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Your brain on television
I'd like clarify what I wrote earlier about the New York Times article, Watching TV Makes You Smarter, if only because I'm somewhat obsessed with this issue. The author, Stephen Johnson, has responded to my point that watching TV makes you better at watching TV, saying, "From Carrie's perspective, it would be equally true to say that playing chess is only good for training your brain to play better chess."
But that's not my perspective at all. I was simply pointing out a fact that Johnson's article didn't acknowledge: that practicing any activity makes you better at that activity. Obviously, some activities are more useful than others. But Johnson wants us to believe that watching television commercials is the same as playing chess -- a ridiculous claim even if you believe that television can make you smarter. And as I've already suggested, I think TV may indeed have the potential to sharpen our minds, though I find that potential woefully unrealized due to television's commercial core.
Johnson: "TV isn't Shakespeare. But if it has steadily grown closer to Shakespeare over the past thirty years, isn't that worth pointing out?"
Sure. But the fact that the language of TV is evolving is surprising only if you know nothing about media history. All media started out by aping earlier media; it takes time to recognize a medium's unique advantages. Early radio sounded a lot like vaudeville, with producers aspiring to recreate live performances in studio. (Bing Crosby, for instance, helped revolutionize the medium by demonstrating that microphones could allow vocalists to do new and amazing things.) Early films took their cues from print and theater. And 1950s and 1960s TV looked a lot like the stage as well.
Posted by carrie on 05/03/2005 | Permalink
Comments
Carrie, do you think that television may be moving towards a unique space or that currently it's still too busy pursuing another medium's ideal (that is, for instance, attempting to copy that look and feel of a film).
What advantages of television do you think would make it a more viable entertainment option?
Posted by: Nathan | May 4, 2005 12:54:21 AM
Unfortunately I do not have details of the study but it was carried out at a British university that shows that playing chess is only good for training your brain to play better chess. And that contrary to popular belief does not help with spatial thinking or logical progressions or anything else other than playing chess.
Posted by: karl burton | May 4, 2005 4:26:54 AM
I was simply pointing out a fact that Johnson's article didn't acknowledge: that practicing any activity makes you better at that activity.
Of course the article acknowledges this -- it's the whole premise: that viewers are exercising certain faculties in watching these shows, and by exercising, they get better at them.
Obviously, some activities are more useful than others.
Right. So do you believe that the activities that I specifically talk about in the article -- following multiple chains of cause and effect, separating background and foreground in narrative information, and mapping complex social networks -- are useless? Either you don't believe that those faculties are important ones, or you don't believe that TV is exercising them the way I've described.
But the fact that the language of TV is evolving is surprising only if you know nothing about media history. All media started out by aping earlier media...
I assume you're not saying that about me. (My first book had probably fifty pages talking about precisely this phenomenon.) In fact, I think you have the history of TV wrong: TV did start out by aping Broadway in the fifties (what a lot of people consider to be the Golden Age) and then it figured out its "unique advantages," which in the case of 60s and 70s network TV meant a distinct downward slope in quality and complexity that ultimately led to Three's Company and Who's The Boss and The Love Boat. For various reasons outlined in the book, the medium has had a resurgence over the past twenty years or so, growing more complex despite the fact that most people seem to casually assume that it has been dumbed-down.
At any rate, given your interest in the subject, you should read the book, and see if you're more persuaded then...
Posted by: Steven Johnson | May 4, 2005 9:19:58 AM
To pick up on a thread from the first post, and to respond to the first two points in Johnson's latest rejoinder, the skills TV develops - even if similar - are qualitatively different from those developed by chess and reading.
Chess forces players to think about future moves, but allows time for reflection before each move is taken. A reader can stop, go back, ponder - think before moving forward. A TV viewer - particularly a viewer of a visually engaging, quick-cutting, fast-talking show - is pulled forward, drawn in, encouraged to watch straight through without reflecting or processing the information in more than a visceral way. (This isn't a criticism of the medium; visceral pleasure shouldn't be underrated.) Before anyone says it: I know about the pause button. But constant pausing ruins TV; stopping to think doesn't ruin a book.
While this may encourage a viewer to become more adept at quickly picking up visual cues, unlike chess and reading, it undermines rather than encourages thinking skills that would be useful in other arenas.
As a commenter in the first thread noted, gaming and TV is making non-interactive learning boring for her child. Though it is merely one anecdote from one reader, I'd guess that her experience is a common one.
Posted by: Charles | May 4, 2005 10:52:46 AM
Charles wrote: "But constant pausing ruins TV; stopping to think doesn't ruin a book."
Actually, the series form of TV is predicated on constant pausing, both within episodes (ad breaks) and between episodes (doled out in weekly installments). Writers become incredibly skilled at using these breaks to create tensions & ambiguities, the same way 19th century serial literature authors used the installment gaps to further narrative drive. To predict an objection: "but TV controls these gaps more than literature" - true, but don't chapter breaks and other textual cues encourage us to pause reading at certain places over others.
When I watch series TV (of the complex type) with my wife, we generally use the ad breaks (which we fast forward through via the glory of TiVo) to reflect on what has come before , praise/critique the show's techniques, and anticipate future events. Personally, I miss this opportunity to pause & process while watching a film in the theater, and many films build-in "lulls" in the dramatic action to provide such cognitive processing times. (This is not an endorsement for people chatting in movie theaters - I just find that unless it's an incredible film, my attention wanders every 20-30 minutes.)
As for the chess analogy, isn't our entire educational system built on the philosophy that learning to solve problems & process information in one domain is transferable to others? Stimulating thought processes and expanding possibilities of cognition (which is what I read Johnson's term "smarter" to signify) is definitely a positive experience, and I have no doubt that my ability to watch (& study) complex TV has made me "smarter." I spent many hours doing logic problems as a kid, and I've never had to apply the situation of arranging seating at a dinner party per a set of obscure rules (except on the GREs!), but I have no doubt such exercises made me "smarter."
Posted by: jason | May 5, 2005 9:00:30 AM
Jason- as you probably already know, this sentence - "Actually, the series form of TV is predicated on constant pausing, both within episodes..." is in the passive voice.
That may be an important part of the discussion there, the passive part.
I'm not sure, my two favorite TV shows - Joan of Arcadia and Third Watch both just disappeared, or were canceled, or not renewed, or whatever.
The fact that the "pausing", and programming, and even the content of the ads, is all done for the viewing public by an unaccountable, essentially nameless power is part of what I wanted to say. I think the other part had something about intentionally directing the intellectual life of the public - the "election" of Bush, twice!; the confusion about Iraq and the invasion; the blank spot where global warming should be - those were in there too I think, but like I said, I may be getting dumber, real fast, now that my favorite shows are gone.
I did notice Johnson's personification of TV ("...and then it figured out its unique advantages...") has no cultural locus, or - in plainer speak - it's as though that OZ/Jehovah/BigBrother/kindlyuncle persona the box is always effusing really exists; not that there's a handful of desperate control freaks behind it doing everything they can to mold a few hundred million people to their own advantage, and sell them things. Under the circumstances that seems an egregious omission but, like I said, I'm getting dumber fast.
Posted by: Juke Moran | May 7, 2005 3:14:26 AM
You may fast-forward through the commercials, Jason, and you may use the commercial breaks to discuss the plot developments, but you also must know that TV is designed to work against that instinct, and the content makers do everything in their power to keep you from following it. Just as television shows are more "complex," advertising is as well. The ads are scripted and shot to draw you in and keep you from reflecting on the show.
Skipping the commercials on your TiVo is a privilege that the networks have been consistently working to take away - from the opposition to VCR's that could record to the elimination of a feature on the DVR that would skip commercials entirely without a rapid scroll. Now there is talk of selling ads that will appear like chirons when you fast forward through the commercials. When TiVo relents and chooses the advertisers over the viewers (and I have no doubt that eventually they will) are you still going to champion TV as a mass educator with the same enthusiasm?
Posted by: Charles | May 7, 2005 12:33:31 PM
I'm not championing TV as a mass educator, but an valid potential site of sophisticated storytelling (noting that of course 90% of everything is crap). Much of this debate on the blog has taken arguments that Johnson (and I) have made about TV fiction and asked "what about news & ads?" I don't watch TV news (aside from the Daily Show) and I avoid ads (as people have been doing long before TiVo via mute buttons & bathroom breaks) and am making no claims about their benefits.
However I do believe there is nothing inherent in the technological parameters of TV that requires TV news to suck as it does (and long ago TV news & documentary was quite investigative & compelling), just as there's nothing "natural" about the hypercommercialized system of advertising in the US (and spreading globally). The medium itself is routinely condemned based on its worst incarnations. It's as if we assumed that all books were equal to the worst book you see in the airport convenience store, or the potential of the film medium was embodied by Catwoman. Yes, much TV is crap, but why do people refuse to acknowledge that there is tremendous quality & creativity being created today, and that those forms might be innovative, stimulating, and "good for you"?
Posted by: jason | May 9, 2005 10:24:33 AM
The current incarnation of TV - as sophisticated technology for the purpose of mass entertainment - is the only incarnation TV has ever had. It is unlikely that the cost of creating TV programming will allow to ever be anything else. You can't reasonably defend TV-the-idea without also defending TV-the-thing. This is what makes Johnson's argument (and by extension, yours) so unpalatable. You can't separate the content from the context - the advertising, the dumbed down news - and point to a few pieces of well-crafted art to defend the title, much less the thesis of Johnson's book.
As you admit, 90% of TV is crap. When one titles one's book "Everything Bad is Good For You" and the nation willingly rushes to participate in the middlebrow equivalent of a publicity blitz because everyone is so excited to hear that TV - without qualification - is mentally nutritious, claiming that you are only talking about the good stuff is disingenuous.
Posted by: Charles | May 9, 2005 10:46:47 AM
Jason wrote -
However I do believe there is nothing inherent in the technological parameters of TV that requires TV news to suck as it does (and long ago TV news & documentary was quite investigative & compelling)
*
When you have an entertainment system combined with an information system and the whole thing is driven by by sales and revenue, yes, I think we can blame TV.
We've trained viewers to expect their news to look like their entertainment, and we're reaping the consequences.
Posted by: LAW | May 9, 2005 4:23:08 PM
Based on the logic of the past two responses, the fact that the majority of publishing consists of lowest common demoninator mass paperbacks for airplane consumption means that the entire realm of books (both reading & writing) should be condemned. It is certainly true that TV is a more centralized, commercialized, and mass-ified medium than any other, but that shouldn't disqualify it from creating works that rise above those parameters.
The bottom line for me is if you believe that there is something wrong with the mass media system (as I assume all of us reading this blog do), you can either condemn the entire system & all it produces, thus alienating the vast majority of people who actually consume the media, or acknowledge the potential of media to do more than pacify viewers, celebrating the exceptions to the medium's norms. Personally, I think it's a better (and more honest) strategy to recognize the worth & legitimacy of things that are popular, rather than telling people to stop doing things they enjoy.
I have no doubt that the hours I've spent watching programs like Buffy, Alias, Seinfeld, and Arrested Development have been as "positive" as consuming any other art form. Either you have to argue that all consumption of narrative is a waste of time, or acknowledge that TV is more than its worst incarnations.
Posted by: jason | May 10, 2005 10:16:49 AM
What a false choice! You didn't really follow the logic of the last two responses at all.
We aren't condemning all television (though we are condemning aspects of it), nor saying that it isn't capable of being enlightening (though there is a vast gulf between the best of TV and the best of books). We are calling bullshit on Johnson's notion that it - in its current form, with its current flaws - is making us smarter because of its short-attention-span techniques.
Tortured metaphor time: You may think that we are catching dolphins in our tuna nets, but you are feeding us Filet-o-Fish and saying that it is good for us.
Enjoy Arrested Development if it comes back; I will, too. I watch plenty of television, but I manage to do it without throwing out a shoulder patting myself on the back.
Posted by: Charles | May 10, 2005 11:03:10 AM
You may not hurt yourself praising your own taste, but it seems like you run the risk of injury in condemning other peoples'...
How is Johnson's analysis of complex interweaving long-form narratives like Sopranos or Lost somehow attributing cognitive work to short attention spans? I think it's quite a long attention span required to catch references to narrative back story from 4-5 years of material (or 15 in the case of the Simpsons).
I'm not a fan of Johnson's title or headlines, which are obviously meant to provoke not summarize (a more accurate title would be "Many Things Bad Are Good For You"), but clearly he is arguing that new paradigms of storytelling & gameplay have emerged, and these paradigms are cognitively engaging. If that is not true, why do you like Arrested Development? Can you name a recent piece of comedic narrative that is "better" than it from a medium that lacks the systemic corruption being condemned here? As far as I know (and I just got Johnson's book, so I have yet to digest it in full), he is not celebrating Still Standing or similarly formulaic material as cognitively beneficial. Ultimately it's a recognition that there is content & form that transcends the traditional limits of its medium. Thus I stand by my characterization of your counter-argument - TV is a corrupt medium, thus all it creates is corrupting. And to that I must disagree...
Posted by: jason | May 10, 2005 1:29:08 PM
I don't condemn anyone else's taste, Jason, I share it. (Also, re: Still Standing, glass houses, eh?) We just disagree about whether our tastes are good for us. We both like candy, but while I suspect that it "leads to diabetes" you say "source of energy."
Johnson's thesis attributes a rise in our national IQ to television. If true, it wouldn't come from just the quality stuff Johnson praises, because not enough people watch the quality stuff, especially compared to the masses that watch the crap. Arrested Development can't even keep itself on the air on FOX.
You are confusing two strains of the debate, anyway. I love Arrested Development because it written by smart people for a smart audience. That is still miles away from TV - as in, TV that the populatioin watches - making its audience smarter.
Think of it this way: you can't think that The Sopranos is making us smarter without also thinking that the equally popular Two and a Half Men is making us dumber.
Posted by: Charles | May 10, 2005 2:07:42 PM
