Apologies if the thread title is a bit sensationalist - it's there to make you think.
I recently saw an episode of the new Mr. Men TV series, made in 2008. It didn't remind me much of the same programme I'd watched as a child in the 80s and (once the migraine it induced had subsided) it got me thinking.
The original series created in 1975 was a slow-paced affair with a single storyline based around a single character trait of the title character, be it Mr. Nosey, Mr. Happy etc etc.
They were very simple stories. Easy to follow but requiring a little bit of concentration to follow the thread of the story. And there was always a simple message to the story ie. don't be nosey, you can't always be happy etc.
The new series (produced 2008-2009) no longer consists of a single storyline but a number of different sketches and seemed to me to be fast-paced and without any rhyme, reason or any discernible message.
The new series struck me as rotten to the core and completely without merit in terms of what it could offer to a young child.
Now, this is easily attributed as an emotional response and in one who is prone to conservative thinking in many matters such as myself open to a good degree of mockery. After all, didn't I watch the same TV programme myself? Haven't children watched TV for getting on for two generations now?
What exactly has changed other than the fact that I am no longer a child myself?
All of these responses are easily predicatble when asking a question such as I have done in this thread. And so I decided to quantify my displeasure with the new Mr. Men series, in a way that was unarguably objective.
I have focused on a single factor of the programme and compared the 1975 version with the 2008 version. I have simply counted how many different screen shots were used to create two episodes of each of the old and new series.
The 1975 version was 7:29 long and used 50 screen shots.
The 2008 version wass 10:28 long and used 216 screen shots.
This means that:
The 1975 version has an average of 8.98 seconds per screen shot.
The 1983 version has an average of only 2.91 seconds per screen shot.
Whilst watching the Mr.Men, a child watching the 2008 series will be subjected to nearly four times the amount of flashing images as a child who watched the 1975 version.
Obviously, this isn't in any way a proper scientific study (I've only watched one of each version of the programme, I haven't watched the whole series etc) but it does throw an interesting light on how much children's TV has changed in a what is really a single generation.
Let's remember - this should essentially be the same programme. The 1975 version is the Mr. Men and the 2008 version is the Mr. Men. You'd think there would be a good degree of continuity yet there is a fourfold increase in the images used to convey the story.
Is it really right that we are subjecting our children to such unnaturally high levels of stimulation? What effects are these hyper-active TV programmes having upon children's developing brains? Are these TV programmes hindering their ability to learn the skills necessary to focus and concentrate on single tasks for any length of time? Is this linked with disorders of concentration and behaviour such as ADHD?
It's something worth asking.
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Mr. Men (1975).
"Mr. Nosey"
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The Mr Men Show 2008.
"Bugs"