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To Entertain or to Learn? That Is the Question

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Submitted By syrabrooke
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To Entertain or to Learn? That is the Question. In her essay, “Thinking Outside the Idiot Box,” published in Slate on March 25,2005, Dana Stevens argues against what Johnson has to say about how television makes us smarter. Stevens explains how television is just a way for Americans to become overly obsessed with shows that have no value to the way our brains work. She wants her readers to know that television is just a form of entertainment and that there are more things to life than just a couch and remote. She explains how Steven Johnson is wrong about how TV is making Americans smarter. Parents used to make their children go outside and get exercise, but now they just put their children in front of a TV with an “educational” show on. Ultimately what is at stake here is that children and adults are using TV to get smarter. Stevens is persuasive by using a sarcastic tone that some readers might not appreciate but she gets her point across, logic on how television really is, and refuting the opposing argument. By using these points the reader is able to see how television is not making the brain work more or less, it just entertains.
From start to finish, Stevens applies sarcasm into her essay by picking at Johnson’s logic on how television is making the world smarter. She states, “If watching TV really makes you smarter, as Steven Johnson argued in an article…then I guess I need to watch a lot more of it because try as I might, I could make no sense of Johnson’s piece” (Stevens 295). Mentioning another writer in her essay and then making fun of Johnson right off the bat is unusual way to start out, but with the topic it works. According to Stevens, Johnson’s claim is foolish because television does not teach anything. As Stevens states “In other words, if I understand correctly, watching TV teaches you to watch more TV…” (296). A regular TV watcher just

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