I sometimes find myself puzzled by the many new ailments which plague our children much more frequently than they did even one generation ago. Asthma has grown exponentially, peanut allergies are downright trendy, and kids being diagnosed as bipolar has increased by a factor of 40 in less than a decade.
The most prevalent diagnosis of all, however, is Attention Deficit Disorder. Approximately one-tenth of all school-age boys have officially been labeled ADD or ADHD. (The US Center For Disease Control puts the figure at 9.2%.) About 4% of school-age girls have been officially diagnosed as having ADD or ADHD.
The research surrounding the causes of ADD/ADHD often comes to contradictory conclusions. Some studies show that TV viewing can cause ADD, some blame higher ADD rates on dietary influences (such as food coloring or other additives), and still others say that pregnancy-related stresses (heavy smoking, alcohol use) are a main cause of ADD. Other studies refute all of those causes, focusing solely on genetic influences.
I am here to propose what I’ll call the Fast Twitch Image (FTI) theory. I believe that children who are repeatedly exposed to fast twitch images between the ages of 0 and 4 — typically by watching television, playing video games, and to a lesser extent, playing computer games — are much more likely to become ADD than children who do not frequently view such images. I believe FTI exposure is far more influential than genetic factors in determining whether or not a child will develop ADD or ADHD.
It’s unscientific. I can’t prove it. But over a decade of teaching, I can feel it.
Way back in 2001, Marc Prensky famously called today’s youth Digital Natives, saying:
“Today’s average college grads have spent less than 5,000 hours of their lives reading, but over 10,000 hours playing video games (not to mention 20,000 hours watching TV)… it is very likely that our students’ brains have physically changed– and are different from ours – as a result of how they grew up.”
In past posts, I’ve called for something that I (and others) have called “School 2.0.” I’ve argued that teachers must adapt to today’s students in order to be effective. This remains true.
But I can’t help but wonder about something else: is it time for us to wage a major anti-FTI campaign? Most people wouldn’t dream of smoking a cigarette near an infant. Perhaps we need to work it into our collective psyche that we should find it equally abhorrent to place our infants and toddlers near FTI sources.
Posted by mpullen 
