Your Brain on Computers: Attached to Technology and Paying a Price

There is another component to allied to this. Having grown up when television first came about, it's format has changed dramatically. Go back and look at older commercials and shows. The pace is slower with fewer "scene" changes. An extreme example of the change is advertising for women's hair care products. Try to time the duration of a scene by counting. Most scenes will not allow you to get past 2, and usually it's less! I think much of this started with music videos back in the '70's. So-called action movies are similar. I know it was irritating to me. Watch a movie of a rock concert and the scene shifting becomes maddening. A lot of advertising shares this in common with movie previews. In older TV commercials the audio was usually in sync with the video; i.e., the audio was usually a person speaking about the features of a product. Now the audio is often just a running monolog to go along with a myriad scenes of very short duration.

This conditions people who view them a lot to not be able to focus well for even normal stretches of time. I work at a university and am therefore around people much younger than myself. I have noticed, quite often, when conversing with them that they get distracted much easier than people my age. The slightest noise or visual movement can make them look away immediately. And if another young person comes up to talk to them, they often immediately divert their attention to that person, even though you are talking to them. It becomes annoying. I even see them do this with others their own age.

Of course, the TV and movie effect was there long before computers, emails, etc. So it has affected even people my age. I find the fast scene shifting to be very irritating.

And while "subliminal advertising" has been debated over the years, at least one study, suggests subliminal impressions do happen. Do they alter us in a significant way? I don't know, but the idea that they can be use in the U.S. is pretty repugnant.

I've felt for a long time the world would be better and definitely different if TV was not broadcast 24 hours a day.