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The advantages and disadvantages of watching television
Watching TV has two main effects
The advantages and disadvantages of watching television
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In Steve Johnson’s article “Watching TV Makes You Smarter” he argues that a region of the brain is stimulated that makes people think. He claims that TV makes you smarter, and I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, I agree that people tend to contemplate more when watching television. On the other hand, I still insist that viewing TV doesn’t make you any smarter, but in fact, it can actually lower one’s intelligence.
Johnson used all three rhetorical strategies throughout his article. The charts he provided to support his argument was logos. Ethos was his biography, which gives insight on his books and that he is a professor of journalism at New York University. He also used pathos in his article title “Watching TV Makes You Smarter”. The title alone instantly had me wanting to watch TV to see if his argument stood true. Unfortunately, after watching TV under an hour, it was exceptionally clear that television does not make one more intelligent. In the reality TV series Party Down South Lyle states “Y’all need help with ya luggage” (“Party Down, South Beach”). This immediately caught my attention for two
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In making this comment, Stevens urges people to step away and leave the TV unbothered for the weekend. Leaving the television off for a full weekend gives a person the chance to fully digest how much of a negative impact it has on our intelligence. When someone is constantly watching TV they are allowing themselves to constantly hear the language of a lower class student, fabricated or made up words, and grammatically incorrect sentences to the point they have failed to realize that it is beyond awful grammar. After being exposed to that for hours every week it then becomes difficult for them to distinguish the right rules of language from the wrong. Also, it doesn’t only make it difficult
In “Television Harms Children”, Ann Vorisek White claims that the intellectual and cognitive development of children who frequently watch television is threatened. To support this claim, she points to the findings that “the more television children watch, the weaker their language skills and imaginations” (White, 2006). Before the brain fully matures around age 12, it is in the stage of rapid development. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) “recommends that children under the age of two not watch TV or videos, and that older children watch only one to two hours per day of nonviolent, educational TV” (White, 2006). A study from the AAP (as cited in White, 2006) found that the average American child watches four hours of television every day. Considering "expression and reasoning are not automatic" abilities, young children who routinely watch television eventually become "passive and nonverbal" to stimuli in their environment (White, 2006). Since the normality of curiosity and imaginations of young children are the foundation of how they learn, remaining passive for extended periods of time affects their intellectual and moral development.
In "thinking outside the idiot box", Dana Stevens responds to Steven Johnson's New York Times article in which Johnson believes that watching television makes you smarter. Indeed, Steven Johnson claimed that television shows have become more and more complex over the years in order to follow the viewers need for an interesting plot instead of an easy, linear story. However, Dana Stevens is opposed to this viewpoint. Stevens is not against television, he does not think it makes you smarter nor that it is poisenous for the brain, he simply states that the viewer should watch television intelligently. That is to say that, viewers should know how much television they should watch and what to watch as well.
In the start of his speech, Murrow talks about how history will be what we make it. Then he states that if people were to record a week of television they would find evidence of corruption, escapism, and insulation from the realities of the world unless you watch it between the time of 8 to 11 p.m., Eastern Time (4). At this time period people will find the brief and twitching allusion to the fact that the nation is in mortal danger. At any other time, television insulates the people from the realities of the world in which they live in. If this continues the citizens will pay for using one of the most powerful instruments in communication to shield them from the harsh, hard and
Television is a highly entertaining way to pass the time whenever we may want to relax or may not have anything to do. Some believe that watching television is nothing more than staring at a box while others believe that it can help us become aware of things we may not have noticed before such as social issues or in some measure get our brains thinking. This paper will point out the similarities and differences of Antonia Peacocke 's essay "Family Guy and Freud: Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious" and Steven Johnson 's "Watching television makes you smarter" aswell as
However, the few that have been done seem to contradict each other tremendously. Some studies have proved that excessive television watching can lead to lower reading levels, while another study said television watching did not affect the way a person reads. This seems to say that either there is not a strong correlation, or maybe some people are more affected by television than others.... ... middle of paper ...
Viewing television has a direct negative correlation with the amount of mental work a child pr...
Before television existed people had to depend on Radio stations to receive their little bit of entertainment and news. But in 1878, the invention of TV began. The first TV made didn’t look anything like the way TV’s look today. It was a mechanical camera with a large spinning disc attached to it (Kids Work). But as over the years, of course, inventions of different TV’s progressed and by the 20th century about 90 percent of our population had a TV in their household (MGHR). Television today is mainly used for people take a break from their life by relaxing and enjoying some entertainment.
Television has come a long way since it was first introduced. Originally, it was thought that the masses that watch television enjoyed the more simple shows that would tell you exactly what was going on from start to finish. In Steven Johnson’s article, “Watching TV Makes You Smarter”, Johnson argues that this is actually not the case. In fact, Johnson argues that much more people enjoy shows that involve multi threading, or multiple plots that are all connected.
(Violence in television programs and movies and its impact on children and families is not a new topic. Almost 30 years ago the U.S. Surgeon General warned Americans about the negative effect of television have on the emotions and behaviours of children.)
'Television also conditions a child to dual stimui: sound and images.';(Neural Activity and the Growth of the Brain) The constant and rapidly changing sound and images can condition a child to expect the level of televisions in other situations. The problem with this is that in school children are called upon to speak, to listen, to work some problems, or read, and none of these tasks contain the 'dual stimula'; that children expect from television. Dr. Hinto...
Television supports reading, which in turn to improves language ability. Good programming improves reading and can increase thinking. The Himmelweit confirms, “Television in the long run encourages children to read books; a conclusion that can be reinforced by evidence from libraries, book clubs, and publishing companies” (Postman 33). Dr. Hemmelweit stresses this point; “Book reading comes into its own, not despite television but because of it”(33).
The brain is said to be one of the most important organs in our bodies. Especially those of adolescents. Development is most effective during the adolescent or early childhood time period because they are prone to more interactive learning. Early childhood brain development consists of learning through social interaction, language exposure, social experiences and self-awareness. The big topic for debate right now is children watching too much television and the affect it has on the brain. Many have said that too much television has compromised the cognitive development in the youth of our society. These cognitive delays can come from virtual watching because it then creates limits on opportunities for physical play and imaginative play,
When it comes to the topic of television, most of us would readily agree that watching television is a waste of time. Where the agreement usually ends, however, is on the question of “are there shows that increase our intelligence?” and what pleasure do some television show bring to us? I would say there are some great shows that increase our intelligence. Shows like “Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader?” this kind of show puts the brain to work; thinking. There are some other shows that tend to convince us that watching television seduces our mind. I find Johnson’s argument about his article “watching television makes you smarter” confusing because he was not actually picking sides in the article and Steven’s “Thinking Outside The Idiot Box” argument about how “it’s really good at teaching you to think… about the future episode” (Steven, 296). Although I agree with the author of “Watching Television Makes you Smarter” Johnson to an extent, I cannot accept that he overlooks how much time people spends each day watching television.
Television is only possible because this disintegration, reconfiguration, contraction (i.e., compression), and extension of visual sensory experience occurs during dreams. Accordingly, both television viewing and dreams may be said to include (or involve) reduced ability to think, anxiety, and increased distractibility. Television thus compels attention, as it is compelled in the dream, but it is an unnatural and hallucinatory experience. Hence, television is addictive. Similar to the visual experience while dreaming, television compels attention to the relative exclusion of other experience. Television reduces consciousness and results in a flattening of the visual experience as a result of combining waking visual experience with relatively unconscious visual experience. Television involves the experience of what is less animate, for it involves a significant reduction in (or loss of) visual experience. This disintegration of the visual experience (as in the dream) also results in an emotional disintegration (i.e., anxiety). That television may be so described (and even possible) is hard to imagine, but this is consistent with the fact that it took so very many different minds (and thoughts) of genius in order to make the relatively unconscious visual experience of the dream conscious. Since the thinking that is involved in making the experience of television possible is so enormously difficult, it becomes difficult to think while partaking of that experience. Television may be seen as an accelerated form or experience of art, thereby making someone less wary (or less anxious) initially, but less creative and more anxious (as time passes) as the advance of the self becomes unsustainable. The experience (or effects) of television demonstrates the interactive nature of being and experience, for, in the dream, there is also a reduction in the totality (or extensiveness) of experience.
Watching television is one of the most popular pastimes in the world. Almost all children do so; some even take the liberty of slipping out of bed unnoticed at night just to watch a show that they like. However, what most people do not realize is that television can ruin your eyesight, cause lack of concentration and can also inculcate many bad habits, especially in young ones. Discoveries and invention of devices are always welcome till we, humans, find a way to abuse its benefits and be adversely affected by it. This was the case when Wilhelm Roentgen discovered x-ray and within five years, the British Army was using a mobile x-ray unit to locate bullets and shrapnel in wounded soldiers in the Sudan. television was also invented with positive thoughts in mind – there would be no national borders, education and communication would be worldwide, etc.