In the thread "Radio Days" Angela (grannyrod) mentioned that she used to listen to ball games on the radio, and that you had to use your imagination. That made me think about this question.

Most of us grew up in a time when the radio was a much more important source of information/entertainmen. Television wasn't nearly as good (I mean video quality, not content) as it is today. In fact, many of us grew up watching black and white TVs. There were no personal computers, no internet and things just simply weren't as graphic as they are today. My question is this, do we have better imaginations than those who followed or did we/do we simply use our imaginations differently.

Do you think that our children see things as vividly in their mind's eye as we did, or has growing up surrounded by all of this graphical technology lessened their ability?

What do you think?

 

Man, another great thread is starting here, and I can say without question that the answer is, "I don't know". The things my kids are exposed to at fairly young ages (14 and 11) just blows me away. When I was a kid I snuck a radio under my pillow and listened to Red Sox, Bruins and Celtics games at night. Very few games were even on TV until my teenage years. I used to love to imagine the games, as the broadcasters for all 3 sports were very descriptive and were very emotional about their attachment to the team. My son is a big sports fan, but he watches games more than listens. Nothing like when I was his age.

The funny thing is that both my kids have fine imaginations, whereas I'd say that mine is below average. I never could understand poetry or fancy prose, but the kids seem a bit more capable than me. I dunno. I'll be interested to see others opinions, but I'm not at all ready to throw in the towel on this generation's imagination. Now, as to their lack of culture...Don't get me started!

 

Dana

That could be another great thread.

 

My wife and I have been television free since 1974. Yes, we watch movies at home on DVD on a laptop. Yes, we occasionally rent a VHS too. Yes, we have broadband internet and can watch streaming video.

In fact, we did watch "Nasa TV" in streaming video to participate in the landing of the Opportunity on Mars.

So, our kids were born in 1976, 1978 and 1982. How did growing up without television in the house affect them? Wonderfully. Beautifully. Importantly. Dramatically. No regrets.

All five of us love books and read books. My wife has just written a book and both sons are working on writing books. Our daughter loves to read, writes beautifully and wants to write for a career: LEGAL BRIEFS. She's 2/3 of the way through law school.

I highly recommend Jerry Mander's book Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television which was written in 1977, is a bit dated, but is a very important book.

If you don't think television is dangerous to our democracy, think about $200,000,000 in the President's advertising war chest.

Children love to dream, imagine, create. What is important about television, I believe, is that it sucks time away from more imagination-improving activities. Anything else is better.

By the way, I'm a radio nut. I used to listen to baseball on radio in the fifties. I had an early transister Philco radio in 1957. I bought it with my own money for $35 1957 dollars at the neighborhood electronics store. Now I have a gazillion. One listens on every frequency from 60 hz to 2.4 GHz. Half a dozen transmit on the ham bands. I never travel without a radio.

NPR is my favorite. I'll miss Bob Edwards.

 

I forgot to mention that I think it also took a different level of broadcasting skill on the commentators' part to keep us "glued" to the radio. The excitement, the language used as in choice of words, the emotion. Not to mention it was family time where the whole family was expected to gather 'round (and you'd better not talk while the radio show was on either). I still like to listen to the radio announcers on my walkman when I attend a baseball game.

 

When I grew up the TV could not be turned on unless the program was approved by Mom or Dad. Therefore as a child TV was never a big thing in our house. I remember most often it turned on at 11:00 for the news and then turned off at 11:30. I have digital cable in my home, and my remote is programmed for four channels - Speed, Headline news, local news and the Weather Channel. Other than those four, I don't watch much TV.

I suspect growing up the biggest influence I had to stimulate my imagination was reading. I was reading in first grade and have never stopped. Although now days I have less time to sit down and polish off a novel, I still enjoy to read.

Here are two words to contemplate - Harry Potter. Now there are a lot of books!!!

I think, I hope, the kids of today have plenty of opportunities to expand their imagination In some ways they may have even more because they are exposed to a much more complex world at a much younger age.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by grannyrod
I forgot to mention that I think it also took a different level of broadcasting skill on the commentators' part to keep us "glued" to the radio.

 

I grew up the same way, as did my wife. Touching the TV was forbidden, and what we were allowed to watch was rigidly controlled. While we tried to do similar with our kids, it was hard to avoid relaxing and allowing the kids to have more access to the TV than we did.

We have had basic cable for years, and recently got digital cable. We rarely watch broadcast TV. If we have the tube on, we will usually have Speed or one of the history/documentary channels (like Wings) on or one of the classic movie channels. We don't watch the cable news channels much unless there is a breaking event, as they all seem to be skewed one way or the other in their viewpoint.

We have always been voracious readers, and thankfully both our kids have become so. I always have at least 4-5 books going at any one time. Hmmm, looking at the reading shelf right now, I'm re-reading the Harry Potter series (book 4 right now), I've just started Richard Clark's "Against All Enemies", I just started Dan Brown's (The DaVinci Code) "Angels and Demons", I'm about 1/2 way through the final volume of Shelby Foote's "The Civil War", I just finished "To Kill A Mockingbird" for the 3rd time, and I just finished Steven King's "Dark Tower" series for the 4th time. Then I have numerous aviation related books I'm delving through while researching for my model airplane hobby.

Harry Potter!!!

I think a lot of that opportunity is dependant on the parents monitoring and reinforcing what their kids are exposed to. The information available today is so much richer in content and delivery, and yet there is so much out there that is inappropriate and unsafe for children. Parents need to be aware of what their kids are doing; unfortunately I fear that a lot are too busy with carreer/life to do that properly. (boy, yet another topic for discussion!!!)

 

Growing up we always watched tv I hated to read thought it was boring.

For a time I worked nights and in order to stay awake I started reading, I got to a point where I could read a paperback novel 300 to 400 pages in about 6 hrs. I love reading now and yes it's better than TV because you use your imagination and the reading touches you deeper, you can remember what the book was about when you are done, as opposed to sometimes forgetting what you watched an hour later.

Our children are exposed to many more forms of emtertainment than we were is it good? I think yes in some ways, no in others. too much Tv IMHO is not good for anyone.

I spend a lot of my free time on the computer, I don't particularly think that is too good either.

 

Time to play a little devil's advocate.

Much in the way that we think about TV, our parents thought about comic books and publications like Mad Magazine. There were even those who thought that rock & roll music (before it was called rock) would lead to no good. Still, I grew up reading comics and especially Mad. As a matter of fact, when I wasn't much interested in reading anything else there was Captain America, Spiderman and Alfred E. Newman. Maybe if not for them I'd have stopped reading.

Whatever interest I have in music didn't come from classical music, but rather came from Buddy Holly, Bob Dylan, Chuck Berry and the Chantels. Maybe if not for them and all the others, my interests wouldn't have grown and developed. Maybe I wouldn't listen to music today.

My point is that maybe TV isn't so bad as we make it out to be. Maybe what's really wrong with it is that it's just a waste of time. But maybe, that waste of time is a good stepping stone, a place to start, for our kids. I don't like TV, and I hardly ever watch it but my kids do. And they seem to be developing just fine. They read well, they have good imaginations and relate well to others.

I'm not sure that TV or the other graphical wonders that kids have now have done harm to their ability to use their imagination. I think that maybe its just a different stimulus than we are used to. I sometimes think that instead of harming their imaginations, tv, computers and all these devices have broadened the focus and opened up new worlds.

Maybe, maybe not. What do you think?