Amazing video on how Mirror Neurons are such an important aspect in our life and development. From babies modeling their parents, a toddler learning from observation, how it teaches us empathy and how we can spread that empathy to the world. The results of genetic studies that have proven that the 6.8 billion inhabitants of the world come from 2 humans “genetic Adam and Eve“.
Check out this post for ideas on how Mirror Neurons contribute to your baby’s development: Having Fun With Your Newborn
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7AWnfFRc7g&feature=player_embedded#!]
Thanks for sharing this video. While technology may have led toward empathy writ large–empathy to all humanity and the biosphere–from its original “blood-tie” scope, little children today experience technology as an alienating experience. Mom is looking at her iPhone and saying , “Just a minute, dear.” Sister is watching television and saying “don’t bother me!” or the very young child is the one “glued” to a device and ignoring others. Exposure to computers, e-books, iPhone or iPad apps, or to television, may well be corrosive to the mind of a very young child, so corrosive as to wipe out the evolution of a more empathic human that RIfkin is positing (not from those technologies per se, I’ll admit).
Your other post about television is interesting; my gut reaction is the same, i.e., not all television is bad. But for a child under four (or five, or six), I think we really have to ask ourselves whether the benefits outweigh the risks.
HI!
Thanks for such a thoughtful comment! I agree with you that having these technologies available can be an isolating factor for many people. However, I think we have the choice to decide HOW we use them! Glad to here you liked the post on TV as well. It’s actually been studied through scientific research that children under 2 can’t follow a cartoon story-line when it keeps shifting from one picture to the other. Television at a young age can also delay language development because it takes away important time that would have included human interaction, which is much more beneficial at that age.
I highly recommend reading one of my favorite books for parents “Bright from the Start” by Jill Stamm. A wonderful book based on scientific research that talks a lot about attention, communication and bonding in the first 3 years of a child’s life.