Loosing our knowledge

Like argued in our lecture in the age of television and internet the ability to develop knowledge is decreasing in our society. The TV, as well as the internet supplies its users with short messages and insufficient background knowledge. The goal of education through media seems to disappear and entertainment becomes central in its stead. Where will this lead us?

An example that came to my mind was that shows for children on the TV got increasingly limited in their educational massage and complexity. Twenty years ago there were shows on TV explaining to children the space, how they make milk and how Pasta becomes Pasta. Today my sister is watching shows on Television with animated pictures, imitating reality. The main characters talk in words that do not exist in the vocabulary of the mother tongue. They watch much more TV than children 10 years ago, today in average a 8-10 year old child spend 3:17 hours per day in front of the TV. (Retrieved at April 4, 2009 from: http://www.tvsmarter.com/documents/stats-kids.html) Children get to watch TV before they are even able to talk and learn from what they see on TV, from fast changing pictures, short, unconnected massages. One intensive discussed show in Europe was the Teletubbies, for many an example for the “stupidity” of the way how TV is teaching children. Parents started to criticize the show, as their children started to adopt the blurred pronunciation of the Teletubbies, instead of spelling words clearly. (You tube, Retrieved at April 4, 2009 from: www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiaLOzP1lCA) This real life example gives evidence to the argument of the lecture, that society suffers a decrease in education by TV.

Additionally many argue than an increase in passivity on the side of the learning by using the TV as main educator is observable. A study, represented in the „Science Daily“, Journal, “indicates exposure to language via television is insufficient for teaching language to very young children. To learn new words, children must be actively engaged in the process with responsive language teachers." (Science Daily (July 2007), Retrieved at April 4, 2009 from: http://www.news-medical.net/?id=24816) With the TV children learn passive, they may start to imitate and copy, like the Telletubbies phenomenon but they are not actively involved, or challenged to use their brain actively or even their body to reach a usable result. They are missing to reflect what they know and to evaluate, if what they know is write, usable or not. So kids get used to learning with no effort on their part, in other words watching TV is actually training their brain to be lazy. Then when it's time to start school, learning takes effort and is quite boring compared to TV and may be experienced as overstraining.

According to Einstein, passive learning is not enough; it needs involvement and imagination to use knowledge. The understanding of how to use knowledge is essential for the progress of our society; it needs imagination rather than only to possess knowledge. When we loose our ability to criticize and judge, we easily become dependent on others and believers in everything we see, dependent on the things we might have become used to and a passive auditorium. We become unable to use the full abilities of our brain and lack the desire and imagination to find progress. “Imagination is more important than knowledge, for while knowledge points to all there is, imagination points to all there will be.“(Einstein)

To sum up our society needs to wake up and to start to work active against watching TV as main activity or using it as the main educator, in order to stop the lose of our activity, imagination and set an end to the decrease in gaining usable, applicable knowledge. In order to reach this and to change our future parents should play an active role in leading their children away from watching TV, imitating and physical as well as mental passivity to more activity, creativity and self-thinking.