College Research

Steen Anthony

English 102

Response

February 3rd, 2016

The Reality of TV

Spongebob, Uncle Grandpa, Regular Show, Family Guy, American Dad, Robot Chicken-- what do all of these popular shows have a common?  These TV shows may appear to be a good source of entertainment but actually have a negative impact on the viewer..  Steven Johnson, however, believes that TV is actually beneficial.  In his article “Watching TV Makes You Smarter,” Johnson claims that TV today is more complex than ever before; they engage the viewer, and they can improve the viewers minds.  However, I believe that watching TV does not make the viewer smarter because many shows do not have well written storylines,  TV promotes different kinds of crude humor, and has a negative effect on young minds.

Even though TV shows have gone into less linear episodes, the change of TV show’s stories is not always an improvement.  Johnson believes that today’s shows have increased in complexity and this is what makes TV shows so beneficial. He states,”...there has been a noticeable increase in narrative complexity…” (282-3). I think Johnson  is mistaken because he overlooks the fact that not all show’s change of complexity has benefits. One show that has a changed story way beyond recognition is Uncle Grandpa. Since every episode has a different narrative every time, the whole show has no real storyline which gives no benefit to children watching since the only thing they can follow is that episodes crazy shenanigans, which entails crazy behavior. Overall, while some shows have a variety of storylines, many shows do not have much storylines especially the ones for children.

One problem many TV shows have are the crude jokes they make at the expense of group of people and society.  While Johnson is correct about TV shows engaging viewers, he is wrong about it being beneficial and instead promotes bad behavior. He insists, “Beneath the violence and the ethnic stereotypes, another trend appears to keep up with environment like 24, you have to pay attention, make inferences, track shifting social relationships” (278-9).There are many comedies on television on the air and a lot of them use inappropriate jokes in their episodes. Shows like Family Guy and Robot Chicken have many jokes that make fun of current events, groups of people, and companies. While some might say the comedy is all just a joke, this shows can give a bad habit of allowing people to feel okay with making fun of different people like homosexuals, Jews, and more. This can be seen around school because many students pick up on the shows and follow suit and only learn the crude jokes from the shows. As a result, TV shows might engage the viewer more today, but viewers mostly pick up bad habits from them.

Finally, a big problem with TV is many kid’s TV shows have negative effects on kids. Johnson protests that “...kids are forced to think like grownups: analyzing complex social networks, managing resources, tracking subtle narrative intertwining, recognizing long-term patterns” (293-4). I disagree with Johnson's view on children and TV because, I have seen first hand that TV is not helpful. I babysit my niece numerous times and one her favorite shows is Spongebob. One day, while I was watching my niece, I noticed that she was more calm than usual until Spongebob came on, and then she became rowdy and impatient.  This also happen when I had to watch two more boys with her; all the started to pick on each other and become restless when Spongebob came on.  In the end, that is when I realized that shows like Spongebob had negative effects on young minds and cause more bad than good.

In conclusion, TV has no real benefits other than just entertaining the public.  On the other hand, Steven Johnson stated in his article,“Watching TV Makes You Smarter,” that TV has many benefits.  In truth, TV does not do any good even if Johnson wants you to believe otherwise. Many TV shows have no real storylines to follow, they promote crude humor, and have a negative influence on children. Television could in theory be good to the public; in reality however, TV, shows like Spongebob and Family Guy, cause more harm than good.

Works Cited

Johnson, Steven. "Watching TV Makes You Smarter." They Say I Say With Readings. By Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein. Ed. Russel Durst. 2E ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2012. 179-189. Print