Neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson

You've expressed concerns about how some media affect learning.
Think about the cultrue we live in. As soon as a baby is able to sit up, we stick him in front of the TV. When they get older and have a little bit of eye-hand coordination and dexterity, we get them a control so they can plan computer games ... zoom, zoom, zoom! That's all they're seeing all the time — fast motion. Then at 5 or 6, we put them in a classroom, and there's a teacher up front who's not turning into something every few seconds. And you expect them to pay attention? It's not going to happen.

Has that contributed to the wave of children being diagnosed with attention deficit disorder?
So often, when children come into my clinic they have some kind of neurological problem. But their parents tell me they're also on this drug and that drug for attention deficit disorder. I ask them one question: "Can they play video games?" They say, "Oh, yeah! For hours and hours, no problem!" I say, "Then they don't have it. That's pseudo-ADD. What you need to do is wean them off of those things and substitute quality time with you, reading and discussing things." When they do that, they come back and say, "Dramatic change!"

Your generation didn't grow up with video games, but television was certainly a big influence. How was it handled in your home?
I was an extremely poor student. My brother wasn't doing well, either. My mother didn't know what to do, but she worked cleaning other people's houses and noticed that in the homes of wealthy people, they didn't watch much TV. They spent a lot of time reading. So after praying for wisdom, she said, "I think this is what we'll do in our home!" We could only watch two or three preselected programs, and with all that spare time we had to read books from the Detroit public libraries and submit written book reports.

How did you respond to that?
I didn't like it very much at the beginning, but soon I recognized that, even though we were desperately poor, between the covers of those books I could go anyplace. I could do anything. Using my imagination, I could see myself in a laboratory, conducting experiments. My vision of what my future was going to be changed, and I began to understand that the person who has the most to do with what happens to you is you!

Are you concerned about the cultural messages being sent to young African American men?
If you can get the majority of young, black males running around thinking they're gonna be the next Michael Jordan or a popular rap singer or some fabulously rich gangster, that's really as effective as putting a shackle on their ankle and driving a stake in the ground in terms of long-term success. It really is. That's why my wife and I started our scholarship program and why we created reading rooms that reward young people for discovering books. I was a troublemaker. I was a negative peer. But once I turned that around and understood how reading could empower me, it changed my whole character.