Lizard Brains
- Thread starter josef k.
- Start date
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
It might not be *exactly* the same, but video games are really awful if you have any sort of neurological problem or developmental disorder, so it's safe to assume that watching cartoons move on a screen, even if your fingers are working a control system, is not brain healthy.
The problem with TV/film is that watching pictures move across a screen, combined with the ambient light that comprises the pictures, has strange effects on the cns.
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
Sure, but ambient light flashing across a screen is ambient light flashing across a screen, whether it's a TV monitor or a computer monitor makes no difference, neither does the type of remote control you use to work it.
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
No, not on some level. On a very specific level.
I could produce a certain sequence of flashing lights on a screen that would give anyone watching it a seizure (theoretically, it's happened before, though)--video game, TV show, whatever.
The fact of the matter is that watching lightboxes whose pictures are sent as bits of info over wires and then spat back out onto pixels has the same effect on all human brains, probably all primate brains (if other primates were stupid enough to actually bother watching TV or playing video games), because there is a specific way all ambient-light-moving-pixel-pictures are perceived by those brains.
It's not up for grabs, the mechanism is pretty well-understood.
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nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
Actually the interesting question is whether reading on a computer screen is the same in terms of neurological effect as reading a book would be...probably not, but probably less hypnotic than watching films on a computer monitor.
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
I didn't miss your point.
You do realize that video games and films and TV are all watched on EXACTLY the same sort of technology, a pixellated monitor, right?
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
What was your point? That video games must have a vastly different neurological effect than TV or film?
What is boring? It's boring posting things like the above, that makes no point whatsoever except to say "leave it" when your original point ends up making no sense.
And no, "everything" I experience isn't experienced through the same technology. That makes no sense. Whatsoever.
It's always fun to be a petulant child, though, isn't it?
luka
Well-known member
i like the article by the way. i've been talking about this at great length with my girlfriend and writing about it and that....
this bit
The lower or reptile brain simply stands poised to react to the environment using deeply embedded “fight or flight” response programs. Moreover, these lower brain regions cannot distinguish reality from fabricated images (a job performed by the neo-cortex), so they react to television content as though it were real, releasing appropriate hormones and so on.
specifically.
all you need to do is identify your own responses to prove the validity of this. music does this too. you can push the pleasure button, sex button, hostility button (think of grime/hip-hop specifcially structured to induce a fight/flight reaction, or endless nubile young women chosen to front the sex button routine. burroughs is tremendous on all this. just pushing the same buttons for decades and decades with a new face on the front cover but its the same response every time. push the pleasure button! like those rats pulling the cocaine lever. againagainagain!
this bit
The lower or reptile brain simply stands poised to react to the environment using deeply embedded “fight or flight” response programs. Moreover, these lower brain regions cannot distinguish reality from fabricated images (a job performed by the neo-cortex), so they react to television content as though it were real, releasing appropriate hormones and so on.
specifically.
all you need to do is identify your own responses to prove the validity of this. music does this too. you can push the pleasure button, sex button, hostility button (think of grime/hip-hop specifcially structured to induce a fight/flight reaction, or endless nubile young women chosen to front the sex button routine. burroughs is tremendous on all this. just pushing the same buttons for decades and decades with a new face on the front cover but its the same response every time. push the pleasure button! like those rats pulling the cocaine lever. againagainagain!
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
If you put a chimp in a cage with an endless supply of cocaine, they will do the cocaine without eating or sleeping until they starve to death.
Not sure if rats do the same but I bet they do.
Not sure if rats do the same but I bet they do.
Agent
dgaf ngaf cgaf
that was one question people always asked me, and i never had a solid answer: are the same effects produced by a liquid crystal screen that you see in a cathode ray tube, or a plasma screen for that matter? the effects are different i think. mcluhan said television was a cool (ie incomplete, narcotic, hypnotic, low-definition) medium, but with hi-def screens the effect could *conceivably* be different, although i doubt it. The only way to know for sure would be to just re-do the experiments, or come up with better ones. It is a massively under-researched field. I'm not sure anyone has found anything new since the 80's (probably due to underfunding). The actual findings by the McLuhan Institute in the 70's were more alarming than what's in the article. For example, television actuallly puts us in the theta-wave, which is a notch below the alpha wave pattern and is associated with really deep sleep and comas. The statement about the neurological effect being independent of content (doesn't matter if you are watching nature shows or Fellini or whatever) is absolutely accurate. You can will yourself into beta waves but it isn't easy to sustain.
luka
Well-known member
rats, chimps, who cares, i stole the image from you anyway.
now, Agent N, i didn't read our thing very carefully because it didn't seem to be written to be read carefully but it seems that on one hand you say the effect is the same regardelss of content and at another point say the specific images produce approprate responses (which is observationally, evidentlly true) from the nervous system, eg arousal, fear etc.... when those strings start swelling and the tears well up.....
i guess this can be resolved in some way. care to elaborate?
now, Agent N, i didn't read our thing very carefully because it didn't seem to be written to be read carefully but it seems that on one hand you say the effect is the same regardelss of content and at another point say the specific images produce approprate responses (which is observationally, evidentlly true) from the nervous system, eg arousal, fear etc.... when those strings start swelling and the tears well up.....
i guess this can be resolved in some way. care to elaborate?
Tentative Andy
I'm in the Meal Deal
'Lizard brains' sounds like it should be a shouted-across-the-playground school insult: 'Oi, you, Lizard Brains!'
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
That's because chimps share 96% of their DNA with Rick James.
Agent
dgaf ngaf cgaf
like i said that article was written when i was 19 and i don't remember writing any of it. the effects are the same regardless of content because the effects come from the medium, not what's in the medium.
luka
Well-known member
yeah yeah we got that.... i want you to talk about image enviroments which the nervous systems responds to as if they were real. which is what it saysin the article. because if that is happening, which it clearly is, then content clearly does matter. even if all content produces theta waves.