Mental Tickling
Thursday, October 9th, 2008Sounds a little odd huh? It’s a term that was used by a journalist in 1938 to describe the inundation of noise, advertising and distraction we are faced with each day. Now let that sink in a bit… the sheer volume of crap we parse that robs us of our concentration and productivity was a concern in 1938.
The article came to my attention when my uncle Tim sent a picture of a newspaper clipping out to the family. It’s a photo of my grandad Jim ‘the GodFather’ O’Rourke running a 1 mile race in Fazakerley, Liverpool (where I was born).
The article (unrelated to the photo) was called:
Too much mental tickling. Bad effect on young people.
It goes on to repeat a report by a head master saying that:
14 to 17 year olds seem instinctively to set up barriers to much of what education has to offer them. They live in an atmosphere of constant mental tickling - wireless, cinema, Press, sport, speed, raucous shouting crowds, blaring advertisements…
I find this interesting, not least because it was written in 1938 but that this atmosphere of constant ‘mental tickling’ is of a far greater magnitude today. The article mentions wireless, in later articles of a similar vein it has been extended to concerns about TV, the internet and more than anything else all the new ways we are exposed to advertising. We are bombarded.
My inspiration for writing this post was an article by Nicholas Carr entitled ‘Is Google Making Us Stupid’. My own view is that yes it has, but it’s our own fault for relying on it too much (maybe I’m just speaking for myself…). I’m guilty of this and I think I’m not alone on it but in some cases Google now serves as my memory. I can simply Google something instead of committing it to memory and actually learning something. In time it does sink in but it can make the mind just a little lazy.
Apps and games like ‘Brain Training’, ‘More Brain Training’ and ‘Even More Brain Training’ are a direct reaction to the sense that we are losing mental ground, and not acheiving our potential. Hopefully these games and an awareness of what is happening will go some way towards breaking down that instinctive barrier to what education is really about. Learning how to learn.