The Brain Drain

The article “Boob Tube and Children’s Brain Drain” was a good starting point for those who are unaware of some of the negative aspects that watching too much TV can have in the lives of children. It attempts to go through some scientific evidence in the area and bases several of its findings around experiments done in the lab on rats. One particular study found that rats who were subjected to a mindless, isolated environment (such as some TV viewing may create) had a definite negative effect on the brain of these species. I believe that this can easily be compared to TV watching by many of today’s youth. Overall I did find the article quite intriguing and enjoyed reading it. I did however, find a few things that negatively effected my thinking on the subject. The first of which, was that much of the research was largely speculative. For example, there were really no studies that I noticed that were done on an actual child, it was mostly speculation from tests done in labs. Although this research is definitely valid, I would have liked to have seen a bit more “real world” examples. I also found that the article focused on the parents. This broke my confidence slightly. Myself, as a future teacher, really have little say as to the amount of television that my students watch, and subsequently the “brain drain” that takes place. Throughout the article the word “parents” was mentioned a great deal of times. This simply made me realize how the parents are really the ones who can control the amount; even the effect, that television has on their child. Myself as an educator can only hope to instill a few values in which I hopefully will teach my students to think critically about the television that they watch.