Does Watching TV Make Us 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

I happen to be sympathetic to that argument, but it's not the one I want to make here. I think there is another way to assess the social virtue of pop culture, one that looks at media as a kind of cognitive workout, not as a series of life lessons. There may indeed be more ''negative messages'' in the mediasphere today. But that's not the only way to evaluate whether our television shows or video games are having a positive impact. Just as important -- if not more important -- is the kind of thinking you have to do to make sense of a cultural experience. That is where the Sleeper Curve becomes visible.

Television has a widespread influence on everyone, especially children. Children are impacted so much by the things they have seen and watched on TV. They learn many things from TV, but their social skills and other learning abilities slow down. Watching TV numbs the mind of children and keeps them inactive from daily exercise. Furthermore, speech delays can occur in children who watch excessive amounts of television. Television programming such as MTV, Adult Swim, and Family Guy exposes and promotes negative

In Sach’s essay “A Nation of Vidiots,” he explains how he believes that the use of television that we intake can contribute to making our people become unhealthy and dumb. In his essays he explains how two thirds of the people in America are obese, one for their bad eating habits and the other reason for watching an unhealthy amount of TV. Sach’s then says that TV is making us dumb mentally by all the TV programs and advertisement that is shown to us. For example, TV ownerships and Politian’s use commercials with catchy tunes to grab viewers’ attention. And with that catchy took and advertisement, the viewer will be anything, which leads them to become less aware of reality and facts. Although Sach’s makes valid points in his essay, I don’t fully agree with him. I do agree with Sach’s when he implies that the use of Television can make us unproductive and fat but I don’t agree that

In the article “Watching TV Makes You Smarter," Steven Johnson argues why and how television can make you smarter. In another article, “Thinking Outside the Idiot Box," Dana Stevens contradicts everything Steven Johnson said in his article about television making people more intelligent.

Some people say television is bad, but in my opinion I do not think so, here are some comparison points. Newspapers you read for the news and to catch up on the current sports score even read the comics. On television, you can watch the news when it is on, and then change over to ESPN and check the sports score, and if you are a kid at heart, you watch some cartoons. They say that it kills brain cells, that you do not learn anything from tv, I am pretty sure that most Americans that do watch television can tell you they learned at least a few things by watching

Society uses manipulation to divert people’s attention every day and oftentimes people do not realize that they are being manipulated. An advertisement through television is one of the many ways that people are manipulated. TV uses advertisements daily by incorporating subliminal messages to get people to do things that they would not otherwise be thinking about doing. The following articles “Can TV improve us?” by Jane Rosenzweig, On Sale at Old Navy: Cool Clothes for Identical Zombies!” by Damien Cave and TV’s War of Words” by Deborah Tannen exemplify instances where manipulation is being showcased at its best.

As television viewers, we tend to slouch in front of this electrical box after a long day’s work, many of us don’t think or know about how much television programming has changed since our parent’s childhood. In “Thinking outside the Idiot Box” by Dana Stevens and “Watching TV Makes You Smarter” by Steven Johnson, both writers give their thoughts and opinions about how television programming has evolved over the last three decades. These gentlemen recognize that the days of slap-stick comedy were over and replace by more sophisticated stories. This new brand of programs have provide a step stoning for the evolution of television to gain momentum.

found, for example, that only 3.5 percent of viewers were able to answer successfully twelve true/false questions concerning two thirty-second segments of commercial…”(Postman 152). Postman goes in depth of this experiment which established that Stern had found that 51 percent of viewers could not recall any news from watching the t.v. program. Around an average of 20 percent could not recall any information from watching a 1 hour show . This supports his claim of television being a disruptive resource. Watching television doesn’t increasing learning like a printed

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

Technology is enhancing our knowledge, not making us dumber. In source 2, science columnist Sharon Begley explains how technology does not negatively affect the youths intelligence. Begley addressed that “There is no empirical evidence that being immersed in instant messaging, texting, iPods, video games, and all things online impairs

To begin with we will look at the issue of how modern TV can enlighten the audience. The author Stephen Johnson makes the argument of how TV is more complex, therefore it makes you smarter, in his article “Watching TV

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.

In Watching TV makes you smarter, published in "The New York Times" on April 24, 2005, Steven Johnson argues for the multiple threads, fewer flashing arrows and social networking that make modern Television nourishing cognitive food. In answer to Johnson's article, "Carrie" posted Does watching TV make you stupid? on May 1, 2005. Carrie presents further blogs on May 3rd and May 7th, 2005; however, the gist of her arguments are contained in her first blog. Comparing the logic of Johnson's argument for and Carrie's argument against Television as cognitive food, I believe that Johnson presents the more convincing argument.