Lego – Word Puzzle

Sep 12, ’11 10:00 PM
Author Categories Advertising

Lego’s recent advertising campaign called “Word Puzzle” is playfully elegant but touches on something I feel quite strongly about. I subscribe to the belief that our experiences shape how our brains develop. The classic nature vs nurture debate – on a fundamental level there is a large component of nurture that develops personality and reason.

It is for that very reason that I believe the youth of today are wired different than our grand parents. This is not to say we are smarter or more stupid – just that the cognitive reasoning, multi-taking and decision making engine in our head works differently.

Lets take an extreme example of my grand parents and a young teenager growing up. My grandfather is in his late 80s and walked to school everyday. He recounts history class as being so exciting because the teacher would tell drum beating stories of war and conflict. TV of course was not on offer. Teenagers of today expect engagement on a level of magnitude higher than that of what my grandfather would have experienced. TV, Internet, Gaming and Mobile Communications define entertainment inputs for this generation. And I believe the difference is causing a fundamental rewiring of their brains – opinions that are shared by Tapscott and Carr amongst others.

But I thought the above campaign cleverly touched on the topic of lateral thinking and perspective. Upon looking at the graphic I’m reminded of the simple and basic nature of word puzzles – but I’m bothered by my inability to identify other additional “lego groups”. Perhaps I’m out of practice? Am I the only one who can’t see it? It leaves me an awareness of the value children derived from Lego and how quickly we’ve left it behind for 3D games and touch screen phones.

  • Al Thompson

    “Teenagers of today expect engagement on a level of magnitude higher than that of what my grandfather would have experienced.”
    Teenagers of today engage in learning and entertainment using media that present a constant suddenness of significant sensory input field change that previous generations were unacquainted with. People seem unsure as to whether or not this facilitates greater intellectual stimulation, even if it clearly involves much greater intensity of overall cognitive stimulation within given time periods. What seems clear is that kids now find more traditional forms of entertainment unfulfilling compared with the stimulation derived from the high-frequency stimulus changes enabled by said 3D games and touch screen phones – something which would indeed suggest a neuronal rewiring capacity on the part of advanced technology (and, by extension, and to differing levels of magnitude, on the part of every experience and thought we have, as well). 

    One main reason technology may be able to exert such cognitive changes in young people (and in general) may be due to the ability of frequent, abrupt stimulus changes to hold our attention captive to such a degree. A good analogy might be the oft-lamented TV in a pub, and how people’s eyes are constantly drawn towards it. In an evolutionary sense, focusing of attention on a sudden and significant change in one’s sensory field is a predictable and sensible response to have ingrained. Think fire. Think bears. Or perhaps just the sound of a fellow tribesman, who might have news on water sources, coming from a nearby patch of trees. With TV, we have a medium that presents sudden and significant changes in visual stimulus, in the form of changing images. We are consciously aware, of course, that a furiously-pronouncing Samuel L. Jackson visually giving way to volleys of gunfire does not pose a potential survival threat (or benefit), yet our brains are still very strongly compelled to divert attention to this abrupt stimulus change.

    While advancement of technology has undoubted potential benefits for humanity, I fear that it could (and is) incurring an intellectual distractibility among younger people that may only be remedied with development of our understanding of how technology changes our brains and how it can be best harnessed for educational purposes. This, of course, suggests an according advancement in teaching practices, to develop an approach which blends the use of technological stimulation with that of the ‘slower involvement’ media I feel will always have a role to play in development of the mind.

    Phew! I write too much. Need to gets me a job.