The Medium Is the Message: How Fast TV Hijacks Kids' Brains

This morning, I listened to Dr. Angeline Leonard speaking with Brad Smith on 640 Toronto about children’s media, executive function, and the developing brain. Her interview immediately brought to mind Marshall McLuhan’s famous insight: “The medium is the message,” which deeply shaped my perspective during my studies at Carleton University Journalism School.

Dr. Angeline Leonard is a Canadian researcher whose work explores how children’s media influences thinking, behaviour, and executive functioning. Her research examines the relationship between what children watch and how it affects attention, self-regulation, learning, and social development. During her conversation with Brad Smith, she shared emerging research that challenges long-held assumptions about children’s television.

For years, many believed the primary concern with children’s programming was scene velocity, that fast-paced cartoons overloaded young minds. However, Dr. Leonard highlighted a recent meta-analysis suggesting something far more nuanced:

“The pacing didn’t matter,” she explained. “The fantasy did.”

Comparing shows like SpongeBob SquarePants and Caillou, researchers found that pacing alone did not explain drops in executive functioning. Instead, the driver was the level of fantastical content.

Children’s brains evolved to process real-world physics. When a cartoon constantly presents impossible events, the characters shapeshifting, objects appearing out of nowhere, or reality bending, the developing brain burns immense cognitive energy trying to make sense of the unnatural.

As Dr. Leonard noted, children are "evolved for the real world." When mental effort is drained by processing chaotic fantasy, fewer cognitive resources remain for executive functioning and their mental skills governing attention, working memory, emotional regulation, and self-control.

Listening to her explanation, I saw a profound bridge between neuroscience, McLuhan's media theory, and energy work.

McLuhan taught us that the structural environment alters human consciousness. As a Reiki Master, I view this cognitive strain through the lens of the subtle energy body. In Reiki, we know that where attention goes, energy flows.

When a child consumes hyper-fantastical media, their attention is fragmented, pulling their subtle energy upward into an overstimulated, ungrounded head space. Their biofield becomes dysregulated, leaving them drained, reactive, and disconnected from their physical body. Just as the brain exhausts its cognitive reserves to process unnatural input, the energy system loses its natural grounding.

Reiki reminds us that attention is our most sacred form of personal energy. While children need imagination, there is a fundamental difference between active, grounded imagination sparked by unstructured play and passive, energy-draining fantasy delivered through a high-stimulation screen.

To offset today's digital environment, children need grounding experiences like time in nature, physical movement, and real human presence to draw their energy back into balance and restore their natural energetic protection.

McLuhan gave us the theory. Dr. Leonard provided the scientific mechanism. Reiki offers the daily energetic remedy.

Help Your Child Regain Grounding in a Tech-Heavy World

If your child struggles with post-screen meltdowns, scattered focus, or energetic overload, simple screen limits are often not enough. They need practical tools to reset their nervous system and clear absorbed energetic noise.

Enroll in our Reiki for Kids Online Course to discover easy, child-friendly energy exercises designed for modern families.

In this course, you will learn how to:

• Run Daily Grounding Rituals: Quick exercises to bring overstimulated energy down out of the head and back into the body.

• Protect the Energy Field: Simple visualization and touch techniques to help children shield their aura from digital fatigue.

• Restore Calm Before Bed: Targeted energy clearing methods to release lingering screen agitation and promote restful sleep.

Equip your child with energetic resilience in a hyper-connected world. Enrol in the Reiki for Kids Online Course Today and take it on your time to start building healthy energy habits together.

 

 

Photo Credit: Patricia Prudente :)