Marzshox

As for your first point, my average reading skills are not sufficient enough to draw anything conclusive from what you are saying at this time. Secondly, there is still a bit of common thought that TV is detrimental to your health. Becoming sedentary for hours on end, is the foremost reason. It's also been suggested that TV watching is such a passive experience, that requires no firing of neurons - unlike reading, which is a more cerebral activity. However, most (who I've read) do not underestamate the impact of educational documenteries/TED talks/educational videos and lectures that can aid in your understanding of a subject. Personally, I have learned a bit about Law from watching Judge Judy, Law and Order, or Better call Saul. I don't watch TV, but since my mom constantly has it on, I may be more aware of celebrity gossip than your average person -- that I have picked up from E! News. I'm a big movie buff anyways...

As Maryanne Wolf coined in her book Proust and the Squid, the story and science of the reading brain, humans were never born to read. There is no genetic disposition, or specific brain region designed to tackle the act of reading. Actually, our brains miraculous ability to make sense of the written word, is a testimony to the brains plasticity. It's billions of neurons and vast neural networks and various brain structures, combine and synchronize In such a way, that one may be able to obtain reading fluency. These underlying structures that are recruited for reading, were actually developed for various tasks such as vision, language and speaking, memory and cognition. These areas combine their efforts in such a way, to make reading possible. Once the basic ability to decode words from their smaller, combined syllables and letters, the brains neural circuitry to comprehend writing grows in competence. As earlier brain structures for decoding become more efficient, they do also become more condensed, requiring less cortical "space". But slowly the expert reader emerges as these simpler operations become more automatic and less demanding on the brains varrying structures. (Streamlined for reading) One discussion Maryanne Wolf is part of, is the topic of reading on the Internet. She fears, like many educators, that the Internet is "giving birth" to a generation of readers who do not have the capacity to deeply immerse themselves in deep reading. This type of reading that we should be doing includes reading complex syntax, increasing exposure to vocabulary in content area, exposure to complex material and topics written at length, which all aid in building robust reading and thinking skills. (All of this requiring us to critically think, analyze, infer, and understand varying meanings of words, syntax, and the ability to follow cohesive argument + supporting details). The fear is not only that reading ability has been compromised by all the skimming, scanning, and lack of focused attention due to digital media, but also the complexity of the reading online requires no deep thought/reading strategy. Most material online only superficiously scratches the surface of any topic, and material is often found on search engines based on number of hits, rather than based on valid source of information (powerful cited sources). What are your thoughts?

This reminds me of some of the extraordinary senses that blind people have that compensate for their lack of sight. For one, a blind woman I know, once made a comment on my brothers new footwear. She could smell the new leather once he had walked in her home. Another case was of a young African boy. If I remember correctly, he was born with no eyes, or had them removed at a very young age, for reasons of health complications. As this boy grew older, he developed his own way of recognizing physical obstacles in his environment. He would let out a chirp like clicking sound with his mouth, which would reflect off of hard objects, and he would literally hear where the sound had echoed back from. This allowed him to ride bikes, play basketball, and walk around inside or outside, without bumping in to anything.

Why hello again. It's been about ten years since I last posted here. Can't really remember my username. More interestingly though, is I just arrived here via time machine, spanning those ten years. So more or less, we can carry on like it was yesterday. The time machine is a bit tricky and unstable (burned my groin in the process, and chunks of hair is missing from all sides of my head) Otherwise, it was a safe trip.p You can call me Mars. Since you guys are probably more advanced than before, and now with the iPad, maybe you can suggest an app, that can bring me back to in one piece! Sorry about the triple post, seems a few of me have arrived out of the space time continuum.