...Summary: Watching TV Makes You Smarter In the featured article, “Watching TV Makes You Smarter,” the author, Steven Johnson, justifies his opinipn on the affects television has on the mental development on young people. Readers will notice early on that he opens up first with a comparison of shows that were aired in the past to that are more recent and supportive of his thesis. An older show that he used as an example, Dragnet, only follow one or two characters, has a single plot, and then reaches a conclusion. He then, in contrast, goes to describe a show that aired decades after Dragnet that in the new age of multiple thread television. This show, Hills Street Blues, differentiates the old standard in many ways. It has plenty of primary characters, quick scenes, and a couple of threads from previous episodes. Hills Street Blues is the show that generated the multi-threaded drama genre. “What you see when you make these head-to-head comparisons is that a rising tide of complexity has been lifting programming at the bottom of the quality spectrum and at the top.” The argument of this essay is based on the question, does watching TV make you smarter? According to Steven Johnson , “ I believe that the Sleeper Curve is the single most important new force altering the mental development of young people today, and I believe it is largely a force for good: enhancing our cognitive faculties, not dumbing them down.” His argument is that television does not slow down our mental growth...
Words: 641 - Pages: 3
...Justin Smith English 100 Week 12 11/10/2013 Watching TV Makes You Smarter Writing Matters: 1. Elaborate on Johnson's premise that watching TV programs with complex plots can contribute to cognitive development. Which of his examples do you agree with most and why? Which do you disagree with? Choose other cognitively challenging programs and explain your choices. Johnson suggests that no matter what you watch on TV these days, even shows with negative messages, television has a positive impact on your brain. I haven't seen many shows that he is talking about, new or old. But I have seen Fear Factor and Survivor and understand why Johnson says that Survivor would be more cognitively challenging show than the Fear Factor. And I do agree that some shows can challenge our brain in a good way. I would say Jeopardy could make a good impact on anyone, it makes you think and by seeing other people making money on their knowledge could make a positive impact on kids. My thirteen-year old watches Jeopardy every day, she knows she needs to learn many things about many different subjects to might be one day to become a contestant on the show. 2. Johnson argues that older, simpler TV programs were modeled after live theater while contemporary television programs, reality shows included, have been influenced buy the structure of video games. How accurate is his comparison between video games and present-day TV programs? Cite some video games that have been particularly...
Words: 898 - Pages: 4
...Steven Johnson makes the argument in the articles "Watching TV Makes You Smarter" and "Your Brain on Video Games" that typical bad stereotype associated with TV shows and playing video games are false. Controversially, what is supposed to be "bad" for the younger generation is actually good. In Johnson's article, "Watching TV Makes You Smarter," it says, "...you have to recall a passing remark uttered earlier regarding a character who belongs to a completely different thread." This is referring to the E.R. TV show, and a young girl needs a liver transplant. Her blood type is AB, and a brain dead patient has the blood type AB. The organs were going to be harvested and the transplant could occur. Blood type AB people are known as "universal recipients"...
Words: 393 - Pages: 2
...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...
Words: 1109 - Pages: 5
...Does TV make you smarter or are you idoit in the box? Television has been around since the 1920s transmitting and receiving images. Over the years TV has marked its way through our lives. Majority of Americans have a more than one TV and DVD player in their home. How has TV evolved since the 1920’s? Has TV now changed the way we act and live as human beings? Does television now make us smarter than it did in early 1920s or has it made us idiots and less intelligent? Steven Johnson a writer who published his article in new time magazines called watching TV makes your smarter? Dana Stevens, a movie critic also written for the New York times; responded to Steven Johnson article by calling thinking outside the idiot box. Steven believes that TV makes us more intelligent while Dana Steven argues that TV doesn’t enhance our brains we shouldn’t base our lives around the television set. Johnson states that watching shows like “24″ make people smarter, because it makes them think about certain events that had occurred and it makes the audience think critically while watching. The show also suggest, the exact opposite is happening: the culture is getting more cognitively demanding, not less.”(Johnson 279) The sleep curve says Steven Johnson, is the single most important new force altering mental development of today, and I believe it is largely a force of good: enhancing our cognitive brains, not dumbing them down.(Johnson 291). Johnson also states that bad TV, like reality...
Words: 559 - Pages: 3
...The Effect TV Has On Its Viewers In Dana Stevens’ article, “Thinking Outside the Idiot Box,” she summarizes Steven Johnson’s argument that “Watching TV Makes You Smarter.” Johnson argues that understanding the complexity of today’s TV shows makes viewers smarter. Stevens disagrees with Johnson’s statement saying, “watching TV teaches you to watch more TV”(296). Both authors discuss the issue of television and its impact on viewers’ intelligence; they share a common topic but utilize very different literary elements. Stevens and Johnson both employ different tones, themes, and dialogue to prove their arguments on the effect that TV has on its viewers. While both authors discuss a similar topic, they utilize different themes. These themes are made clear through the examples that both authors incorporate. In Johnson’s article he uses examples from popular TV shows such as 24, The West Wing, and E.R. He uses 24 as an example of how we use our brain in order to navigate through the intricate information and grasp the important concepts in order to make sense of an episode. Another example that Johnson shows us is the dialogue between characters on shows like E.R and The West Wing that do not talk down to its audience. “ The characters talk faster in these shows”(287) and use much more scientifically language which most viewers do not understand. This complex language requires the viewer to pay closer attention to the context in order to make sense of the words being spoken....
Words: 1083 - Pages: 5
...part of today’s society, and is a convenient way to get information out to users. It’s hard to say whether tv makes us smarter, but two essays that have very different views on this topic are “Watching TV Makes You Smarter” by Steven Johnson and “Thinking Outside The Idiot Box” by Dana Stevens’. Steve Johnson goes into detail about how modern television has the ability to allow viewers to grasp many abstract ideas at the same time. On the other hand, Dana Stevens believes the opposite. Even though watching too much TV can distract you from other tasks, tv can allow an individual to grasp multiple concepts at once, and watching certain television shows have the ability to increase intelligence. In Steven Johnson’s article “Watching TV Makes You Smarter” he goes into detail about how television is not necessarily responsible for “dumbing us down” like many would believe. Johnson goes into detail about the sleeper curve and how society is growing as the years pass. He suggests that TV forces an individual to think, stimulates the brain and forces our mind to focus on the plot. He suggests that TV shows we watch today help us analyze certain situations and increase our intellectual capabilities leading to an increase of intelligence. Some believe that Reality TV can help engage our mind and even teach us street smarts. Johnson believes that the true test is determining if the TV shows sedates our mind or engages it. To “determine what really is cognitive junk food and what is generally...
Words: 744 - Pages: 3
...Evaluative Summary: Does TV Make You Smarter? Steven Johnson, an author of seven books, wrote an article for the New York Times Magazine in 2005 called, “Watching TV Makes You Smarter.” In the article, Johnson explains that he believes watching television makes you smarter because it forces you to “pay attention, make inferences, [and] track shifting social relationships” (279). Johnson then takes it one step further by comparing television from the past and the present, and the amount of threading the shows contain. He goes on to explain that the multi-threading used in television today affects how our minds work and in the end make us smarter. Although, Johnson uses many excellent examples in this article to persuade the audience that television is not a bad thing such as 24 and Hill Street Blues. While I do believe that television might be affecting us mentally, I don’t believe that lounging on the couch watching any of the shows Johnson mentioned in this article will sincerely make me a smarter person. Which is why I must disagree with Johnson in thinking that television makes you stronger. In the article, Johnson talks about a concept called the, “Sleeper Curve” (279). Johnson goes on to describe this concept as “the most debased forms of mass diversion” (279). He even goes on to describe video games and violent television as nutritional, that these everyday activities we do work our cognitive faculties without us even realizing that it’s happening. Now Johnson might...
Words: 884 - Pages: 4
...Watching TV Makes You Smarter In the article Watching TV Makes You Smarter by Steven Johnson, the author argues that by watching television shows various television shows, people actually become smarter. In many television shows, the episodes connect the lives of its characters within the defined "story arc." The Hollywood jargon says: "a defined personality with motivations and obstacles and specific relationships with other characters. By drawing a web of these interconnected plots and personalities, the structure resembles a hit TV series such as Bonanza. Furthermore, the culture is becoming more cognitively demanding. This is seen in the TV series 24. To make sense of an episode, one would have to integrate far more information than they would have several decades ago. "To keep up...you have to pay attention, make inferences, track shifting relationships." Johnson calls this the "sleeper curve," which is the most debased forms of mass diversion, such as video games and violent television dramas, and juvenile sitcoms, turn out to be nutritional after all. "The sleeper curve is the most important new force altering the mental development of young people today" says Johnson. He believes it is largely a force for good: enhancing our cognitive faculties, not dumbing them down. He also says that the morals of stories on television shows have grown. A counter argument by a critic says that the media has lost in moral clarity, and has gained in realism. Johnson believes...
Words: 1368 - Pages: 6
...Does TV really make you smarter? Over the past decades, television has become such integrated part of our life that many of us are unable to live without them. The idea of television and its relationship with intelligence have triggered great controversy. Steven Johnson argues that the increasing complexity of the television shows compared to a few decades ago, have helped the viewers to improve their cognitive and inference abilities, essentially, watching the television make you smarter. On the contrary, Dana Stevens argues that watching the television does not essentially make the viewers smarter, but its negative impact, especially on younger generation, is almost unquestionable. Both Arthur have argued the effects of the television on the viewers, but they differ essentially on the impacts of the television. The main difference lies in Johnson’s acceptance and Stevens’ rejection of the assumption that the effect of the television has a positive impact on the viewers’ cognitive ability. Common sense seems to dictate that even though televisions have changed the way people think, but their effects are not necessarily positive. According to Johnson, television programs have grown more complicated over time. As evidence, he pointed out the shows like “24” have integrate far more information than a few decades ago watching a comparable show. Johnson assumes that by keeping up with the entertainment, such as “24”, the viewers need to pay attention, and make inferences to keep...
Words: 801 - Pages: 4
...For You?” Popular culture which has been shortened to pop culture is defined as “cultural activities or commercial products reflecting, suited to, or aimed at the tastes of the general masses of people.” (“pop culture”) Television, movies, music, art, the internet, famous people, sports, and politics are some of the major components that make up pop culture. As expected by the standards of society there is a profuse amount of controversy about pop culture being either good or bad for someone. In an email written to Schlessinger, the writer expresses that, “...teenager had been using very offensive swear words since the age of 5 when this person saw an R-rated movie” and “...teenager had started inhaling cocaine after seeing it done in a movie.” (Schlessinger) According to the writer, the above actions are a result of children being over exposed to pop culture. Yes, it is possible that the effect pop culture can have on children can be more profound since it influences their developing morals, but that does not rule out the possible effects it can have on adults as well. In his own experience Carr states that, “[He’s] not thinking the way [he] used to think...[he’d] spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now [his] concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages...” (Carr) So it can be concluded that pop culture has a way of affecting not just the young and innocent, but also mature adults. In “Watching TV Makes...
Words: 1484 - Pages: 6
...paper thin and we sit in front of it just mesmerized by what we watch on the screen. We watch anything from the news, to reality television, to educational programs, and so on. It’s such a powerful tool that can have a big influence on most consumers because most of us sit in front of it either when we are bored or just want to relax. It is a phenomenon that has allowed us to see the latest news, advertisements, the latest movies, or even the most up to date current events that is happening throughout the whole world. History of Television There are different Era’s of the televisions. Prior to the year 1935, it was called the Mechanical Television Era. It was the first generation and was not completely electronic which displayed a TV screen and it had a small motor with a spinning disc and neon lamp. (Bennett, 2001) First Media Advertisement in the United States In the United States, the first advertisement shown on the television was for Bulova and it had showed for 10 seconds and was placed before a baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Philadelphia Phillies. The company paid only $9.00 for the advertisement. There are two main characteristics to television advertisement in the United States. The first task is to create a television advertisement that had met the standards and second, the placing of the advertisement on television through a certain type of media that would reach the type of customer they are aiming for. Advertisement Guidelines ...
Words: 3077 - Pages: 13
...I am a teacher and my student bought a paper from your site. I’m verifying it. Benefits of Watching TV While Steve John used a lot of different examples in his “Watching TV Makes You Smarter”, he in fact did so to show that there are many evidences to prove his claim, and as long as the readers have watched at least two shows that he talks about, the point is quite clear that the TV series industry has well improved its role in exercising our mind in the last few decades. John’s work, however, bewilders readers easily with its novel graphs and manifold examples of outdated shows. With his new way of illustration, readers may have to be familiar with TV shows; how scenes take place at various times and places have clues to the one main story line; how the seemingly unrelated plots interwoven together to make a bigger and more profound story line. But if read closely the graphs are not hard to understand, and while Johnson clearly isn’t writing to people who don’t watch TV, the shows he brings up would be nonsense to the group, and on top of that it is not necessary for the readers to even know the shows he talks about, if the readers can pay most of their attention on structure change of the shows, and not the contents of them. As Johnson putted “ Over the last half-century, programming on TV has increased the demands it places on precisely these mental faculties. ” According to Johnson, these faculties are attention, patience, retention, and the parsing of narrative thread...
Words: 363 - Pages: 2
...some of the major components that make up pop culture. As expected by the standards of society there is a profuse amount of controversy about pop culture being either good or bad for someone. In an email written to Schlessinger, the writer expresses that, “...teenager had been using very offensive swear words since the age of 5 when this person saw an R-rated movie” and “...teenager had started inhaling cocaine after seeing it done in a movie.” (Schlessinger) According to the writer, the above actions are a result of children being over exposed to pop culture. Yes, it is possible that the effect pop culture can have on children can be more profound since it influences their developing morals, but that does not rule out the possible effects it can have on adults as well. In his own experience Carr states that, “[He’s] not thinking the way [he] used to think...[he’d] spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now [his] concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages...” (Carr) So it can be concluded that pop culture has a way of affecting not just the young and innocent, but also mature adults. In “Watching TV Makes You Smarter,” Johnson proposes that, “...it [TV] is largely a force for good: enhancing our cognitive faculties, not dumbing them down.” (Johnson 279) In a direct response to this article, Stevens contradicts the view of Johnson by stating, “watching TV teaches you to watch more TV” and “Johnson fails to account...
Words: 318 - Pages: 2
...Love Thy Neighbour The phenomenon Reality TV has grown tremendously since the nineties. Today we're obsessed with the fact that we can watch people, who are placed in certain situations, on our TV. Many people, especially teenagers, are in fact obsessed with reality TV and spend many of their evenings watching reality shows such as Big Brother and Paradise Hotel. The short story Love Thy Neighbour written by Jennifer Moore in 2005 showcases a couple who becomes obsessed with watching their neighbours through a porthole as if they were a live reality show. We have all tried it, being curious about our neighbours. However, the husband and wife are so curious about what is going on, that they start peeking through the hole, which makes them fanatic. They are so curious about what is going on next door, that they start to observe the neighbours everyday life. They seem to shut everything else out, just to watch their neighbours everyday life. The husband is staying home from work to watch them, they do not watch TV anymore, and all their life is about is watching their neighbours through the hole. When the little boy in the story is being abducted the couple does not seem to care about the boy in the start, but they soon realize how stupid it is, and they start the search after the little boy. after the boy is found, they go back to peeking through the hole, and their level of fanaticism is just increasing. again they are just watching how their neighbours and the police gets involved...
Words: 988 - Pages: 4
