Thinking Outside the Idiot Box

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Thinking Outside the Idiot Box In the essay, “Thinking outside the Idiot box” Dana Stevens argues that watching TV should be about your entertainment. It shouldn’t focus on whether it makes you less of a person. Stevens primarily uses a logical argument to support her sarcasm toward Stevens Johnson’s article, Watching TV makes you smarter.” Stevens start her essay off with a lot of sarcasm on Johnson article, “Watching television makes you smarter.” She directs her attention to everyone in the world who watches TV. She states, “ those of us who grew up in caveman days, fashioning crude stone tools while watching Starsky and Hutch, are indeed now better positioned than our forebears to follow such complex narrative fare as The Sopranos” (Stevens 232). This let us know she is not just focusing on one age group. I believe, she writes, this essay because she came across an article about watching television makes you smarter. This allowed her to come up with her own disagreement for Johnson article “Watching TV makes you smarter.” One example of Stevens logical argument is when she writes “Not only does Johnson fail to account for the impact of the sixteen minutes worth of commercials that interrupt any given episode” (Steven 232). I believe she is saying that are brain is still focusing on what is going on during those sixteen minutes of commercials whether its educational or our favorite TV show. We will still be glued to the TV set waiting on what going to happen next. Steven points out that the show 24 is “nutritional” and also has some controversies. Steven writes “the program’s representation on Muslim terrorists or its implicit endorsement of torture” (Steven 232). I agree that 24 have violence in the show but it can also show us things that are happening in the real world. Second example of Sevens argument is when she writes “Johnson’s claim for television
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