In the article, “Watching TV Makes You Smarter,” Steven Johnson claims that the progression of modern television series is making viewers smarter because of their complex plots and multi-threading techniques. I question Johnson’s statement because there is a difference between gaining knowledge and conditioning your brain by noticing techniques that are in television shows today. One gains knowledge by learning and being tested over different subject. Whereas, watching TV trains our brains to recognize the patterns that are embedded within the many plots and scenes in an episode. These brain-based skills have more to do with remembering and problem solving rather than becoming more intelligent. With that, …show more content…
Today people take multitasking to the next level and hardly ever engaged with just one certain thing. For one to gain knowledge they must actively engaged and focus on the topic they are learning about. When Steven Johnson states that, “modern television makes one smarter,” he forgot to account for how a modern day TV watcher actually watches television. In fact, watching TV actually promotes multitasking to viewers today. An article in The Guardian includes the scientific work of Russ Poldrack, a neuroscientist at Stanford, and he found that “learning information while multitasking causes the new information to go to the wrong part of the brain. If students study and watch TV at the same time, for example, the information from their schoolwork goes into the striatum, a region specialized for storing new procedures and skills, not facts and ideas.” This contradicts Steven Johnson’s main point that and validates my argument that one must completely engaged with what they are studying to achieve …show more content…
From action to reality TV, Television today is very complex and has a plethora of different genres. On a greater aspect, the intricacy of modern pop culture can increase brain activity that heightens certain brain skills. However, with the many components that attribute to one’s intuition, it is easy to notice the difference between testing ones brain and getting smarter. One improves their knowledge by studying and practicing certain subject matters in a formal setting. Whereas, recognize patterns when watching television conditions one’s brain to advance their memory and problem solving skills. Integrating Steven Johnson’s argument and my own there is a consensus that watching certain modern television shows does strengthen one’s cognition skills, but I ultimately believe that it does not make one smarter in comparison to gaining