Reflections

“Teenagers are getting as little as three hours sleep a night, due to modern technology”

That was another headline from today’s television news. It appears that this is a story which is claiming that video games and computers are causing sleep-deprivation in children.

The way the story is presented makes it completely meaningless. The phrase ‘getting as little as three hours sleep a night’ is like those ‘savings of up to 50%’ claims made by stores. You might find that some unpopular item is indeed marked up at 50%, but nothing else is. Unless an actual study has been done of the sleeping habits of teenagers, this has all the hallmarks of a made-up story, to go in the archives with all the other anti-internet stories that have been appearing recently.

If indeed, computers and video games were causing sleep-deprivation in youngsters, then it would show that they work as entertainment. Perhaps in that case we should be exploring further how they might be used in the service of education.

“Teenagers are getting as little as three hours a sleep, due to revision,” doesn’t have quite the same alarmist appeal.

The coverage of real news stories is bad enough at the moment, without our having to endure made-up ones as well.

The BBC’s standards continue to decline, despite recent criticisms.

On today’s News 24, introducing a story about a fine of £400,000 levelled on two companies whose negligence resulted in the deaths of 9 people, the female announcer described it as ‘a huge fine’. The burden of the story was that, of course, it was a derisory amount, and the judge was unable to level any more because he was constrained from doing so.

The concluding contribution of the male announcer was: “The families extremely very upset.”