Turning Off TV

Dry Lips · Joined: 12 Mar 2009 Posts: 21 Location: Norway

Does anyone know whether it is possible that watching a computer screen
triggers the orienting response, or alter the brainwaves in similar ways as television does?

Has there been done relevant research on this issue? I think I remember that Kubey was referring to research indicating that watching a blank television screen alter your brainwaves. If that is true, using a computer might also have similar effects.

Could animeded banners and fast shifting between different windows have negative cognitive effects, or perhaps the monitor technologi itself is accountable? Personally I sometimes feel a bit groggy when surfing the internet. Or perhaps it is just me. Any comments?

TerryS · Joined: 16 Oct 2006 Posts: 139 Location: California

Dry Lips wrote:

Dry Lips · Joined: 12 Mar 2009 Posts: 21 Location: Norway

TerryS · Joined: 16 Oct 2006 Posts: 139 Location: California

Hi Dry Lips

Dry Lips · Joined: 12 Mar 2009 Posts: 21 Location: Norway

Yo Terry:

Here's the quote I was referring to:

"Weinstein, Appel, and Weinstein (1980) claimed that when subjects looked at a blank page versus a blank TV screen, the pattern of EEG rythms differed in much the same way as patterns elicited from printed and televised content.[...] For a literature review of the EEF see Rothschild et. al. (1986)." Television and the Quality of Life: How Viewing Shapes Everyday Experience By Robert Kubey and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, p.80

"But although it is normal for people to habituate and exhibit decreased responsiveness over time to such stimuli, in the case of television viewing, it seems that the reflex never reaches a state of complete habituation." - ibid, p.139

TerryS · Joined: 16 Oct 2006 Posts: 139 Location: California

Hi Dry Lips, here finally is my study
comparing breainwaves while reading a
novel compared to reading a blog, etc.
Sorry I took so long.

http://tvsmarter.wordpress.com/2009/07/30/moving-blog-ads/

(You can click on the link to see the screenshots
of the brainwave results.)

********************************

Dry Lips and I, on the Whitedot forum, have
been having a bit of a discussion on the
topic of moving blog ads.

http://www.mfbb.net/whitedotboard/viewtopic.php?t=8926

A study published in "Communication Research"
found the following:

"This study investigated the effects of pop-up
windows and animation on online users’ orienting
response and memory for Web advertisements...
The results fully supported the proposition
that pop-up ads elicit orienting responses."

http://crx.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/31/5/537

Here are my brainwave study results comparing
the following:

1.Read: reading a novel

2.Blog: www.salon.com (no moving ads)

3.Ad: www.cbc.ca (few moving ads)

4.Ads: http://movies.msn.com (lots of moving ads)

5.guitar: Playing the guitar

The results show:

1.Read: reading a novel
Hi-Beta 2.90 Gamma 0.46

2.Blog: www.salon.com (no moving ads - with subscription)
Hi-Beta 2.09 Gamma 0.26

3.Ad: www.cbc.ca (few moving ads)
Hi-Beta 2.08 Gamma 0.25

4.Ads: http://movies.msn.com (lots of moving ads)
Hi-Beta 1.76 Gamma 0.19

5.guitar: Playing the guitar (just for the heck of it)
Hi-Beta 7.56 Gamma 2.86

But what about the effect of scrolling?

Dry Lips wrote:

"What about scrolling then? Couldn't scrolling be
seen as the equivalent to formal features such as
panning, zooming, etc. Normally one would scroll
very often when using the internet, even when reading
long documents."

I was skeptical, but it could very well be that he
is correct. There was a drop off in Hi-Beta and
Gamma waves comparing reading a novel with reading
salon.com (with no moving ads).

There was very little difference between the blog
with no moving ads (www.salon.com) and the blog
with few moving ads (www.cbc.ca).

And, of course as expected, the blog with lots
of moving ads (movies.msn.com) had a much larger
drop-off in Hi-Beta and Gamma brainwaves.

I wasn't surprised that the guitar playing led
to much higher levels of Hi-Beta and Gamma, but
I was surprised at how spectacularly fast the
brain waves become while playing the guitar.

As an aside, here is an interesting article
about web advertising, and how it is much less
effective than TV advertising:

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9709a.html

And here are a couple of article about blocking webads:

http://www.slate.com/id/2218386/?obref=obinsite

http://www.tucows.com/article/1516

And thanks Dry Lips for inspiring this study!

Dry Lips · Joined: 12 Mar 2009 Posts: 21 Location: Norway

I'm glad that you were able to complete the study! The results are very interesting, but I must admit that they in a way are quite disturbing. Even though I seldom use computers, it leads me to once again question my own use of computers. At the moment I try to limit my own use as much as possible.
However, I can't stop bugging you yet. (I don't know that many EEG-magicians around...) I would strongly urge you to do the "staring at a blank-screen vs staring-at-a-blank-wall-or-something-test" as well. It would give important clues as to whether it is something in the screen technology in itself that have mind altering properties, or not.

If we can nail down the monitor technology as the offender, I think we could envision a solution (more about that later.) What's important is that in order to remove the disease, we ought to know precisely where the tumor is located in order to prescribe a cure...

TerryS · Joined: 16 Oct 2006 Posts: 139 Location: California

Hi Dry Lips

Glad you found the results interesting.

At some point over the next few months, I do
want to do another study. So I'll make a point
of the including a section on:

- blank wall versus blank screen.

In addition to:

- fast TV (lot of cuts) versus slow TV (fewer cuts)

I'll be sure to post the results here.

Dry Lips · Joined: 12 Mar 2009 Posts: 21 Location: Norway

TerryS · Joined: 16 Oct 2006 Posts: 139 Location: California

Hi Dry Lips

After reading you post, I double-checked my brainwave
page and realized that I had made mistakes copying the
numbers (from the screen-captures) into the results table.

Here is the corrected results table:

________Drawing__Reading__Watching TV

Alpha:_____1.53____2.16_______1.43

Lobeta:____1.43____1.30_______1.24

Beta:______2.67____0.85_______0.98

Hibeta:_____4.61____4.50_______2.41

Gamma:____1.18____0.23_______0.06

Putting the blog results in a similar table:

_______________Novel_____Blog____Blog_____Blog________Guitar
_______________________no ads___few ads___many ads

Hibeta:_________2.90______2.02____2.08_____1.76_________7.56

Gamma:________0.46______0.26____0.25_____0.19_________2.86

The only activity that was the same for both experiments
was the novel reading. And you'll notice that the results are
not exactly the same. The reason for this is that results to
vary based on level of focus, which varied based on how
tired the subject is, and perhaps how interesting
the subject matter is.

For example I originally tried doing the 2nd experiment
in the evening, but my hubby was quite tired and
no matter what he was doing his brainwaves were
quite a bit slower than normal. Now, I know to
do such studies in the morning or afternoon.

P.s. to Dry Lips, the table is now corrected on the
brainwave pages, but I am really not happy with my
awful mistake, but I am very glad you posted your comment
or I might never have caught it.