The document discusses whether beauty or brains are more valued in today's society. It notes that some studies have found men prefer brains over beauty, while others found women prefer beauty over brains. The media is seen as glorifying beauty through things like children's beauty pageants, fairy tales emphasizing beauty, and celebrities promoting their looks over education. However, the document also argues that many still value education, as college attendance rates are rising in some places. While video games can promote violence and negative stereotypes, new active games are seen as having health benefits, and brain games may improve skills. Overall, the document examines different perspectives on whether beauty or intelligence is more emphasized in contemporary culture.

1. By: Abigail Menzies

2.  Beauty or brains
 Impact of video games on today‟s society

3. In today‟s society would you say that beauty is now seen as more valued than
having brains?
http://youtu.be/h2uxXtQSxuw
•The debate of „would you rather beauty or brains‟ has been said to be going on for
years
•Some psychologists say the answer to this seems to differentiate depending on the
gender. (from dailymail.co.uk)
Some men rather brains over beauty whereas some women rather beauty over brains
From this daily mail article (2012) it
shows men rather women to have brains
over beauty
Brains vs. Breast 2012 Survey
41% of 2,089 women preferred larger
breast than high intelligence

4. Brains Beauty
8 out of 12 chose brain 4 out of 12 chose beauty
(answers from twitter.com and askfm.com)

5. Beauty may not be valued more but the media glorifies beauty rather than
intelligence
• For example; children beauty pageants socialize little girls into taking great
importance on appearance
(From irishexaminer.com/lifestyle)
Basically says the over emphasis on
beauty will cause the girl‟s in the
beauty pageant to grow up in
society viewing themselves as an
„object of beauty‟ waiting to be
looked up on and judged
• There has been many criticisms of children beauty pageant such as „Toddlers
and Tiaras‟. One critic said “The extreme focus on physical appearance, can
have a negative effect for these girls in the long run”
(www.starpulse.com/news)

6. •In relation to this, fairytale storybooks teaches us from a young age about the
„beautiful or lovely princess‟, children are never told of her being the smart or brainy
princess.
•Through this children are taught that beauty is more important than brains from a
young age.
“snow white grew up and when she was seven
years old she was so beautiful”
(from pitt.edu/~dash/type 0709.html)
•The stereotypical way a fairytale princess is presented is:
Long hair
Rosy cheeks
 Red lips
 Pale skin
Slim waisted
•This stereotypical image of fairytale princesses not only exaggerates the
importance of beauty but creates the idea to many young girl‟s that this how
they should aspire to look

7. •Another example of the media glorifying beauty over brains is through celebrities.
Celebrities like Nicki Minaj, Lady Gaga
and Rihanna prefer to endorse in
cosmetics and clothing lines rather than
promoting college programs and the
benefits of education
• There are also many celebrities that have become successful without finishing
school. To some having the talent of singing or acting is a form of beauty.
• These celebrities who are role models to many young people give the idea
education isn‟t that important as they are successful without it
Both Katy Perry and Christina
Aguilera both left high school to
pursue a singing career
(from smosh.com & wikiepdia.com)

8. Nevertheless beauty may be glorified through the media but there are
still a vast majority today that understand the importance of being
educated
•Also in other places in the world, there has been also be an increase on those
going on to further education
•In this year (2013) it has been said that there are now more people going to
university in the UK compared to past years (2011-2012)
•Statistics show that 49.3% of young people in England entered higher education this
year which is the highest rate on record that is only a little below the 50% mark the
government vowed to reach
(www.theguardian.com/education/2013/apr/24/students-higher-education-almost-50-per-cent)
In Finland, 80% of their young women
are now going to university.
In the US, there are now 15% more hispanics
enrolling to college this year

9. •In addition to this, there are now also many celebrities that are now going back to
university, such as Kristen Stewart and Taylor Swift who both dropped out of school to
pursue acting and singing careers
(from hollywoodlife.com)
•This all shows that to some extent shows
brains is still valued in today‟s society by
many including both celebrities and non-
celebrities
Kristen Stewart never got to complete college as she left to
become an actress however she‟s going to UCLA to study
English lit as she wants to get a proper education
(http://www.enstarz.com/articles/23361/20130813/robert-pattinson-kristen-stewart-split-
inspires-go-back-college-attend-ucla.htm)
•Even though there are many celebrities today that have become successful
without finishing school, there are also many that have gone back to further
education to study Celebrities who went back to college:
Shakira – History of Civilization
Shaquille O‟Neal – Business
James Franco – English
Sandra Bullock – Drama
Michael Jordan - Geography
(http://www.youniversitytv.com/news-edgy/4878-celebrities-that-
went-back-to-college)

10. • As technology advances and develops so does the quality of video games as they
become more interactive and life-like, causing these games to have a huge
impact on people‟s lives
• There has been a lot of controversy about the impact video games has on
society.
• Here are some of the few positive and negative effects:
Positive Effects Negative Effects
Improve concentration
Helps build memory
Allows quick thinking
Make young kids more
creative
New gaming technology
encourages being fit and
heath
Promotes violence
Negative portrayal of
women
Leads to laziness
Can become an
addiction
New technology has
better quality that can blur
the difference between
reality and fantasy
http://www.raisesmartkid.com/3-to-6-years-old/4-articles/34-the-good-
and-bad-effects-of-video-games

11. •Video games such as mortal kombat and call of duty have been said to have a
negative influence on young children causing them to be aggressive due to structure
of the game: kill the opponent, get rewarded.
One of the main negative influences video games have on society
(especially the youth) is violence
Jo Frost‟s Video Game Experiment
•Jo Frost believe video games play a huge role in young boy‟s lives and cause them to
be less senstitive
•A group of boys were interviewed by Dr Gentile who would knock over a jar full of
pencils on to the floor, in order to test the subjects' capacity for empathy.
•Of those who played the violent game, only 40% helped to pick up the pencils
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/gamesblog/2010/feb/10/games-controversy
http://youtu.be/gG1rbfVsyIQ?t=4m35s

12. “Blaming video games for problems in society
gives us an illusion of control over things we can‟t
control,”
Christopher Ferguson (professor of psychology &
criminal justice at Texas university)
Nevertheless, some people don‟t believe these violent video games have a
negative effect
Studies have found that violent
can be therapeutic and help
calm teens
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2403032/Violent-video-
games-like-Grand-Theft-Auto-DONT-harm-children--
therapeutic.html

13. In addition to this violent influence, video games also give negative portrayals of groups
within society
• Role playing games like grand theft auto have been said to be highly influential on
people‟s lives especially young people as its comical reflection of the American
culture and many gamers feels they can relate to the lifestyle shown in the game.
• Strong language, brutality, drugs and prostitution are just some of the themes in the
Grand Theft Auto franchise.
Women in gta are degraded into sexual objects and are
usually seen walking around in the game as
prostitutes
The main character in gta: san andreas (CJ
Johnson) reflects the negative stereotypes of the
black youth today for e.g. is part of a gang and
comes from a dysfunctional family

14. • Through the development of technology, video games now have more of a sense
of realism causing them to be more addictive as its blurs the line between fantasy
and reality
Video game addiction
Grand theft auto in 1998 Grand theft auto in 2008
Games like grand theft auto
become life-like every time
a new game is released
• Video game addiction has now become a serious mental health problem among
young kids.
• Video game addiction is an excessive or compulsive use of computer games or
video games, which interferes with a person's everyday life.
• This addiction can contribute to a lack of healthy functioning in kid‟s for e.g.
family life, health, moral values, and school performance.
• ADD or ADHD was 2 times as likely to have been diagnosed in children
addicted to video games.
http://www.kidpointz.com/video-game-addiction

15. Nevertheless in the last few years video games could be argued to have a
positive impact on society
• New technology like the Wii fit and the Kinect enables and encourages people of
all ages to become more active and keep physically fit while still having fun
“They found that 60 year olds who played a custom-designed video
game for 12 hours over the course of a month improved their
multitasking abilities to levels better than those achieved by 20 year
olds playing the game for the first time”
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/sep/04/brain-training-video-game-old-
age
http://youtu.be/mL3y4noQ_CQHelen Mirren talks about
the advantages of having
a wii fit
• Brain training games like nintendo ds‟ „brain age‟ have been scientifically proven
to help stimulate the mind and help those in areas such as literacy and numeracy

16. Documentary
Mode
Examples Explanation
Participatory Mode • Sicko
• Food Matters
• One Mile Away
In relation to the target audience I would chose this
mode because:
• The filmmaker is present throughout the
documentary and participates so the audience
will be able to hear and see the filmmaker‟s
views on the subject
Reflexive mode • Catfish I would chose this mode aswell because:
• It shows the audience the making of the
documentary for e.g the filmmaker making calls
to arrange inteviews etc
• This should show to the audience how hard it is
to arrange interviews with certain companies
when discussing controversial topics e.g calling
up tlc to ask them why they display shows like
„Toddlers and Tiaras‟ that exploit little girls