Tyler Lisby
October 14, 2011
English 111
Television and How it Affects Our Society
Introduction
Television has been the most used entertainment system in modern society. Everyone seems to have at least one favorite show they like to watch. Having television gives all of us something in common to talk about. According to George Gerbner, author of “Society’s Storyteller: How TV Creates the Myths by Which We Live,” “television is the overall socializing process superimposed on all other processes.” (119) In this paper I will be writing about how television affects our society in positive and negative ways.
Positive Aspects
There are many positive aspects of TV such as; it requires more intelligence to follow along plots, which exercises the brain. Also many shows these days make you remember what happens on the previous show because they want you to come back and keep watching their show. Steven Johnson said in his article “Watching TV Makes You Smarter” “Beneath the violence and the ethnic stereotypes, another trend appears: to keep up with entertainment like 24, you have to pay attention, make inferences, track shifting social relationship. This is what I call the Sleeper Curve: the most debased forms of mass diversion—video games and violent television dramas and juvenile sitcoms—turn out to be nutritional after all.” (133) Johnson also stated “I believe that the Sleeper Curve is the single most important new force altering the mental development of young people today, and I believe it is largely a force for good: enhancing our cognitive faculties, not dumbing them down.” (133) Some of the shows on television can be good, for example educational shows like on the History channel. Those shows can teach you a lot about your culture, other cultures, wars that happened in the past and many other things. TV can also teach us values, like why family and friends are important. For example, I watch the show “Friends” all the time, I recently watched it on October 11, 2011 on my TV in my dorm room. That show is about six close friends who are always there for each other, that shows me that having close friends is very important. It also can give family members of all ages an opportunity to spend time together while watching it. Additionally it keeps us up to date with the current events, which is very important to know what is going on in our world.
