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Comment by AnimalMuppet | Hacker News Reader

It's not just their executive function. It's their sense of time.

In much video, a cut[1] happens every three seconds (I don't know if this is true for specifically children's video). This tunes their sense of time - if you don't like what you're looking at, in three seconds it will be completely different. That's not what life was like when I grew up; it's not what life was like for any generation before mine. It seems to me that there has to be some effects from this...

[1] A "cut" in video is an instantaneous change of viewpoint (so called because, back in the film days, the only way you could get it was by physically cutting and splicing the film).

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Watching older movies and television shows today I'm struck by how much longer shots are and how there are so many fewer cuts. I'm sure that, to some extent, pacing in movies was dictated by the practicality of technology. Modern-day non-linear editing and digital production allows for more frequent cuts at a much lower expense. I wonder, however, to what extent there is a feedback loop occurring between audiences and directors that drives shorter shots and more cuts.

In this context, I should note that my "3 seconds" number was from the 1970s. Does anybody have a more up-to-date number?

WIRED did an article in 2014 that pegs the number at 2.5 seconds. Amusingly, the professor cited in the article has the last name of "Cutting", which makes the article a little jarring to read to me (since I keep seeing the verb "cutting" and thinking about "cutting together" a movie).

Here's a leading early childhood development pediatrician commenting on this exact point https://youtu.be/BoT7qH_uVNo

>> That's not what life was like when I grew up; it's not what life was like for any generation before mine.

Sure it was. I am in my mid-30s and that describes every single anime or cartoon I watched.

> I am in my mid-30s and that describes every single anime or cartoon I watched.

Not relevant unless your parents were showing you that before age 2.

In addition to what Alex3917 said: I grew up 20 years before you. That's not what life was like for me growing up. For the generation before mine, well, they were growing up in the 1940s and 50s. Not many kids in the 50s were watching tons of video before the age of 2.

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