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April 26, 2005

On getting smarter with TVs

You just can't please some people. Just yesterday we alerted you to the concept of the "sleeper curve", and the New York Times Magazine article which argued that television viewing is good for the brain.

Soaps certainly seem to have stimulated the minds of Sydney Morning Herald readers, who have expended considerable energy on establishing the meaning of various shows.

Over at Slate, however, Dana Stevens claims [possibly because he hasn't been watching enough episodes of Desperate Housewives] that he couldn't understand the NYT article at all. Which doesn't stop him making this observation:

Johnson's claims for television as a tool for brain enhancement seem deeply, hilariously bogus — not unlike the graphically mesmerising plot diagram he provides of "any episode" of Starsky and Hutch as a foil for the far fancier grid representing The Sopranos.

On the other hand, he doesn't have a lot of sympathy for the people behind TV Turnoff Week the principles of which have been greatly aided by a device that can painlessly put to sleep practically any television set in one's immediate locality.

Posted by cw at April 26, 2005 05:23 PM

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