Couric explores the world of sound and technology, particularly as it affects young brains---early childhood and into young adult hood.
National Geographic Channel “America Inside Out With Katie Couric”
Katie Couric, narrator
National Geographic/ Partners LLC (NGP), 21st Century Fox 2018
Each episode is 50 minutes in length
6 Episodes in this series that airs on Wednesday
Wired
Tech’s Imprint
Episode Three With Katie Couric
April 25, 2018
If you are reading this review while listening to a podcast or music, you are multi-tasking and your ears and brain are taking the brunt of it. Surprised? In Katie Couric’s next episode of “America Inside Out,” Couric explores the world of sound and technology, particularly as it affects young brains---early childhood and into young adult hood.
When the brain is assaulted with sound from your surroundings, ear pods and your own thoughts trying to organize, the brain is overworked…to the point of suicide? According to statistics, the suicide of young girls from ages 15-19 and during the time period of 2007-2015, doubled. Somehow, a plaque (beta amyloid), similar to Alzheimer’s Disease, grew in their brains causing drastic effects. Also, during this time period, Smart Phones became popular and designed to be exclusively yours…and with ear pods, too. Who hasn’t seen a pedestrian cross a street against a red light while cheerfully listening to a cell phone or texting. The world is now non-existent and you become the center.
What the study, described by Dr. Larry Rosen, also showed is that if the perpetual sound (phones, televisions sets, radios, computors) continues by age 40, adults will have a significant hearing loss that is permanent. How to keep yourself on your job if you can’t hear properly? My own experience of singing in choirs through the years is that people age 45 and up are dropping out because they can’t hear the pitch and maintain it through a song. What they think they are singing is not what the person next to them is singing. Yet, after rehearsals, it is back to ear pods. Makes you wonder why people don’t hear baby cries or smoke detector alarms or tornado sirens. The matter of hearing concerns your own personal safety but the safety of your family and community. What can’t you hear? Lives may depend on it.
Production values are excellent.
National Geographic Partners LLC and 21st Century Fox, have joined to produce this series. The series will run on television where millions of people in 172 countries and 43 languages will see and hear it. The first two episodes are “Re-righting History” (April 11, 2018) and “The Muslim Next Door” (April 18, 2018.) Following episodes will include” “Robot Apocolypse.” The organization called (NGP) returns 27 percent of proceeds to the nonprofit National Geographic Society to fund work in the areas of science, exploration, conservation and education. For more information visit www.natgeotv.com or www.nationalgeographic.com. Visit on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, YouTube, LinkedIn and Pinterest.
Copyright 2018 Marie Asner
