by Mothiur Rahman

Created on: May 15, 2009

When we look at human history, one of the things that we notice prevalent in most societies, was the tradition of oral transmission. People used to tell stories of great heroes of the past or even stories about their recent history. The lack of modern day entertainment was a factor behind the older members of different social groups having to keep their young entertained.

Barry Sanders argues in his brilliant book A is for Ox, that modern technology-the television in particular-is slowing down the rate at which our children's minds are developing. Children listening to stories and also just generally listening to the elders speak, used to be an integral part of a child's experience while in the initial stages of development. This has sadly been replaced by what we know as the TV. Children are immensely occupied in watching the content; and according to Sanders, one of the reasons why a child shows lesser cognitive development while watching TV as opposed listening to stories, is because it (the TV) does the imagining for the child. While story telling used to force the child to exercise their minds in order to understand the story via self-generated images; the TV has people who have done that for the child, resulting in the child not triggering brain activity to the extent children from previous generations were.

This is not a non-testable theory that will remain a mystery because we cannot enter the past. Oral cultures are still around today, and my parents happen to be from South Asia. There are parts of South Asia that the technological boom has not reached yet, and their lifestyle is very much like the ideal Barry Sanders outlines in A is for Ox. I visited there a few times, and one of the things that I was always struck by when I went there, was the incredibly superior wit of the youth. There is an ocean of difference between the way they behave, speak and even dumbfound adults on occasions with well thought out remarks. I am talking about nine to twelve year olds, and I can honestly say that I cannot even begin to imagine a nine or twelve year old in our societies thinking like them. They may have an inferior lifestyle in terms of comfort-according to some-but that situation forces them to grow up quick. Ask people who have been there and I am very confident that they will have something similar to say. This effect could possibly be caused by the fact that they live in an oral culture, sheltered away from the negative influences of television.

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