Steven Johnson Watching Tv Makes You Smarter Analysis

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

In Steven Johnson's persuasive essay “Watching Tv Makes You Smarter,” he defies what our culture teaches us about television. Our society teaches that television is making our youth “dumb” and that our culture enjoys the “simple pleasures” so that is what the media companies are feeding us with. But, Johnson states that based on what the show “24” suggests, the “exact opposite is happening: the culture is getting more cognitively demanding, not less” (1). The growing interest of TV programs with complex mental faculties involves three primary elements: multiple threading, flashing arrows and social networks (2).

Modern Television has become much more complicated according to Johnson. For example, Johnson writes, “Draw an 5 outline of the narrative threads in almost every Dragnet episode and it will be a single line” (66). However “A Hill Street Blues episode complicates the picture in a number of profound ways. The narrative weaves together a collection of distinct strands- sometimes as many as ten” (67). Johnson uses these examples of older and newer television shows to support his claim of the increased complexity of modern TV as opposed to the old simplistic formula used for shows prior to the groundbreaking show Hill Street Blues. Johnson’s argument is that if our brains have become accustomed to following increasingly complex plotlines as TV has matured, then television has actually had a positive impact on our brains. Walter Kirn writes in regards to Johnsons persuasiveness “ Johnson’s argument isn’t strictly scientific, relying on hypothesis and tests, but more observational and impressionistic. Its persuasive anyhow. When he compares contemporary hit crime dramas like ‘The Sopranos’ and ‘24’, --with their elaborate, multilevel plotlines teeming casts of characters and open-ended narrative structures – with popular numbskull clunkers of yore like ‘Starsky and Hutch.’” The point is, this, Johnson’s approach to his argument may not be strictly scientific, however, it sure as hell is

Also, Television attacks more the unconsciousness rather than the consciousness. Hamill says that, similarly to drugs, television is a consciousness-altering instrument (64), but this is not true. First, television cannot do more than depictions of sensations. Hamill explains how television can provide several moods and scenarios with the simple touch of a button (64). He says so because he is looking for a proof to support the power over the mind that television is meant to have, but rather this shows how television works on the unconsciousness and how difficult it is to alter the

Media changed “like moving.. from the sandal to the space shuttle.” (7) Things are rapidly evolving and advancing into something that wasn't originally planned but being adapted into everyday life. We have allowed the change to happen right before our eyes without even noticing the development is our adversary, instead of our help. Gore states that people “started sitting motionless staring at flickering images.” (7) Television is a consumed by just retaining the information but not actually encoding it.

As in Barbara Ehrenreich's passage from “The Worst Years of Our Lives”, she offers that television is turning people into inactive couch potatoes, however, children learning the alphabet or the number system can easily be taught by many television

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

In Postman’s article, Television as Teacher, tells us that television cause people want to have more and more entertainment out of life. He argues that educational television doesn’t teach children like study. Edmundson also says that students don’t like study. They only want to get an easy A

Johnson claims television is harder today, but our modern shows are based on beauty, money, and materialistic things. Shows are no longer made to bring families together to watch, they are fabricated reality series with violence, sex, and profanity. Moreover, Johnson argues that television and video games are making us smarter. However, his definition of smart is that it improves our cognitive skills. Cognitive skills do not necessarily make us more intelligent nor are they the same. While watching television or playing video games we memorize and retain celebrity gossip and not useful information. Useful information is not retained because our brain can only hold a few pieces of information at a time. Nicholas Carr, author of The Glass Cage: Automation and Us, which analyzes the personal and social ramifications of this generation's growing dependency on computers, states, in the Smart Technology is Making Us Dumb debate “If you think about it, if you can only hold two to four pieces of information in your conscious mind, then if you're constantly taking in new information, you have to push the existing information out very, very quickly in order to make room” (Smart Technology Is Making Us Dumb). We are constantly overloading our brains because information in the form of television reaches our brain faster, but does

In the story, “the trouble with television,” the author is speaking about what he thinks the problems are with watching too much TV. The author states, “verbal precision is an anachanism.” The author believes television is taking over. People are forgetting how to read, write, or just have normal human interactions. Thirty million or are people are functionally illiterate. The author also states that television is like a drug and it pulls u in.

It is not only the content that can have an everlasting effect on us; but the way in which it is being presented could actually be changing the way our brains process information. In Nicholas Carr's book, The Shallows, he explains the change in how he reads with the following analogy, "Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski" (7). Carr is comparing and contrasting his reading style before and after heavy internet use. Pre-heavy internet use he had no problem delving into a complex book and exploring it's depths. Post-heavy internet use he now floats along the surface, skimming the text for main points. While some may argue that the latter is a more efficient way of gaining information

TV, more commonly known as ‘television’ is one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century. In ancient Greek tèle means ‘far', and in Latin visio means sight. From my perspective and many people of the world television has changed the way we live. Television has brought many amazing things, however nothing is perfect.

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.