Television Is for Dummies?

The audience of this critique is anyone who believes television makes you dumber.

Television is for Dummies?

Television is the root of all evil, or at least at this the way critics in modern society treat television. In today's society, people are quick to blame television for the issues arising in America. If "TV Makes you Dumber" were typed into an internet search engine, it would generate a huge list of blogs, articles, and research explaining the negative effects of television. For instance, I found an uninteresting cliché article published by Articlesnatch about television. In Larry Mondello's article, "Television Makes You Dumber," he states that television does not actually decrease intelligence, but it distracts viewers from useful forms of entertainment that can increase intelligence such as reading, drawing, or writing (2). This is only one of the many articles that can be found scrutinizing television with one sided comments that are spoken widely around America. Like others, Mondello's article fails to take into account the complexities of modern television that requires higher cognitive demands from the viewer; however, an article published by Steve Johnson, "Watching TV Makes You Smarter," challenges modern scrutiny and delivers a unique perspective on television. People that believe television is for dummies should read Steve Johnson's article to broaden their perspective on the benefits of television.

Does television actually make you dumber? Critics need to take into consideration the new skills that the average person needs to be beneficial to society, such as the ability for people to multitask and comprehend larger amounts of information. This is further argued in the article by Steven Johnson "Watching TV Makes You Smarter." He examines the cognitive demands needed to comprehend a modern television show like 24, which is a popular Fox network thriller (213). According to Johnson, the TV show 24 requires the viewer to comprehend multiple narratives, make inferences, and track shifting social relationships in a single season (214). The author also uses a grid to show a linear narrative like Fraiser, a shows made a few decades ago, versus a more complex show like 24. The visual reference allows the reader to follow his argument fairly easily. In one season of 24, Johnson also explains the difficulties of following the information from episode to episode (214). He stated that nine different narratives are presented to the viewer, and at the end of the episode the viewer is left with a cliff hanger and must carry information from one episode to the next. To sum Johnson's argument up, 24 would be very difficult for someone with less cognitive resources because he or she would have a difficult time comprehending the story and would lose interest. In the TV show, "The West Wing," Johnson compares mysteries in modern television and compares it to historical TV shows (222). The West Wing is loaded with mystery that the viewer has to piece together; if the viewer does not, they will not understand what is going on in the show. In the past, shows like Hill Street Blues had far less mystery and eventually revealed the mystery to the viewer; therefore the viewer did not have to use as much mental cognition to keep up with the story (222). 24 and The West Wing are only a few of the examples Johnson used, but he generated a strong argument supporting television.

Steve Johnson's argument is actually really thought provoking, because it is a unique perspective on a topic that is nationally criticized. Johnson further explains his argument with references to show made a few decades ago. According to Johnson, in previous decades television shows rarely attempted to present this many narratives. Johnson uses examples like Starky and Hutch or Dragnet; these shows followed a linear story that did not require the viewer to think much or use effort to comprehend the plot. Johnson states, "That viewers are basically handed every piece of information (216)." This was very common for television shows made a few decades ago; except in the 1980's, there were a few shows like Hill Street Blues and General Hospital that attempted to design