pid successive sequences of images. The main difference between two like programs--one for preschoolers and one for older children--is the higher level of action, pace, variability, and visual effects adopted for the young children. Kittens and puppies exhibit the same behavioral pattern as babies and young children--and, even as children, can learn to understand foreign languages. Rapid succession of images, complex special visual and sound effects, and deafening noise (called "music") are the preferred language of most adolescents today. While their hearing is being impaired in the one program, their senses are being dulled through the drug called "rap": clear indications of their retarded development as learners, communicators, and politically and socially unaware citizens. Singer et al (1977) likewise noticed that preschoolers are more attentive to the rapid-paced structure of Sesame Street; yet, they appear to learn more from the slow-paced Mister Rogers.
There seems to be a threat in the aggressive rapid-fire delivery of information, even though it possesses an addictive self-destructive drug effect. It may well be that, though the rate of information processing is directly proportional to its rate of presentation, such processing need be qualified to explain learning, acquisition, and personal and social reactions. It may well be that very rapid rates of presentation produce immediate (reflexive) short-lived reactions through vicarious identification and total immersion, whereas more deliberate rates have longer-term and more pervasive effects, i.e. behavioral acquisition, embedding into the cerebral inventory storage areas. For example, few communicative presentations seem to have a deeper and longer-lasting effect than the reading of a fairy tale by a nurturing adult.
Whatever the durational effects of different modes and media of communication, it is certain that children cope differently with different modes of inform...