Today according to statistics from A. C. Nielsen Co. in the United States 99% of the population has access to television and watch a combined total of 9 years per person in one life time. Depending on who you ask most people would say they like watching television, whether watching a documentary or the latest hit show. Today’s programming is filled with ads consuming 1/3 of every half hour show, with the ads being directly correlated to the audience in which it is based. My mission for this essay is to state the trends and opinions of other authors and make a compelling point on the influence T.V. has on our society.
In an essay by Dana Stevens titled “Thinking Outside the Idiot Box” she writes about an article written by Steven Johnson, in the piece Johnson’s claims “Television makes you smarter” to this she “argues as far as I can tell his thesis is that television shows have slowly grown more and more complicated over the last two decades. So now viewers can differentiate among 12 distinct plot lines. For television to be used as tool for
brain enhancement seems deeply, hilariously bogus”. The Author also asks the question is there a difference between watching an education documentary on nature or a football game? She goes on to note that shows can be violent even if they’re nature based.
So how is watching the latest Sopranos with all the drugs, sex and violence any different from watching a show about a lion pack with a dominant male that because of instinct, kills a cub? And does either of these shows make us in the least bit smarter beside the fact that you shouldn’t go near a lion?
In the end of the witting Dana seems to support the idea that television isn’t either a brain killer or a device in which to make you a more intelligent person and that people should be aware of their T.V. watching habits. She also argues that people should take a break from the box i.e. T.V. turn off week and after the week...