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.
It's a great stress reliever because I usually play it with my friends and it takes my mind off everything and makes me happy. Sometimes if I've been in the house too long I'll take my basketball and go to my hoop I in the back yard and do a couple layups. Lasting I love computer games, not many people know my alter ego but I'm a computer nerd. I play games like league of legends, path of exile, minecraft, hammerwatch, and many MANY more. Anyways video games are probably the best stress reliever for me even though basketball may be my favorite because it's like you can be in that alternate reality when you play them.
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
When there were automatic looms, the mind was like an automatic loom; and, since young people in the loom period liked novels, it was the cheap novel that was degrading our minds. When there were telephone exchanges, the mind was like a telephone exchange, and, in the same period, since the nickelodeon reigned, moving pictures were making us dumb. When mainframe computers arrived and television was what kids liked, the mind was like a mainframe and television was the engine of our idiocy. Some machine is always showing us Mind; some entertainment derived from the machine is always showing us Non-Mind.”(Gopnik
Bias Analysis #1: Long Editorial I know not one person whom believes that the new reported on television is not liberally biased. I often come home to find my father complaining about the media’s slant towards democratic views yet he is frequently preaching what they report as fact. These so called “truthful” accounts are delivered in a similar way as the orchestrated scenes of movie; just as movies are created to induce a certain emotion or address a question, media coverage is meant to fuel paranoia and incite a desire for change which would benefit a minority of people. In Bernard Goldberg’s book Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News, he attempts to tackle the issue of liberal media bias in the large East-coast news organizations. In his narrative, Goldberg begins by explaining his current situation of exile from media coverage despite his 28 years of service.
We are so absorbed in this materialistic idea of the American Dream that we do not know when to stop buying and eating. Americans will buy the latest cell phone even if the one they already have works perfectly fine. They will gorge themselves with food even if they are not hungry anymore just because they paid for it. This overconsumption is the reason that America has some of the troubles that it has. It leads to things like obesity, hoarding,
Television is simple to regulate, however the internet is more difficult, almost impossible to regulate. Newton Minow has a valid argument when he suggests that television has the potential to influence the taste, knowledge and opinions of its viewers in positive ways, and it becomes even more relevant when one considers the internet today. One way that television has a positive influence on society is the educational purpose it shows. Dora the Explorer is a children’s cartoon that airs on Nick Jr. that teaches kids small/beginning words in Spanish. It shows a young girl doing good deeds while teaching children how to be bi-lingual and teaching good morals such as punishing Swiper the Fox, and instructing him not to steal.
Steven Johnson argues that today’s shows make viewers follow many plots, sub-plots, and characters, allowing for more mental stimulation, and as a result makes them smarter. Granted, contemporary shows provide more opportunities for mental deduction and speculation of future events than programs in the past, but Americans are still wasting their time watching television. Whether or not the shows “make them smarter” is not a scientifically proven fact, and there have been twelve medical studies since 1985 linking excessive television watching to increasing rates of obesity (Johnson, Trubey). Although scientists have not proven that watching television makes you smarter, scientists confirm that television leads to obesity. One might try reading a book while on an exercise bike, training the body and mind.
A Great Screen Time “Video games: they're addictive, they make kids fat and they turn us all into trained murderers. Or, at least, that’s what we’re often told, but what of the positive effects of video games? Surely there must be some” (Reilly 1)? Luke Reilly, an editor on the popular Internet site IGN, had the right idea because there are indeed many positive effects that come from video games. These effects range widely from helping in elderly brain enhancements, to helping teenager control their emotions.
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.