Television An Important Aspect For People s Life

Contemporary t.v. in today’s society has taken up a vast amount of time in people’s life. People can spend hours in a day just watching t.v. mindlessly, however, is this time spent watching t.v. making a person smarter? The television shows that people watch today are a primary form of entertainment for a majority of America, along with conveying information to viewers. For years now people have wanted dumb, simple tv, but as the culture began to develop more cognitively people want complex and intelligent television. I believe contemporary t.v. is an important aspect for people to gain knowledge and information about the world. It can be a way for a college students to become engaged citizens from what they learn from†¦show more content†¦In Steven Johnson’s â€Å"Watching TV Makes You Smarter†, he argues that television shows have grown progressively more complex throughout time. Johnson explains that because of the developing intricacy of t.v. plot lines, people are having to spend an increased amount of time paying attention to t.v. episodes. Johnson writes about 24, Murphy Brown, Frasier, and The Soprano, and how they make people smarter. By watching these shows people follow different plots and learn to keep up with all of them. Johnson claims â€Å"you have to pay attention, make inferences, track shifting social relationships†, viewers should do this to figure out what is happening in a show. Johnson calls this the Sleepers Curve. It shows that people are learning through complex storylines or situations without realizing it. In the show, 24 that Johnson writes about, how in the show, you may have lost the simple and more moral standard of society, however you’re gaining realism. These two aspects of this show are important when it comes to t.v. making you smarter. When a t.v. series encourages a great deal of critical thinking and escapes the social norms of society, it starts to teach the viewer thing s about what the world is actually like. Also, this series has a subject matter from which people can learn something. It might not be exactly like real life, but it still