Lesson two states that the American culture relies heavily on media, and that is not as valuable to learning as literature. I completely agree. It stated that an American child from age five to age eighteen has viewed over 20,000 hours of television and electronic media. That is an abundant amount of time spent doing that opposed to spending time doing homework and studying. There needs to be more of a balance in the use of electronic curriculum and traditional curriculum.
I know that when I was a child, my family didn’t even have cable, so it was a real treat when I would get to watch a movie, or any television on the non-cable channels. My family pushed the importance of reading books, and figuring out the message in everything I read. Television and media is making us lazy. We rely too much on electronics to do the work for us. Television requires very little brain activity, which is why when we watch it, we tend to zone out, or easily forget what was just said. When watching television we only tap into the emotional side of our brain, and never think logically. Everything we learn from television goes into our short-term memory, but when we use traditional curriculum, we have to think and comprehend everything, which goes into our long-term memory. For me personally, I am a much better learner when I have to read and comprehend something on my own.
To summarize, people are becoming more dependent on electronics. If we start to think on our own, without the help of the media, we will become better cognitive thinkers and make our own decisions. We were created to think, therefore, if we eliminate a little more television and add more reading in our lives, our society would become more