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Thinking Outside The Idiot Box Analysis

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Does Watching TV Make You Smarter? Television serves a purpose in life; whether it is a positive one or negative one is completely up to the person who is watching it. For many years, there has been an ongoing debate on whether or not television makes an individual smarter. The majority of the articles that has been written agrees that watching television is more harmful than it is helpful. For instance, Dana Stevens, author of “Thinking Outside the Idiot Box”, believes that watching TV does not make you smarter, it just makes you want to watch more of it. However, there are still a few articles that reach an agreement that TV can make people become more intelligent. Steven Johnson, author of “Watching TV Makes You Smarter”, believes television is more helpful to the brain than it is harmful. After reading some point of views on this controversial topic, there are definitely positives and negatives behind each argument. …show more content…

TV shows today are more developed than shows from forty years ago. Back then shows were more predictable and easier to comprehend than they are now. Steven Johnson is a definite believer that watching TV can develop one’s mind and cause them to become more intelligent. He supports his position by introducing his theory of the “Sleeper Curve”. Johnson writes that the Sleeper Curve, “is the most important force altering the mental development of young people today”. Basically, the Sleeper Curve is meant to improve learning capabilities. With TV shows like, 24, it demands the viewer to keep track and pay attention to what is going on throughout the show. Also with shows similar to Family Guy, which makes a comedy out of actual events, it makes the watcher use inferences to what is actually being said. The idea that the observer has to really think about what is happening and make interpretations is what the Sleeper Curve is

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Since the television shows make influences on people, their values conveyed in the programs also impact social morality. If the directors of television shows only focus on the entertaining functions of television programs to make profits, the public’s morality will have danger to be lowered

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Smart People is a contemporary play by Lydia R. Diamond that is set in Harvard University. It is directed by Chuck Smith. The play circulates around the lives of four racially diverse characters: Brian White, a cynical Harvard professor specializing in neuropsychiatry; Jackson Moore, a hot-headed surgical intern at Harvard Medical school; Ginny Yang, a shopaholic Harvard psychology professor; and Valerie Johnston, a tenacious actress and part-time research assistant. Obviously, all of the characters are intellectuals who deal with racial issues and quarrelsome romantic relationships. Smart People is a play that created meaningful spatial relationships through four different levels, strategic distancing, and subtle changes to represent issues

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Today, there are endless arguments about the existing of the American dream. In “They say, I say” by Gerald Graff, Cathy Birkenstein and Russel Durst. There are four article that I have evaluated. The upside of income inequality – Gary S. Becker and Kevin M. Murphy, American Dream: dead, alive, or on hold – Brandon King, Bring on more immigrant entrepreneur – Shayan Zadeh, America remains the world’s beacon of success – Tim Roemer

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The book, “Losers Take All,” written by David Klass, takes place in modern time New Jersey. Jack Logan is a senior boy who attends a sport enthusiastic school. After a tragic incident occurs, Fremont High is left in search of a new principal to replace Gentry. In the middle of summer, Fremont decided to hire their football coach, Mr. Muhldinger, as the new principle. Things take a dramatic turn when the first rule he implements is that all seniors must join a sport.

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“Thinking like a freak” is the way of thinking which is illogical, foolish and the most risky. According to Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner,”thinking like a freak” is very easy, but most people don’t choose it to solve their problems. There are three reasons why people usually hold the idea off from“thinking like a freak”, include: protecting own reputation, making predictions, and getting feedbacks. The first reason why people usually hold the idea off from “thinking like a freak” is protecting their own reputation. Most of people’s reputations are very high and “thinking like a freak” breaks the rule of each people.

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Rhetorical Analysis of “Mind Over Mass Media” Many people believe that new forms of electronic media such as search engines, which offer easy access to incredible amounts of information are harmful to people’s intelligence because they allow us to understand only the main idea of the information provided instead of allowing us to gain an in depth understanding of the topic. Steven Pinker, a professor at Harvard University argues in his essay “Mind Over Mass Media” that these new forms of electronic media are actually beneficial to people's intelligence and the accusations made against it are unwarranted. He is successful in doing this because he brings up counterarguments and disproves them, he offers advice in practicing self control when

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“We Are All Confident Idiots” by David Dunning presents a phenomenon that people often fail to recognize their own ignorance. The article was recently published on the website of Pacific Standard, and it intends to reach a wide range of readers, among them, American youth and teachers are probably the main target audience. Living in a time surrouds by expedient aceess to knowledge, people however are not any wiser. Dunning sharply points out the great extent of confidence that different people show in their unfamiliar areas, and he uses statistics and various research results from his own and others to support his arguments. The article has a subtle structure, starting with reality show, expanding on the arguments with three main types of ignorance, gradually outlining the severity of not recognizaing ignorance, and finally, effectively leading to a convincing conclusion.

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The article “Mind Over Mass Media”, written by Professor Steven Pinker, describes the impact of media on human lives and brains. Pinker illustrates the benefits people gain from using the worlds quickly increasing technology and media. Pinker suggests that today’s technology such as, PowerPoint, Google, and other forms of social media can actually enhance and bring more intelligence to the mind, instead of being detrimental. Critics believe that the many different forms of media can lower intelligence. However, Pinker declares that scientists are using all of this technology everyone else is using, and are still discovering new things.

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Owe to the development of technology, the quality of our lives has increased in a great extent. Our daily lives are now more and more convenient and pleasant since most of the tasks can be done more efficiently with the help of technologies like smartphones and the Internet; furthermore, some difficult tasks can even be done completely by robots. However, various social issues appear inevitably along the advancement of the civilization. People started to wonder whether they rely on technology way too excessively as an outcome when they realized one may feel lost and disconnected without technologies like the Internet and cellphones. It has become an universal debate: Is the technology transforming our civilization into Utopia?

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In conclusion, the reality television impacts the world in a negative way. Reality television influences the culture by giving the young girls ' false expectations, stereotypes, and racism. Reality television has the power to influence people, so if they start using their power in the correct way then every problem connecting to the world of technology would be

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What were they going to do? Well, said Mildred, wait around and see” (42). What followed was a display of colors and sounds, and the people were back to shallow words again. The TV that everyone spends their lives watching does not have a plot, purpose, moral or point. It is nothing more than unconnected sentences, bright colors and loud noise.

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My claim is: ¬¬¬¬¬Steven Johnson best selling book Everything Bad Is Good For You contains studies about the benefits of popular culture in our life and how it is making us actually smarter. Considering the fact that technology evolution affects all of us ,he chooses to talk precisely about the influence of mass media and video games over the years. I consider that he makes his point very well giving certain examples from his childhood and sharing thoughts he had back then.

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They can also improve many mental and motor skills. Even though video games can actually influence negatively kids, they can still improve many things. However video games can still have many positive things. Video games can clearly be seen to be beneficial, and have been greatly proven to be

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