An adult and a teenager were asked good idea and bad idea questions. How many people think that riding your bike down a staircase is a good idea? How many people say that doing laundry is a good idea? PBS NewsHour Science Unit did a report on the difference between teenage and adult reasoning. The participants would answer the questions, and the brain scanner would identify which parts of the brain were used. They found out that “while adult used the part of the brain that processes visual imagery to form answers”, “teenager use their frontal cortex, the cognitive part of their brains.”
We can infer from the aforementioned study, how when teenagers/adults make a decision, they would base their decisions on past memory or experience.
When asked, adults would automatically recalled a picture of someone they know or a news they have seen that depicts a person who is riding a bike down a staircase, and would easily come up with an answer. However, when teenagers were asked, they had to think hard and find the connection between their own experiences and the questions.
And based on the study, a girl explained her reasoning, “It was like five stairs so it wasn’t too much. But, it was kind of interesting. It was fun.”
In other words, their brains are not fully matured yet to make that kind of decision. (“Most scientists believed the brain was a finished product by age 12, but according to the brain imaging, it doesn’t fully mature till about 25.”)
Television which sometimes can be seen as evil by many and as the greatest innovation by others has a big role in this case depending on how much time were spent in front of the big tube. In other words, children can learn about a lot of things from what they have watched on TV, at the same time, if they were never put to practice, they would remain just on the fantasy land.
According to another report produced by PBS – Frontline, Ellen Galinsky, a social scientist and the president of the Families and Work Institute, concluded from her interviews with more than a thousand children, “teens were yearning for more time and more communication with their parents, even when they seemed to be pushing them away. Even though the public perception is about building bigger and better brains, what the research shows is that it’s the relationships, it’s the connections, it’s the people in children’s lives who make the biggest difference.”
In conclusion, we now understand how children can learn from many mediums, whether it’s television, radio, computer, however, they also need to get the interaction from their peers, parents, or teachers. And it would be the greatest learning when it is actually applied in their life, hence it would be a lasting memory for them.
Work Cited
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/science/july-dec04/brain_10-13.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/teenbrain/etc/synopsis.html
