Can Tv Really Make You Smarter?

581 Words3 Pages
Some people in today’s society think TV is not good for you, but in Steven Johnson’s Watching TV Makes You Smarter, hemakes the argument that TV is very complex. He talks about how multiple threading in TV shows have many cognitive benefits. He also says thattelevision today makes you think more than it did previously. Overall TV affects people in more positive ways than they realize. Steven Johnson makes the argument that multiple threading has a positive impact on television today.Johnson believes that the show Hill Street Blues successfully had a combination of a complex narrative structure and complex subject matter. Shows of the past only used one or the other. For example All in the Family and Rhondadealt with difficult social issues of that time. The Sopranos deals with multiple threads which involves more than 20 recurring characters. Multi-threading is a very important aspect to television today, but Johnson believes it has not received the credit it deserves. I agree that multiple threading has positive impact on television today, because of the different characters and plots make TV more interesting. Shows today you have to pay more attention to or you will not understand what is going on. For example The Wire, you have to watch every episode to understand the show. Shows with less multiple threading are easy to understand, because you can predict the ending most of the time. The narrative complexity is mental gymnastics which is good for the brain. Multiple threading is a big part of making you think more on shows which makes you smarter. In addition to multiple threading, Johnson believes that television makes you smarter because it makes you think more than it previously did. The author believes that the sleeper curve is very beneficial to our mental development. Despite the opposition of the media, Johnson believes that
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