Watching 'Jersey Shore' might make you dumber, study suggests

[iverglas]

22. not sure why you've mixed my cases

1. there is growing income disparity

2. is there growing IQ disparity?

1 was simply used to explain what I was talking about. I didn't suggest that income disparity causes IQ disparity. Although it would be an interesting idea to explore.


All the factors you cite are discussed in detail in the wiki I linked in my next post.

Ultimately people will remember the entertainment they grew up with as being superior to the entertainment of today. That has always been the case. No doubt your grandparents lament that the idiot-box replaced radio, which was how intelligent people received their news/entertainment. And their grandparents had similar things to say about radio replacing plays/operas. And really why do we need plays when we could be dancing naked around a fire?

No, to any of that, personally. You mistake concerns about the content of the entertainment for something else, it seems. I don't have any objections to video games; I do object to the violent, misogynist content of many of them, for instance.

And it's not what I've said myself, of course. I specifically referred to the internet as a potential stimulus, and I've said I use TV for that purpose myself.

Columbo may have been a smarter show but it was passive: you sat there and watched it and that was it. Passive entertainment isn't exactly known for being stimulating to the intellect.

You see, there's the thing -- I don't agree that all TV is passive entertainment. I'm not being passive when I watch a Brit police procedural. Yes, what I'm thinking about is pre-determined, but once one selects a stimulus, that's true of them all, be it a calculus text or Inspector Morse. My dad interacted with Columbo.

I know I'm probably being a little naive on that point, and it's admittedly a very long time since I read McLuhan and didn't really pay enough attention even then. But even admitting that there's a narrower range within which to operate -- even admitting, say, that television watching is always a passive activity -- are there gradations, and is entertainment increasingly aimed at a lower intelligence level, i.e. does it call for even less engagement? And if so, is there an effect?

Like I say, just questions.