My kids could care less about Sesame Street. I grew up on it, but they’re like “Snuffa-who-luff-what?” They don’t’ want to sit and simply watch a TV screen with which they have no input. They’ve got Dora teaching them to read and type on a computer where what they input makes an actually difference as to what happens next. Leap Frog, Nintendo DSi’s (the list goes on), true interactive learning is at their fingertips and they love it. But when they do sit down and watch Nick Jr. (about 98% of what they do watch), I can see the producers do still stick with the shorter show for shorter attention span programming from the Sesame Street days. I often wish my daughter’s favorites, the Bubble Guppies and Yo Gabba Gabba, would last longer than 20 minutes so I could get some stuff done!
Since I usually share a quote and a thought, here’s one that made me love my gamer-ness (and that I’m passing it on to my children : ) :
“Mander claimed that television commands our attention but not our cognitive activity, indeed that it suppresses active attention and makes viewers into zombies (in Sesame Street’s case, one supposes, zombies who count and spell).”
Now, I do believe in physically activity, which video games lack, but my PS3 solves the problem discussed in the quote…the games command our attention AND our cognitive activity. My kids aren’t zombies, trust me. I wish they’d ‘zone-out’ from time to time, but I’m not that lucky.
To conclude, probably the most interesting thing about this article to me was how it got me thinking, “well, duh?!” I mean, how are we supposed to have marathon attention spans when we’ve got SOOOO much constantly coming at us? Not including TV (which does count for a ton), we can still have work and/or school and/or relationships and/or (the most traumatizing of all) CHILDREN in our heads (and ears!), the radio on, be stuck in traffic under huge billboards next to a guy waving a sign for cheap pizza while talking to your passenger who’s sending and receiving emails on his phone all while texting your wife “what’s for dinner.” Whew, it’s exhausting and if you paid attention for longer than five minutes, it could kill you.
Sarcasm got the best of me again. :D
Sharxjay signing off for the summer, have a great one, ciao!
Sharxjay,
ReplyDeleteMy son, while younger than your kids, is a bit obsessed with Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Jake and the Neverland Pirates, Handy Manny, and Special Agent Oso. He thrives off of the interaction that those shows offer him because he, like your children, do not find sesame street engaging. Frankly, this is OK with me because I don’t find it engaging either. My son’s hands down favorite thing to watch is Shawn the Sheep though (spin off of Wallace and Grommet) and the fact that I enjoy it too makes it so much better. All of this got me thinking, sesame street seems to leave out the parental factor, meaning producing shows that parents will watch with their children and these newer ones are producing shows that parents do want to watch with their kids and have a higher level of participation in them (which they then hook you in online with their online versions). It makes me wonder about how the creation of these new forms of parent child media is affecting our kids.
While my son watches next to no television besides the one episode of whichever he chooses during breakfast (only way I can get him to actually eat breakfast), I imagine that with parents more incline to watch the shows with their kids, do the kids end up watching more TV? And with increased viewing, is this really the problem more than the possibility of shortening attention spans?
I REMEMBER WATCHING SESAME STREET AS A KID!
ReplyDeleteI can't speak as a parent, but I remember growing up that I was a very extreme child. I was either so hyper that nothing could calm me down because there was so much to do OR my mother thought I was deaf because I wouldn't answer her calling my name sitting in front of the television.
I side with those that believe that the way we have constructed technology and it's dominance in our lives has caused the shortening of attention spans of everyone not just children. Like you said we are connected to everything and too many people at once. Thankfully, my mother wasn't always going-going-going and knows to relax, so I've come to appreciate "down time" with the only technology I'll use is a the light in my room and a pencil/pen/or book in my hand.
Thanks for sharing:)