"Can I have your attention?" With this application, made daily in thousands of classrooms, teachers are an important precondition: the focus must be given to the child. The ability to focus mentally to visit and support the merger is an internal process of the brain and the human mind. Because this is an internal capacity of human attention span being protected and cared for, and pushed his childhood and youth. The right ingredients from the outside world will ensure the 'Attention span development. The wrong ingredients can hinder its development and also to turn off.
The wrong ingredients, too many hours in front of a flat, 2-D screen. In his classic contribution to the understanding of media effects on brain development, Dr. Jane Healy writes in Endangered Minds, "A''brain for learning develops strong and widespread neural highways that quickly and efficiently allocate different aspects of a task can access the most efficient system ... SuchEfficiency is only through active practice of thinking and learning, which in turn builds always developed stronger ties. A growing suspicion among brain researchers is that excessive television viewing can affect the development of these compounds. It may also induce habits of using the wrong systems for various types of learning. "
Today, most researchers believe that exposure to television and video games can foster broader developmentBrain scanning systems, shifting the focus to the detriment of those who care. Dimitri A. Christakis at the University of Washington and Children's Hospital study on the relationship between screen technologies and ADD / ADHD, research Christakis' has clearly demonstrated that small children, an increase of 10% under the risk of attention problems at age face 7 hours per day watching television. He said that the images quickly TVmore stimulating and learning "ReWire" the developing brain.
The extreme fragility of the developing brain seems lost for many parents. Such as clay or wet cement, young minds are easily shaped by the input they gave. The article distorts the key moment for the development creates the child for a life of misery you feel locked in a prison, his brain can not break out the "form" that has been set. Four to five hours of screen time, and not the national average, has allowedChildren have the right to develop the ability to support full attention. And while watching all the time rapidly changing images on cumulative Certain brain centers stimulated at the expense of countries in important parts of the brain that are needed to be to get attention. It 'a downward spiral from there. If centers less hyperactive brain, eventually take over. "Instead of thinking of the cerebral cortex is the CEO of the operation, the function of reptileThe violent reactions running the show.
To understand how long the screen is the basic ingredient for a capacity of growing attention to the false, there are three important considerations.
First, notice must be visual images. Do an experiment. In the evening twilight, laid his head at an angle to the TV. Wait for a commercial. So try not to watch. Try as hard as you can. What you will soon find out that it is virtually impossible not to see. to change the active imageBrain response guidance, "discovered by Pavlov in 1927. We humans are so programmed to examine the vision changes or innovations in our regions. This can not be helped. We can not lose the instinct for our lower brain functions. It is integral and important part of our survival mechanism. Therefore, the colorful advertising, or images of sex and violence are not resisted. If there are, we'll see.
be perceived by visual images, you are remembered. Not always awarerecalled, but still retained in our memory. How this works is still a mystery to researchers. The large images of advertising affects the purchase decision, for example, is not yet clear. But apparently, once we see the images, often repeated, and associated with strong emotions, these images are very powerful influencers of behavior. A study conducted in 14 October 2004 Number of the journal Neuron, is the first to explore how cultural messagespreferences permeate the human brain and shape personal. There is a direct path from image to action? Science writer Sandra Blakeslee, writes the New York Times tells us: "Some companies have teamed up with neuroscientists to find out. Recent experiments in so-called Neuro-marketing are the reactions to movie trailers, choices about automobiles explores the charm of a beautiful face and reactions instinctive political campaign advertising and the power of brand loyalty ...(MRI) are used to monitor
The mechanisms that play a central role in the brain, in consumer behavior: circuits underlying reward, decision making, motivation, emotion and sense of self. All romantic, the researchers found using the attention system by tapping directly into the brain reward pathways. Able to "see how the brain responds to novelty and makes decisions is potentially a huge step forward for marketing," said Tim McPartlin, a vicePresident Lieberman Research Worldwide in Los Angeles. "Companies are always a few decades to understand in advance the average person, like the human brain can be changed or affected was restored.
Since getting the new visual images reminiscent, of course, wants the brain research, as visual images. In other words, more images of sex and violence is stored in the brain, the more the brain is looking for images of sex and violence. Let alone the brain wants to thinkdeliberate, consider, evaluate, recognize, question. The cerebral cortex can not "talk" when the brain has been conditioned below, the images that guide the tickling.
Since very few mental convolutions can occur without warning surgery is very important and urgent for parents to really understand the role that the abuse and misuse of display technologies in the ability of attention to short change the game. Then they can turn their attention to the ingredients that workgrow an attention span:
First Limit all screen time for one hour per day or less.
This is in line with the recommendations of many professionals. Do this for a month and observe the difference in your children!
According to Giving mental challenges on an ongoing basis.
This may seem simple to adults, but as the decisions of parents as the issue of children's issues and materials that provide for imaginative play to a director, it is necessary that children should participate. Whenever decisions are made,visitors and are practicing metacognition factors, internal processes that fuel the processes of selective attention. A puzzle, rather than video game, a trip to an art museum instead of a movie, an aquarium for the children instead of a balance of activities for kids TV supports growth of the brain.
Third Open time for your child to experience his inner world.
Not boring experience is not good for our children. Boredom is necessaryDowntime and an integral part of the development of intrinsic motivation, along with an understanding of their creative processes. If the concentration and thinking occur slowly, inventive. writes like a poet Eve Merriam, "It needs to grow much slower."
Fourth Select the screen that has a slower pace.
Find TV shows, movies and games that simulate real-world rhythms more closely. The late Mr. Rogers and Barney were even laughing because they are so slow. But the pacerequires that children use their time carefully. What might make more sense?
Young people can develop the mature arc attention they need for thinking and effective problem solving today's image-machine world, given the time and space to do so. The normal course of human brain development naturally leads to a well-developed attention span. After all, our brain knows that the attention span is a fundamental human right condition for learning and creative performance.
Copyright,Gloria DeGaetano, 2010. All rights reserved.
References
Jane Healy, Endangered Minds: Why our children are and what to do about that, Simon and Schuster, 1991.
Sandra Blakeslee: "If your brain has a" buy button "What do you mean?" The New York Times, October 19, 2004.
Dimitri Christakis et al. al. "Early television exposure and subsequent attention problems in children," Pediatrics, vol. 113, No 4, 4 April 2004.
