Public Opinions

The article on daydreaming in the Boston Globe by Jonah Lehrer, although an entertaining collection of easy-to-understand facts, might be seen as a simple and vague depiction of the actual topic of neuroscience by specialists in the field. The article focuses on the area of neuroscience that studies the brain functions behind the process of daydreaming, and it does so in a very simplified language that can be understood by the average reader with little to no prior knowledge on the subject. It aims the readers’ attention towards the potential benefits of daydreaming and its affects on a person’s ability to think creatively and make original associations. Arthur Fry, the inventor of the post-it note and the holder of many various other patents, came up with his inventions, post-it note included, while daydreaming about solutions to his everyday problems. This simple story illustrates for the reader an example of a positive outcome of an average, everyday daydream. Lehrer’s article goes on to explain the importance of daydreams in the development of a child’s creativity skills and his or her abilities to make original associations between seemingly unlike object and ideas. It seems that children in the present day are lacking in a certain “empty time� in which he or she is not entertained by outside stimuli, such as a television set, during which the imagination is the only form of entertainment, leading to daydreams and along with them streams of creative thoughts. Although the article is based on legitimate scientific evidence, it lacks the extensive explanations and extrapolations of an article written merely for scientific purposes, and the scientific terminology that makes the meaning of such articles inaccessible to the average reader.
As a reader with some knowledge on the subject of neuroscience, however limited, I found the popular science piece by Lehrer to be interesting and informative. I have not had much background in the subject, although I have taken a few psychology classes that were connected to the field of neuroscience, and I feel that this article, despite its relaxed format and lack of scientific lingo, enriched my previous knowledge on daydreaming. A popular science piece, such as this one on daydreaming, is not written with the intent to give the reader a free lesson and make him or her an expert on the given topic; it is simply to entertain the reader and perhaps advance his or her interest on the subject, whatever it may be.
On the contrary, the linked article by Mark Price that goes more in depth to the actual scientific background of the study of neuroscience and brain functions related to the process of daydreaming is a long, tedious article full of information which is neither interesting nor easy to comprehend for the casual reader. This is perhaps the reason that hard scientific fact doesn’t make for a very good magazine article, as do popular science bits such as the piece by Lehrer. However, the experts in the field of neuroscience would most likely acclaim the latter article, despite the fact that it is simply a review of a larger piece of scientific literature, as the better reflection of their area of expertise. It contains more scientific fact, and the terminology and format used reinforce the fact that such an article was not written with the anticipation that it would be read by the casual reader. Intense scientific essays and reviews such as the piece that I read today by Mark Price are meant to be viewed by a narrow audience, whereas popular science articles such as the one by Lehrer in the Boston Globe are directed toward the average man or woman.
One may ask, then, which type of literature is in fact of superior quality? The answer is obvious. It simply depends on the audience. It would be inappropriate and most likely a waste of paper to include an article full of hard scientific fact written in technical language in a casual reading magazine- people simply wont put the time or energy into reading it, much less trying to understand it. Scientific essays aren’t usually the first things a person thinks of when looking for a piece of literature for leisure reading. Similarly, an article on popular science would be entirely out of place in an academic textbook. Personally, I found the popular science article by Lehrer, although perhaps less technically informative than the more in depth review by Price, to be much more interesting, entertaining, and even more intellectually stimulating, perhaps simply for these reasons.