Analysis Of The Movie ' Thinking Outside The Idiot Box ' By Dana Stevens And Watching Tv Makes You Smarter

There is no doubt that television holds a purpose in our society today, but is that purpose brain-numbing or actually beneficial to our brain development? The television, also known as: TV, the boob tube, the idiot box, as well as many other nicknames, has been around for almost a hundred years. Ever since cable TV became popular in the 1950’s, there has always been a worry that people watch too much TV. Most people believe that with exorbitant exposure to the popular media both dumbs us down as well as makes us more likely to tolerate acts of violence. Dana Stevens’ “Thinking Outside the Idiot Box” argues that television does not make you smarter, directly

Consider the cognitive demands that televised narratives place on their viewers. With many shows that we associate with ''quality'' entertainment -- ''The Mary Tyler Moore Show,'' ''Murphy Brown,'' ''Frasier'' -- the intelligence arrives fully formed in the words and actions of the characters on-screen. They say witty things to one another and avoid lapsing into tired sitcom cliches, and we smile along in our living rooms, enjoying the company of these smart people. But assuming we're bright enough to understand the sentences they're saying, there's no intellectual labor involved in enjoying the show as a viewer. You no more challenge your mind by watching these intelligent shows than you challenge your body watching ''Monday Night Football.'' The intellectual work is

Lately in modern society, individuals do not pay attention or allow time to go to a nearby cinema and sit in a dark, primarily quiet atmosphere to watch a movie. Recently, there are more options for entertainment such as YouTube, video games, music, etc. Considering this, individuals have shifted conversations from discussing about movies to television shows. The author illustrates

The world has grown and evolved in so many ways. One of the most revolutionary, man-made, everyday appliance for your house hold is the TV. The TV has brought so much more to a person’s finger tips at a click of a button and flipping to a channel to what they want to see. You can watch different food programs, where to buy things, what is going on in everyday American life knows as the “News”. Or just a show on TV for entertainment. And the list goes on and so forth.

Television shows have changed dramatically during the last 50 years. What was funny or popular 1, 5, 10 years ago, is now obsolete. The innocence of popular television shows from the 1960s has been overtaken with shows that would have been risqué. This will be demonstrated by describing the difference between “Leave It To Beaver” and “Modern Family.”

Despite not discussing binge watching, Jurgensen is still able to approach television from where it has come, and where it will go. As producer Mark Johnson noted, “The days of going off into the kitchen and making a bologna sandwich and coming back and still being up to speed are gone.” Johnson’s statement helps strengthen Jurgensen’s argument about how television is becoming harder to follow, and how large storylines with multiple characters has an effect on how people watch

A highly debated topic that has recently appeared in the headlines is the question: Do TV shows stimulate cognitive development? In his article, Watching TV Makes You Smarter, author Steven Johnson vouches for the acceptance of TV as an effective cognitive enhancement for both children and adults. His main contention hinging on the fact that TV story lines have increased in complexity and ambiguity over the years, Johnson argues that watching modern shows like 24 and The Sopranos challenges our minds to track multiple threads and stimulates our thought processes to connect the dots between story lines. In other words, vegging in front of a TV screen has now become an intellectually stimulating activity because keeping track of modern plot lines requires mental expenditure. However, I think Johnson is mistaken because he fails to adequately acknowledge that modern TV has dulled our minds to the increasing violence and gore, lowered our standards of right and wrong, and encouraged an addiction-like obsession to the gripping

Anybody who has ever been a policeman, a lawyer, a psychiatrist, an ER doctor, or an FBI agent will attest to the truth that television does not accurately portray their life. In almost all aspects, television rarely depicts the world and life accurately. Too much television results in disillusionment about what to expect from the world around us. TV not only inaccurately portrays life, but it oversimplifies reality. It presents subjects in a matter of minutes and nicely wraps everything up at the end. This harms clear thinking by conditioning you to expect that most problems have a simple, clear solution that can be implemented in 60 minutes or

Television has been used for decades to shape the human psyche. It has also played a major role in the development of American lives, and at times we fail to notice. “People are sheep. TV is the shepherd.” (Jess C. Scott, Literary Heroin (Gluttony): A Twilight Parody).

This article develops and explores the relationship between television and VOD (Video on Demand), specifically Netflix, and the shift to its in-house production and distribution of shows. The article also discusses the different periods of television, and whether we have landed in a new period - the era of TVIV. The show Arrested Development is analyzed, because it is a show that transitioned from network television to a Netflix produced and distributed show. The analyzation of the show then leads to a discussion of post-postmodernism and binge-watching.

Steven Johnson 's argument is that television can actually make you smarter because when you watch a show, you are trying to understand everything that is happening. Today’s shows have a lot of action and scenes trying to keep people’s attention. Therefore, people carefully tune in to television shows trying to understand everything that goes on during the show. Johnson said, “You have to pay attention, make inferences, and track shifting social relationships.” For instance, depending on how the characters interact with one another, changes happen as the plot of the story continues on. An example of this is if a character happens to disagree with another character and an enemy of both characters comes into the mix, and those two characters join forces to defeat their enemy. The spontaneous changes like this constantly change the storyline to make it more interesting for the viewer. Johnson mentions the “Sleeper Curve” and how it is considered to “enhance our cognitive faculties, not dumbing them down." The author displayed several

It could very well be true that over the past 20 years, television programming has developed in such a way as to demand more cognitive participation. However, watching TV is not the societal benefit Johnson makes it out to be. Johnson’s claim that TV is overall a beneficial societal force fails to account for the indirect effects of watching TV. It may be true that the cognitive demands of watching an episode of 24 do in fact stimulate brain function as opposed to diminish it. However, when a person sits down in front of the TV, he is choosing to do so instead of reading, studying, doing his homework, or exercising. These things are undisputedly beneficial to society. When one spends his time in front of the TV screen, it is time he is taking away from actually getting smarter.

An ongoing discussion about the value of Television has been whether it makes the watcher smarter or dumber. In a 2005 article about Television, Steven Johnson presented several arguments that Television makes the watcher smarter, contrary to some popularly held notions that Television is involved in the dumbing down of Television watchers. Johnson argues that Television makes you smarter for three reasons: multiple threads; fewer flashing arrows; and social networking. Johnson states that, unlike Television shows such as "Bonanza" in the "Golden Age of Television," modern Television shows such as "Hill Street Blues," "24" and "The Sopranos" carry multiple narrative threads about a number of major and minor characters. These multiple threads, according to Johnson, mean that the audience must

What do we really mean by television? The way we watch television has drastically changed over the last fifteen years due to new technologies such as digital television and services providing on-demand access. These drastic changes have had a huge effect on viewers and have “allowed online streaming platforms to dominate and revolutionize the way the audience consumes” (Aliloupour) media, ultimately allowing the viewer to be in total control of how, when and where they want their content. The idea of only being able to watch television on a television set is now a thing of the past. Due to technology, the audience now has a vast variety of options on how they can access content. By using scholarly articles, research in new media and Internet sites I will be analyzing current television and where the future of television will be heading.

Some people may argue a book is less entertaining and interesting than a television show in the 1960’s. However, the television shows broadcasted are solely focused to entertaining the general audience after work, chores, or school by employing monotonous programming. If a person who solely watches television for an entire day, they evidently become tedious. Also, the television shows lack diverse plots, themes, characters, originality, and other aspects unlike a book or a newspaper. Therefore, numerous television companies decided to display new content such as news shows, movies, drama series, horror shows, documentaries, music shows, and shows based on true stories. An example is HBO’s Band of Brothers, a miniseries about the story of a company of soldiers in WWII from their initial training to the end of the war. During the war, the soldiers experience D-Day, participate in numerous battles, liberate a Nazi concentration camp, and enter Hitler’s mountain retreat located in Berchtesgaden, Germany. This tale of comradeship displays how ordinary, American men accomplished the extraordinary and end a gruesome and unjustified war. As a result from Newton’s proposal for better television programming, numerous shows and series like Band of Brothers offer an entertaining, unique, and worthy alternative to other forms of communication.