Watching TV Makes You Smarter [NYT blogerated link]: Steven Johnson thoughtfully dissects the increasing use of layered, limited-perspective narrative in television and argues that the increasing use of this strategy “makes you smarter,” a pretty shaky thesis. His analysis is pretty interesting, though. I found the bogus cheerleading for the dubious notion that this kind of narrative is necessarily a good-for-your-noggin brain excercise pretty weak.
The depth of analysis applied to the plot structures of the shows he looks at is pretty cool, though. I guess my issue is this: if the writer is capable of such careful work, why not conduct emprical studies that validate or invalidate the thesis? The basic argument is that the use of complex plot structures and narrative methodologies must require more brain work from the viewer. If this is so, and it seems reasonable, does this necessarily translate to “smarter”?
I’d have to guess that it’s demonstrably not so. Mastering complexity is a routine feature of traditional responses to comic books, science fiction, baseball and other sports (statistics!) and music. Managing the reams of data beloved by the respective fan-cultures may well be an activity that folks with a certain intellectual bent engage in. But I’m not so sure it makes them smarter. I’d guess that the activity follows the prediliction.
Still, an interesting read.
Copied wholesale from my comment at Cheesedip.com:
Well, the flip side to the increasing complexization (not a word, I know) of TV shows and the like is that the individual plotlines tend to get simplified.
This is somewhat less of a problem on The Sopranos and Deadwood, since they have the luxury of letting their plots unfold over the course of an entire season, but for regular broadcast television, the fact that they’re trying to cram two or three different plots into the same 45-minute episode means that they’re going to get overly simplified.
That’s one of the reasons why I like L&O–yeah, it’s formulaic and it doesn’t engage in the kind of cross-cutting that, say, NYPD Blue does, but it has engaging, complex plots that require people to pay attention. NYPD Blue, on the other hand, has pretty much one single plot formula: horrific crime gets committed, there’s a chase scene, they collar the bad guy, and then he admits that he did it after heavy interrogation. No wonder they can squeeze as many subplots and character bits that they do in there.