Off Focus
Recently, a friend of mine said that my
blog was a fair bit depressing. So, guess what, I changed my blog layout. Now
it looks brighter and cheerier huh? Hopefully it will be able to compensate the
lack of sunshine hiding deep within my posts.
First of all, credits to my friend, Ezra
for helping me out with the header of my blog. Visit his blog here.
After spending a significant amount of
time on my new blog look, I felt that all that effort deserves a new post in my
blog’s new look. To be honest, about 80% of the time spent on my blog was
choosing the design, 10% was asking Ezra to help edit the header and 9% was
drinking diet Coke while doing all that. The remaining 1% was copy-pasting the
html code in Blogger.
Yes, I drank diet Vanilla Coke. Someone
told me that it tasted better than the less diet version and that the vanilla
taste was stronger and creamier and smoother and whatnot. He lied.
It is as the can says, deliciously light
and sugar free. Well, minus the word ‘delicious’ and we have a proper
description of the content. To my dismay, I realise that I paid an extra 30
cents for the free sugar considering the original version was 30 cents cheaper.
Thanks Coca Cola.
The only reason the drink wasn’t half
bad is because the weather now is horrid. It is so hot I think I can fry an egg
in mid-air. Yes, mid-air.
Anyway, I should stop ranting lest my
blog starts exuding the depressing vibe once again. To avoid that, I guess my
blogging topics usually head in random directions. A friend suggested that my
posts should have a little more focus and control. Tough.
So, I looked around for things that
affects focus and guess what I found. Nothing relevant to my situation at all.
But I still found it interesting.
I read about a study done on 4-year old
kids to measure the effect watching TV has on one’s focus and self-control.
Quite a few kids were divided into 3 groups.
Group 1 was subjected to 9 minutes of
doodling and colouring with crayons.
Group 2 watched 9 minutes worth of a
popular cartoon about a sponge living in the sea thought to be
SpongebobSquarepants, though it wasn’t reported.
Group 3 watched 9 minutes of a realistic
cartoon of a typical US preschool boy. Also not reported but thought to be
Caillou.
For clarification, the 3 parameters were
chosen to assess the TYPE of TV shows and how they affect kids’ focus and
self-control. To those slightly bit confused ones; Spongebob is a fast paced
fanatical cartoon whereas Caillou is a pretty mild and boringcalm
cartoon.
Needless to say, the
kids watching Spongebob Squarepants scored the least be it in focus or
self-control tests. There was barely any difference in results for the other
two groups indicating that it wasn’t the act of watching TV that affected the
kids capabilities but the type of shows they were watching.
Conclusive proof right there. What
intrigued me was, since when was watching TV another form of teaching kids? I
always considered TV as a rest after completing activities that were meant to
teach me focus and self control: CHORES.
Now, parents start viewing the values of
the kind of activities their kids take part in be it improving kids mental
abilities or otherwise. What happened to the value of laughing uncontrollably
while clutching their sides till it hurts? How about being chased around by an
older sibling till they can’t run anymore? Probably, after those activities,
the kids wouldn’t be able to complete any task that requires focus or
self-control.
But these are the things we reminisce
when we grow up. These are the things that make us kids. These are the things
that make me love the moments when I was a kid.
These are moments we should never forget
as we grow up. I for one would rather stay a kid if given a chance. Growing up
is for old people.
Toodles.
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