So, I'm not putting this on the politics board because it's more interesting than that. Yes, the data can be used to argue about Trump, but the study is from Italy and what has been seen there is that it's not just one political party that benefits from this effect. Anyone who dumbs down their message and goes populist gets a bump.
Politics aside real data showing that bad TV makes you dumber has some big implications. Idiocracy here we come
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/07/20/how-trashy-tv-made-children-dumber-enabled-wave-populist-leaders/?utm_term=.41f6435d0e63&wpisrc=nl_rainbow&wpmm=1
Politics aside real data showing that bad TV makes you dumber has some big implications. Idiocracy here we come
Quote:
By 1990, 49 out of 50 Italians could watch Mediaset half of the country had gained access in just five years. These unusual events allowed a team of Italian economists to compare towns that initially had Mediaset with otherwise equivalent towns that didn't get reception until later, and thus calculate how a few extra years of lowbrow TV can shape a society's politics.
Quote:
On a battery of psychological and cognitive tests administered to military conscripts, young men from areas with more Mediaset exposure were between 8 percent and 25 percent more likely to earn the lowest scores. On an international test conducted in 2012, Italian adults from places where they first would have been exposed to Mediaset under age 10 had math and reading scores that were significantly worse than those of their peers. They were also less civically minded and less politically active.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/07/20/how-trashy-tv-made-children-dumber-enabled-wave-populist-leaders/?utm_term=.41f6435d0e63&wpisrc=nl_rainbow&wpmm=1
