diary. Researchers found that while hardly any of the younger people dreamed in black and white (around four percent), a quarter of the older-than-55 group did. That is, the people who grew up with black and white televisions.

Scientists attribute this to hours of exposure to black and white images during the subjects' formative years, but there is no way to know if the actual dreams were in black and white, or if the subjects just remember them as such due to years of visual training by their TV sets.

It's pretty weird either way.

#3. It Cures Loneliness
You might know people who get so wrapped up in a show that they forgo social interaction until they've caught up to the latest episode. The rest of us are probably waiting for the day when they realize they need actual friends for fun and emotional support, but that day may never come. Scientists have found that television, specifically the pseudo-relationships formed with TV characters, can drive away feelings of loneliness and rejection.

Using a combination of four studies, scientists have shown that television shows can instill a sense of belonging in people with low self-esteem who have been rejected by friends or family. This is called the social surrogacy hypothesis, which figures that in order to fill the emotional void of social deprivation, a person will establish relationships with fictional characters (as teenagers, many of us had a similar type of relationship with late-night Cinemax).

One study showed that subjects who were experiencing feelings of loneliness felt better after turning on their favorite television programs. Another had subjects writing essays about either their favorite shows or some other random subject as a control. The subjects who wrote about their favorite shows used fewer words expressing loneliness than the control group.

Scientists are not sure whether establishing relationships with television characters suppresses a need for human interaction or actually fulfills that need, but they generally advise against dumping all human contact in favor of the cast of Carnivale.

#2. It Makes You Fat
Obesity is sort of like a merit badge for watching too much television as far as most of us are concerned, so it shouldn't be surprising to find a scientific correlation between watching less TV and burning more calories. But scientists have found that people who watch less television burn more calories each day than their television-bound counterparts without necessarily engaging in any extra physical activity -- the mere act of using your brain instead of numbing it with hours of Burn Notice is enough.

University of Vermont researchers set up a six-week study involving 36 subjects who ranged from overweight to obese. The subjects watched, on average, five hours of television per day. Scientists cut the television consumption of 20 of the subjects by attaching time-tracking devices to their TVs that would turn them off once the maximum time of use for the week had been reached (these monitoring devices, and the armbands attached to the subjects to track their weekly activity, were presumably set to explode if tampered with). Scientists found that the subjects with limited television time burned an average of 120 more calories per day than those in the control group without doing so much as a single jumping jack.

Instead, the factors behind the extra calorie-burning were the mundane tasks done instead of watching television, such as reading, playing board games or doing simple household chores. Snacking didn't actually decrease with fewer television hours, either. The participants just switched to more mentally rigorous activities that required more energy to perform.

#1. It Makes You Violent
The average 18-year-old has seen 200,000 violent actions committed on television over the course of his life, including 40,000 murders.

The cold-blooded killer segment of our audience will probably notice that's an excellent violent action-to-death ratio, about five to one. We assume that many of those murders weren't particularly desensitizing and gruesome affairs, probably mostly involving a hero thoughtlessly mowing down an army of clumsy masked goons.

But regardless of the severity, the violence we view on television actually does have an influence on our behavior. A study that followed the television viewing habits of 700 children over the course of 17 years found that (again, after ruling out factors like poverty and neglect) more hours of television translated to more violent acts. Scientists found that 22.5 percent of children who watched one to three hours of television per day committed aggressive actions such as threats, assaults, and fights in subsequent years. If the children watched more than four hours per day, the percentage rose to 28.8 percent.

In contrast, only 5.7 percent of kids who watched less than one hour per day would go on to commit aggressive actions against others.

Now, to be clear, violence in television isn't nearly as large an influence on future violent behavior as is living in an abusive home (or, say, having an obligation to avenge your family after your corrupt uncle usurped the throne), but it is seemingly enough to make otherwise complacent children into burgeoning thugs.

This example, as with many of the previous ones in this article, will no doubt yield many of you (and some in our comment section) to say, "But I watched the shit out of television when I was a kid, and I turned out fine!" That is no doubt true, and by the way, it conflicts in no way with any of these studies. They're not saying TV ruins 100 percent of the kids it touches. Just that you're more likely to have problems if you watch a ton of TV. So go outside instead.

http://www.cracked.com/article_18856_6- ... in_p2.html



So, the next time someone wishes to debate the effect(s) of a TV program or video game, know that it is the form or technology's delivery interface which dictates the technology's information and absorption.

[One Degree]

Extremely interesting as always, and I am pretty sure I understood all of this one.
I often can not watch TV or use my computer due to vertigo. The flickering triggers vertigo. This has made me very aware of how these media constantly use flickering to demand our attention. I am unsure of their intent, but I know it has a dramatic impact on our brains. Before I had this problem, I thought I was watching a continuous picture. Now I know it is almost non stop flickering of one image after another. By flickering, I mean one image is shown and then the screen brightness changes and another image is shown. It is very disconcerting once you are aware of it. Similar to the 'flash' function we use to use in early programming.

[RhetoricThug]

[youtube]XyPo2p7jajk[/youtube]