Therefore, video technologies can promote critical thinking and increased attention spans if certain environmental factors are taken into account. For example, young learners who are provided with larger video screens with higher resolutions that enhance the viewing experience have been shown to demonstrate increased attention spans (Baudisch, DeCarlo, Duchowski & Geisler, 2003)
41). Indeed, some educators even maintain that video technologies are eroding the ability of young people to think critically about the world and the issues that are important to them (Greengard, 2009)
In this study, normal and distorted versions of "The Telebubbies" were shown to a group of young people to gauge their respective attention spans. According to these researchers, "Earlier research established that preschool children pay less attention to television that is sequentially or linguistically incomprehensible" (Pempek et al
1780). In addition, even some early video games were specifically designed to become more difficult and challenging if the player's attention span waned, thereby helping young people remain focused on the task at hand (Pope & Bogart, 1999)
Indeed, some educators even maintain that video technologies are eroding the ability of young people to think critically about the world and the issues that are important to them (Greengard, 2009). Other researchers have "blamed 'Sesame Street' and MTV for creating communication chaos -- an attention span of seconds instead of minutes" (Saltzman, 2009, p
37). These researchers concluded that although young people's mental processes are still in a developmental phase, they are capable of actively selecting and organizing video content in order to understand it, but very young children do not use this video content after the presentation to reconstruct the story afterwards (Van Den Broek et al
Likewise, an educator with a 6-year-old daughter reports that she is enormously concerned about the effects of video technology on his daughter's attention span: "A controlled photo shoot is about as much exposure to video games as I'm comfortable with her getting right now. As persuaded as I am by their educational potential, I'm wary of what they'll do to her attention span" (Weinstock, 2009, p