I think that using films as a means of getting points across in an academic setting is great to an extent. I had a teacher in high school who totally abused this. It was a history class and he just played totally irrelevant films every single class for us. Then he’d give us exams on the material we were supposed to know. Needless to say, he got fired after about 3 years because pretty much everyone failed. Also, nowadays, they start children on these educational programs very early. Children as young as a few months are being exposed to Baby Einstein videos and other shows that are supposed to higher their IQs. They say that it has no detrimental affect on the baby but I’m sure watching TV at that age has some negative affect on their eyes and brains. So when it comes to showing educational programs to children, how much is too much? Also, how do we know that the child is actually learning something? These programs are being created by adults so you can’t just assume that they’re effective.
I think it’d be interesting to see the Payne studies done again in our day and age. If it was found that movies had a detrimental affect on sleeping patterns, I’m curious to see how video games, cell phones, etc. affect children. For example, there are times when I’m laying in bed, about to sleep and I have the light on, TV on, my computer on my lap and I’m texting all at the same time. I’m sure all of these different stimulants right before going to sleep have a negative affect on my sleeping pattern as well as my brain.
The chapter doesn’t really specify what kind of movies these kids were seeing. If the movies were violent and sexual then it makes sense that they had a negative affect on their minds. I do agree that there should be a certain degree of censorship but sometimes this is taken to unnecessary levels. You can’t shelter these kids’ minds forever because once they go out on their own and are exposed to everything they’ve been protected from, they’ll lose their minds. How much censorship is too much and how does protecting children from sex and violence in media affect them in their adult lives?
