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.
Adults love talking down on teenagers, and Trubey shows subjective language in the article. “The average American spends nine years of their life glued to the TV.” He compares what you could have been doing for nine years like
Gates makes predictions and gives advice on how to adapt and succeed in the future of incredible change in computing and communicating. 2a&b. which television show does gates cite at the start of his essay? Why is its popularity important to the point he is trying to make? The TV show that gates cite at the start off his essay is The Ed Sullivan show. Popularity is important to the point he is trying to make because if the computer did not get popularity then the computer would have never catch on.
As the technology era advances, people are gravitating closer to a television where as reading a newspaper is considered an interest from the past. The television audience is failing to realize the main point of T.V., including news programs, is to keep people watching so that sponsors and others can make more money through ratings and increased interest in products. In “How to Watch T.V. News”, Neil Postman and Steve Powers state “Anyone who relies exclusively on television for his or her knowledge of the world is making a serious mistake” (x), This statement is true, for television news is not solely reporting what actually occurs. Rather it is reporting what T.V.
Dana Stevens "Thinking Outside the Idiot Box" is a direct response to Steven Johnson's essay " Watching TV makes you Smarter". Stevens said that she did not understand what his article was about. She did not really agree with anything besides that watching tv is okay-- you should'nt watch a lot of it but you should watch a decent amount of it. Some things that Stevens seemed to talk a lot about was that Johnson metioned something the show 24 saying that it is "nutritional" but fails to mention that there was controversy over plot lines that had to do with torture and representation of Muslim terrorists in the show. But she does mention that the show did somehow get social issues into the show which can open viewers eyes about what is going
This may become very critical to our health in the long run. Technology such as video games and other advances in television may seem appealing to many people, but are they completely necessary? The numbers for the amount of obesity in this country is higher than it’s ever been. Can technology be to blame for this? An author named Ray Bradbury does a great job telling us his opinion on technology in the short story, The Pedestrian.
Alexa Forbes Period 4 Ms. K <3 Technology and the Affects in American Society In American society today, there seems to be a conflict about whether technology, including T.V. and the internet, has a positive or negative effect on people. In her article, “What’s the Matter with Kids Today?” Amy Goldwasser claims that the internet has changed society for the better. Additionally, in the article “Watching T.V Makes You Smarter,” by Steven Johnson, he asserts that watching television can intellectually stimulate a person’s mind. Both authors address the emotional health effects of society from T.V.
Discuss the effect of video games on attention Scientists have always argued that playing video games was bad your health but now studies show that the more time you spend on gaming the more training your brain obtains. It increases your attention span by focusing on a specific area, decreases thinking time and also allows the gamer to have faster reflexes due to the constant use of their thumbs to push the controller buttons. Video games have even also taught dyslexia people to read! How does this work? At the University of California, Los Angeles, researchers have dedicated their time to conduct research on hard-core gamers who spend thousands of hours of practice scanning on a screen for the games they play.
Javier Pimentel Professor Warda English 101 26 January 2015 Gin, Television, and Social Surplus by Clay Shirky, was urging the people to stop wasting time watching television and instead to be more productive with their free time. How the increase in the time that the society spends watching television has led to a waste of the surplus. He goes on to explain that what started as a way for people having free time has grown into a way to waste a persons free time. That instead of wasting the time, people should be using the time to be more productive. I think that what his saying is true about how people spend hours of the day wasting their time and not being as productive as they should be.
Abdulaziz Aldossary Kathy L. Rowley English 201-16 October 3, 2012 “Why Games are Good for You” The article “Why Games are Good for You” by Steven Johnson presents reasons why electronic video games are not harmful. While other people have written and talked about the harm that video games bring to young people, Steven Johnson argues just the opposite. He says that video games have many benefits including making us smarter. Steven Johnson begins his article by describing what the critics say about video games. First, they are a great waste of time says Dr. Spock.