Renteria 1
English 100
Watching Knowledge & Typing Stupidity
In today’s society, have we become smarter by watching more television or have we
become lazier by our lack on interposal communication skills with the rise of text messaging?
Steven Johnson states that “you have to integrate far more information than you would have a
few decades ago watching a comparable show” (278). I agree that TV shows are much more
complex than the TV shows our parents used to watch. With shows like the Sopranos which
“rou$nely follows up to a dozen distinct threads over the course of an episode,” each episode
can be confusing if not watched in chronological order (283). Having watched the Sopranos, I
can verify that they must be watched in order. I have missed an episode here and there and
tried to watch the current episode, but I was lost. As a result, I caught myself watching previous
episodes to try to understand what was going on. Unlike my parents, who frequently watch
Murder She Wrote starring Angela Lansbury, the show only follows one story from the beginning
to the end of the show with only one main character. If one episode was missed, it was okay,
you didn’t have to watch the new episode because you missed last week’s episode, they don’t
follow a thread, for the truth is that watching TV not only allows the viewer to be entertained,
but it also allows the viewer to have multiple views of each character of the story line. While
some say, including me, that Watching TV Makes You Smarter, another current issue with not
only the younger generation, but with society as a whole is “How Tex$ng is Wrecking our
Language” (335). Since the “early 90’s,” (336) when text messages began to make their mark in
history, I believe we as a society have become lazy and losing an important skill, interpersonal
Renteria 2
communication. Some may argue that text messaging is a great form of communication, well,
as great as a form of communication it may be, you’re losing face to face interaction. Text
messaging is also replacing phone calls. One cannot simply display emotion nor frustra$on
regardless of how many emoji’s are being sent with the text. While watching TV s$mulates the
mind, tex$ng does the complete opposite, it creates laziness and it weakens communication
skills.
For the truth is that TV has greatly evolved throughout the years as pointed out by
