It’s very easy to say ‘don’t watch a lot of TV’, without considering it to be the cheapest and most affordable entertainment in any home. At the end of the day, the children are silent when we turn on the device. And you, after a day’s work that leaves you exhausted, how are you going to have the energy for anything other than crashing in front of the TV and getting a little distracted?
All this is obvious and undeniable. It’s not good to demonize such a culture-rooted form of entertainment, but it’s also not a bad idea to go over what science and experts say, what are all these alerts we hear every day about the risks of watching too much television?Are they fashionable clichés or are they really justified?
- After studying brain activity while watching television.
- Scientists were able to detect that in just one minute “beta waves” passed.
- For “alpha waves.
- ” Beta waves occur when the brain has its active functions.
- While alpha waves correspond to a state of drowsiness similar to hypnosis.
- In which logical operations.
- Understanding.
- Creativity and association are stopped.
This is a condition similar to what would happen if a person were forced to look at a wall while queuing, which means that when we watch television, our brain only turns on (works).
In this state, consciousness is much more manipulable. This is ideal for advertisers, who see their main window of sale on television, in a state of quasi-hypnosis people are much more influential: critical capacity is inactive, so we end up wanting to buy more, even if it is not necessary.
In the long run, the main consequence is that attention span deteriorates, the brain gets used to this type of lethargy and, as a result, it is difficult to focus intensely on something.
That’s not all. Several studies point out that watching television increases stress and irritation, which alarmingly increases cholesterol production in the body, this is due to the number of photos that reach the brain in a short time, on an old TV were broadcast four frames per second, while on LED TVs, 100 were sent in the same time period.
This means that the brain is literally bombarded by a multitude of stimuli, the stress derived from this activity can go unnoticed by consciousness, but not for the rest of the body, if this adds to violent or very stressful content, the body reacts producing significant amounts of adrenaline.
Thus, a moment watching TELEVISION can perfectly amount to a strong fight. It is estimated that, especially in children, there may be an increase in cholesterol production that reaches up to 300% after seeing a very violent program.
In addition, this speed of receiving stimuli can be the basis of such frequent impatience today, the body, one way or another, ends up syncing with this speed, which leaves no room for pauses and, therefore, we are increasingly marked. for the idea of “I want it now!”
Nor does it mean that we will never be able to watch TV again, the secret is to be careful and moderate in what can be a small pandora’s box.
Image courtesy of Suzanne Tucker