Re: virus: Matrix...and teletubbies

christina whitbread (blackrose_8@hotmail.com)
Tue, 06 Apr 1999 19:10:05 PDT

I hope it's ok just to jump in.

My problem with Teletubbies is this, they are age appropriate only for children 1yr old and slightly above, yet children above the target range watch these program and get little or no valuable information from them. They aren't taught anything. What's more two and three year olds who watch them develop poor verbal skills. This isn't the programming's fault by any means. It is the fault of the consumer who choses to submit these characters for their children's consumption. There is a point where you have to separate learning from television.

----Original Message Follows----
From: "Tim Rhodes" <proftim@speakeasy.org> Reply-To: virus@lucifer.com
To: "Church of Virus" <virus@lucifer.com>
Subject: Re: virus: Matrix...and teletubbies Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1999 14:26:19 -0700

The noted Dr Sebby wrote:

>....If repetitive 'uh-oh's' and 'ooh-la's' constitute 'good
programming'
>for children(1yr olds or not) then why bother educating them when
they
>get older?

You might want to familarize yourself with the voluminous data on developmental stages in early childhood learning. 1-3 year olds learn in
much different ways than, 5-8 year-olds or, say... a 12 year-old with a
fake lightsaber. A program aimed at the way a 2 year-old learns is going to
be vertually insufferable for an adult to watch (tried sitting through a
whole episode of Mister Rogers, lately?). If you liked the Teletubbies (and
you're not stoned) it would mean either they were missing their target age
group or you were a very, very "challenged" individual.

It just wasn't made for your brain.

> The one 'teletubbie' episode i had the chance to see seemed like
an
>experiment in fostering infant stress/frustration....basically, there
>was this one teletubbie...lets call him dipsy for sake of
>argument...anyway, he wanted to do something fun, a game or
something -
>it doesnt matter...but every time he started in on his 'fun project'
>some computer 10ft away would indicate a problem requiring resolution
>ASAP...so he would relunctantly abandon his 'fun project' and
>slooooowwwwly plod over to said computer, hit a few buttons and be
>rewarded with a beep of approval indicating that everything was ok
>now....he would then, with great impatience, sloooooowwwwly trundle
back
>to his 'fun project' and attempt to begin this 'fun' activity....but
>every time he would commence doing this 'fun' thing, the computer
would
>have a problem again, and he would have to go back and sort it out,
>etc.......Well, it went on repeating this annoying and frustrating
>process about 10 times - all the way through the program...in fact he
>never did succeed in permanently resolving the computer's
problems...the
>show ended with everyone completely irritated, frustrated and
>dissatasfied

Sounds like a good life lesson for the little future workers of the world to
grasp, no? Much more effective than going to work with Mommy or Daddy for a
day, I suspect too.

-Prof. Tim



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