SO CAN WE STILL CALL IT THE "IDIOT BOX"?: As noted on Monday, Steven Johnson's Everything Bad Is Good For You claims that today's popular culture is getting "more complex and intellectually challenging," and is therefore "actually making us smarter." After examining video games, Johnson turns his attention to television, where he claims to find similar patterns of increasing complexity and "mental exercise." (Conveniently, most of this section was previewed in an April 2005 article for The New York Times Magazine.) According to Johnson, today's TV shows are "smarter" than ever, not because they're more intelligently written or directed (though some may well be) but because they demand more of their viewers -- more engagement, more attention, more "working out" of narrative complexity.
Three developments in particular have created more demanding television. First, many of today's shows, especially dramas, feature multiple story arcs or plot threads. A generation ago, dramas typically had just one main thread per episode, with perhaps a comic subplot at the beginning and end, as represented in Johnson's graph of a typical Starsky and Hutch episode. In 1981, along came Hill Street Blues, and TV viewers had to start paying more attention to several different narrative threads. Yet even Hill Street seems the height of simplicity when compared with the overlapping and ongoing multiple story arcs of a show like The Sopranos. (The YouTube video "Seven Minute Sopranos" wittily summarizes that show's complex web of narratives.)
Johnson also asserts that contemporary TV shows force viewers to work harder at understanding each episode: decoding ambiguous dialogue, "filling in" missing information, tracing connections across episodes, recognizing external references. Once upon a time, he claims, TV shows offered viewers easily accessible scripts, often outfitted with expository "flashing arrows" to reinforce key plot points. (Johnson takes this term from a scene in the horror spoof Student Bodies.) In contrast, many of today's programs are far less straightforward, complicated by technical jargon (ER), flashbacks and flash-forwards (The West Wing, Lost), and piles of pop-culture references (The Simpsons). Johnson labels the famous "backward" Seinfeld episode, "Betrayal," "a watershed in television programming," as it "wove together seven distinct threads, withheld crucial information in almost every sequence, and planted jokes that had multiple layers of meaning."
Finally, Johnson claims that today's TV viewers must also keep track of dauntingly complex "social networks" of characters and relationships. Here again, dramas best capture the trend, as Johnson juxtaposes the modestly intricate web of ties that bound together the characters on Dallas with the mind-bending intersections of family, work, and politics that connect people on 24. Yet even reality shows -- especially competition programs like Survivor and The Apprentice -- allegedly foster increased "social intelligence," as we track the contestants' motives, critique their psychological strategies, and imagine how we'd behave in a similar setting.
Although Johnson goes on to discuss the Internet and film, arguing that trends in both media support the "Sleeper Curve" thesis, his analysis in both areas feels a bit thin, even perfunctory. So let's keep our focus on TV. Are you convinced by Johnson's argument? Are today's TV shows really making us "smarter"? Can an essentially passive medium like television -- so different from the active, participatory medium of video games -- ever command genuine cognitive "engagement" from its viewers? (For a skeptical take on Johnson's analysis, as well as a vigorous defense, see this dialogue between Johnson and Slate TV critic Dana Stevens.)
Three developments in particular have created more demanding television. First, many of today's shows, especially dramas, feature multiple story arcs or plot threads. A generation ago, dramas typically had just one main thread per episode, with perhaps a comic subplot at the beginning and end, as represented in Johnson's graph of a typical Starsky and Hutch episode. In 1981, along came Hill Street Blues, and TV viewers had to start paying more attention to several different narrative threads. Yet even Hill Street seems the height of simplicity when compared with the overlapping and ongoing multiple story arcs of a show like The Sopranos. (The YouTube video "Seven Minute Sopranos" wittily summarizes that show's complex web of narratives.)
Johnson also asserts that contemporary TV shows force viewers to work harder at understanding each episode: decoding ambiguous dialogue, "filling in" missing information, tracing connections across episodes, recognizing external references. Once upon a time, he claims, TV shows offered viewers easily accessible scripts, often outfitted with expository "flashing arrows" to reinforce key plot points. (Johnson takes this term from a scene in the horror spoof Student Bodies.) In contrast, many of today's programs are far less straightforward, complicated by technical jargon (ER), flashbacks and flash-forwards (The West Wing, Lost), and piles of pop-culture references (The Simpsons). Johnson labels the famous "backward" Seinfeld episode, "Betrayal," "a watershed in television programming," as it "wove together seven distinct threads, withheld crucial information in almost every sequence, and planted jokes that had multiple layers of meaning."
Finally, Johnson claims that today's TV viewers must also keep track of dauntingly complex "social networks" of characters and relationships. Here again, dramas best capture the trend, as Johnson juxtaposes the modestly intricate web of ties that bound together the characters on Dallas with the mind-bending intersections of family, work, and politics that connect people on 24. Yet even reality shows -- especially competition programs like Survivor and The Apprentice -- allegedly foster increased "social intelligence," as we track the contestants' motives, critique their psychological strategies, and imagine how we'd behave in a similar setting.
Although Johnson goes on to discuss the Internet and film, arguing that trends in both media support the "Sleeper Curve" thesis, his analysis in both areas feels a bit thin, even perfunctory. So let's keep our focus on TV. Are you convinced by Johnson's argument? Are today's TV shows really making us "smarter"? Can an essentially passive medium like television -- so different from the active, participatory medium of video games -- ever command genuine cognitive "engagement" from its viewers? (For a skeptical take on Johnson's analysis, as well as a vigorous defense, see this dialogue between Johnson and Slate TV critic Dana Stevens.)
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