Mind Over Mass Media PDF

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Mind Over Mass Media essay bellevue college...

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Mind Over Mass Media

In his article "Mind Over Mass Media," Steven Pinker contends that every advancement in media technology is associated with a decline in intelligence and morality. Pinker uses some great examples from our daily lives to support the idea that there are intellectual benefits obtained from mass media and that new media technologies have a positive effect on mental development.

The author demonstrates the intellectual benefits of mass media and argues that media has no negative effect on our brain. His examples include the great American crime decline, which did not occur because of new technologies such as comic books, video games, television, and transistor radio becoming mainstream.

The author says that the new forms of media always caused moral panics. it says that electronic technologies can reduce consumer's brain power and moral fiber. today's reality, scientists are never far from their e-mail and rarely touch papers. The author stated that every time we learn a fact or skill the wiring of the brain changes.

Woody Allen claimed that speed-reading programs have long claimed to do just that after he read "War and Peace". multitasking has been exposed as myth. the psychologists named Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons stated in their new book titled "The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us," the effects of experience are highly specific to the experiences themselves. accomplished people immerse themselves in their fields. the effects of consuming electronic media are far more limited.

The constant arrival of information can be addictive to people with attention deficit disorder. the solution is turn off the social media when you work, put away your gadgets at dinner time. To encourage intellectual depth, they must go to universities which we are forced to analysis, criticism, and debate. The internet and technologies complete the human brainpower and waking hours which are not increasing. These technologies are the only things that will keep them smart....