Does Watching TV Really Make Us Smarter?
“Thinking outside the idiot box” is a counter argument to the article “Watching TV makes you smarter” by Steven Johnson in which Dana Stevens totally disagrees Johnson that figuring out the complexity of TV Shows can help one sharpen their cognitive skills. She begins the article with this quote: “If watching TV really makes you smarter, as Steven Johnson argued, then I guess I need to watch a lot more of it” which is a sarcastic sentence that directs her thesis in an opposite way from Johnson’s. She discusses the importance of subject of TV shows which Johnson disregard in his article. I strongly support Steven’s opinion. In order to be able to study the effect of a TV show on society and represent either advantages or disadvantages of it, one should first focuses on its subject. Watchers should try to get the moral of the show they are watching rather than just thinking about what will be happening on the next episode which sticks them to the show.
Most of the TV shows nowadays are rather more exciting than informative. TV industries have learned how to attract viewers and make them follow a program on TV. Most of the Americans lack excitement in their everyday life and the challenge for program makers is to bring that excitement to the community by making indictable shows. By a simple comparison, we can find out that a 45 minute scientific show on Discovery Channel has way less viewers than an episode of 24 ( which Johnson pointed to as an advantageous program and been argued by Stevens). As I mentioned before, the excitement that the episode of 24 brings to the watchers makes them follow the show and think about the next episode without thinking about the content of the show and analyzing what they’ve just watched. Unfortunately the profit that TV show producers earn from making such programs persuade them to make more and more ineffective shows; And community’s seek for excitement and entertainment leads...