My camp sends out newsletters, and I remembered (while doing my previous post, Onslaught) about one statistic concerning children/advertising.
No Child Left Inside, an organization that promotes and lobbys for additions of outside-of-the-classroom curriculum such as sciences and social studies, reports that "a study found that young people could identify 1000 corporate logos but fewer than 10 plants or animals native to their backyards.” I couldn't find the exact details on the study, other than a short video from the NCLI coalition, but here's a chance to think for yourself.
Can you name 10 plants or animals native to the North Shore? This excludes all the plants your mom or dad might have put in the garden. I myself can only name a couple, and they are pretty lame at that (black squirrels, and all the streets in Winnetka named after trees).
Next, try taking these two quizzes ( 1 and 2 ) on sporcle.com
What did you score? Granted, there are not 1000 corporate logos-- in fact, there are only 72.
If you scored in any way similar to me, you would have done pretty well on the corporate logos part and pretty bad on the 10 plants and animals part. Huck Finn, however, would excel in the opposite way, of course.
So does this say anything about America today, versus what it was in Huck's time? Of course, there were no "corporate logos" in Huck's time, in fact, corporations were hardly in existance. But what is more important-- knowing logos, or knowing things about nature? Which are you going to use more?
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I took the quizzes, and I was kind of shocked by how embedded logos that don't even pertain to my life (Bank of America) are in my mind. I think that Huck Finn had more time in nature because he was not sitting in front of the TV watching commercials, browsing the internet, or driving around and seeing fast food chains and gas stations everywhere. Unfortunately, I think It's become one or the other - become one with nature, or go on Facebook.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I watched the onslaught dove video - very cool.
I took the quizzes and scored a 50/72. Right now part of me feels really lame for not knowing them, and the other half of me feels like a horrible American for knowing all those logos while I'm sure I couldn't even name those ten natural plants or animals in my own backyard. It's pretty sad, and I'd definitely call that brainwashing. It's not that these corporations are forcing us to buy their products or even support them, but "any press is good press;" the more people that know a corporation (for whatever reason) the more successful and famous it's going to be.
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