Cognitive surplus- what else could you do besides watch TV?
David McCandless created an amazing graphic recently, contrasting the amount of time Americans spend watching television each year with the cumulative amount of time it has taken to create Wikipedia. Check this out:
The graphic illustrates what author Clay Shirkey calls "cognitive surplus", or spare brainpower that exists, simply waiting to be engaged. How much of that brainpower is being wasted watching television? This got me thinking, and I remembered a recent Newsweek article which pointed out that creativity is declining in America. Even as intelligence (measured by IQ) is rising, creativity (measured by CQ) is declining:Like intelligence tests, Torrance’s test—a 90-minute series of discrete tasks, administered by a psychologist—has been taken by millions worldwide in 50 languages. Yet there is one crucial difference between IQ and CQ scores. With intelligence, there is a phenomenon called the Flynn effect—each generation, scores go up about 10 points. Enriched environments are making kids smarter. With creativity, a reverse trend has just been identified and is being reported for the first time here: American creativity scores are falling.What's at fault for this phenomenon? Television and video games share at least part of the blame:
It’s too early to determine conclusively why U.S. creativity scores are declining. One likely culprit is the number of hours kids now spend in front of the TV and playing videogames rather than engaging in creative activities. Another is the lack of creativity development in our schools. In effect, it’s left to the luck of the draw who becomes creative: there’s no concerted effort to nurture the creativity of all children.So, how much time is spent watching television, and how do people feel about the use of their time? Check out these statistics (source): [More . . . ]