A serious question: Has Reality TV help to dumb down our society? I'm not saying it is all the

[lookingfortruth]

fault of Reality TV but has it helped?


I'll give a few examples:

I love the twilight zone as well as a friend of mine. So my friend and I and my husband and another friend sat down to watch a few episodes My husband and the one friend had a hard time understanding the concept of a few episodes such as TWO. They couldn't understand how even though the show was from 40 years ago that the stories are still relevant. I found myself explaining the plot and how the theme can relate to today.

My husband is a huge Star Trek fan love the series and all but I find that I-a non-trekkie-- am explaining the settle aspects of the episodes. Some times I have to keep the plot straight for him.

I am finding that my nieces and nephews logic and curiosity are non existent.

I'm not saying they are dumb. They are on honor rolls and such BUT my 11 year old niece couldn't read the first paragraph of Harry Potter and the sorcerer's stone.

I am seeing more and more reality base shows where the "Weakest" is voted off While more plot oriented shows are being canceled.

I bring this up because it scares me how this translates into people understanding politics isn't just a one line slogan or who is more handsome/pretty of the candidates that you want representing you.

Now I will admit I do like shows like Project Runway and Top Chef and Ghost Hunters--all reality shows BUT I can't understand the Real housewives, The Dance Moms, Survivor and the rest.

Am I being too judgmental or is our society getting dumb down?

[FarLeftFist]

1. Anti-intellectualism in this country has reached critical mass.

[demosincebirth]

2. Check out the block buster moveies at you local cinema. If I want to see good movies

I have to go look up cine-art theaters in my area.

[Frank Cannon]

36. The Avengers movie is a perfect example.

For weeks, all I heard about was what a terrific movie it was. It had a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes, for crying out loud. My wife and I paid big bucks to see it in 3D, and we were pretty much left slackjawed at what an obnoxious piece of shit it was.

We really are living in the last days.

[Honeycombe8]

3. It doesn't cause the dumbing down. It's a reflection of it.

I would categorize the different shows differently, though. Reality shows that are, #1, real reality vs fictional reality (Project Runway vs. the Karshashians, for example). Second, shows that have competition and prizes vs. just showing so-called real people aimlessly going about their business of supposedly living (again, Project Runway vs. the Kardashians). The shows with competition and prizes are more like game shows than reality shows. They're not very different from Jeapardy, The Price is Right, Wheel of Fortune, whatever, all of which have real people competing for prizes.

I call reality shows the ones that show people in their supposed real lives, like the Kardashians, Real Housewives of (name your city), Real World, etc. They're all fake, to begin with. Events are staged and scripted, and the "real" people don't act very well.

Bachelor and Bachlorette don't count as game shows because they're fake and scripted. Survivor, too.

Game shows are okay, if you like game shows. But so-called reality shows are for those who don't have a life, IMO, or have some serious time to kill on a particular evening. And I say that as someone who has watched a few Kardashian fake reality episodes.

[Fumesucker]

4. It's been my observation that some time in childhood most people stop asking "Why?" all the time..

Anyone who has been around small kids knows they love to ask why things are the way they are but that hunger for answers is gone by the time most people reach adulthood.

[lookingfortruth]

5. Interesting...I know my hunger for answers has not died. Yes, I know where to find the answers and

don't ask why but that need for knowledge is still there.

[Fumesucker]

7. Yes, some few people keep that questioning attitude for life..

It doesn't always make for an easy or particularly comforting existence.

I'm looking for me, you're looking for you..

[Quantess]

19. I wonder if part of the reason that people stop wondering so much and asking questions

is due to the way other people react to the questions... A closed minded older person who gives a dismissive look and shakes their head. Or worse.
In many cases we are taught not to question things.

[Fumesucker]

21. And the socially maladroit don't pick up on the cues and continue to ask questions..

Then wonder why people think they're weird..

[Quantess]

28. Do you know me?

It sure sounds like you knew me as a teenager and 20-something.
Oh-so-gradually I have learned to be more "normal" and engage in socially appropriate small talk.

[HiPointDem]

32. i was yelled at all my life for asking why. it totally bewildered me. i still don't understand why

it pissed people off (& still does).

[dimbear]

6. The reason so much tv is crap is that there are too many channels.

The magic of the marketplace has turned most tv to zombie food. Back in the day when there were three networks, they had to try to please a large share of the viewers. Now they're ecstatic if they grab 10%.

You see the same effect in the movies. Back when movies were most of what was happening practically everybody went once a week. People dressed up to go to the important ones. Now? Uh-uh.

Yes, I'm a geezer.

[Fumesucker]

8. Not exactly a new phenomenon..

[Egalitarian Thug]

17. As an incipient geezer, I was around as well and I disagree. Television might not have

totally sucked when it was new, but by the 60's quality programming was in decline and by the 70's almost all of it was puerile filler between commercials. They learned the power of this magical box and chose to misuse it. There are far too many reasons for this than it is possible to go into in any depth here (there are dozens of books about it and quite a few television shows).

But the networks, who BTW still own almost all of the channels, have been in a race to the bottom for decades. And why? Because our pro-business government has very rarely enforced the rules that allow the networks to exist.

What decided it for me was turning the news departments over to entertainment. Paley & Cronkite both fought valiantly to stop this and foretold exactly the situation we have now, but they were ignored because money trumps everything in America, including sanity. FauxNews would have been illegal in 1970.

[XemaSab]

30. I think part of where that leads

is that a show has to be able to grab people in 10 seconds of channel surfing or 1 episode of a drama show.

[KansDem]

34. Hey,dimbear! Remember this?

[dimbear]

51. I certainly do. I can remember how excited we were when our town got its second

TV station. Channel 2 made a big stink, claiming Billings wasn't big enough to support channel 8 also.

Downstairs I have a 7 inch Admiral TV which is a 1948 model.

[ManyShadesOf]

9. yup

[patrice]

10. There's a difference between intelligence or aptitude and actual developed skills.

Last edited Sun Jun 10, 2012, 12:20 AM - Edit history (1)

My guess is that the potential is still there, so I wouldn't say "dumb". But of course it isn't hard to recognize that cognitive and other skills are often missing or under-developed.

I spent 8 years teaching high school and then in my master's research found data supporting wide & consistent "grade inflation".

I don't think tv can have the effect that you are referring to all by itself. Funny you should mention though, because I have more than a few times recalled how it felt, how proud I was, when I was able to follow the plot of a tv show all of the way through. We spent most of our time outside when I was very young, so this would have to have been when I was closer to 10 when I remember retelling myself the plot of something I had seen on tv and being pleased with myself that I could do that.

What's the difference between then and now? I know that more of us read more of the time, for pleasure, than you see now. Grammar, the logic of our language, was taught AS GRAMMAR, by itself, pretty early, grade 5 or 6?. We had to memorize not just grammar rules and such, but also multiplication tables and other content. Phonetics was systematically rational. We also had to diagram tons of sentences, logic again. The point being that, jut like how practice conditions your abilities to do things such as play piano or shoot-hoops, all of this rational patterning that we did with logic and memorization patterned our thinking processes.

We also worked alone mostly. I remember figuring out how to figure out something in a grammar exercise in my homework that I didn't know the answer for, by means of a step-wise process that included extremely careful reading and re-reading and re-reading again, and going back in the book, and comparing/noticing connections between things. People are not using text-books that way much now and there's a lot of co-operative "learning" and too much emphasis placed upon learning-style, as opposed to independent work that challenges you to develop more than just your preferred mode of information processing.

Just brainstorming. I suspect these are some possible factors, but not the sole cause.

[SoutherDem]

11. I think TV has been dumbed down for society.

Plots much less complicated ones like the Twilight Zone, Star Trek, Doctor Who, (not that they are that complicated) can't be followed by many.

The competition shows which eliminate the weakest person reenforces the idea that the weak one has no worth. Which is the Republican message.

I don't know if it is the short attention spans of people today or people are so busy when they watch TV they don't want to follow a plot. But, too many don't want to ask questions.

I watch the Science Channel, Discovery Channel and Animal Planet. For fun Disney (although I don't have kids). I do watch some reality shows on those channels like Deadliest Catch and River Monster but that is about it.

You have brought up an interesting question.

[patrice]

13. Gunsmoke!!!

[SoutherDem]

15. Yes.

While I don't watch much classic TV. There are a lot of great shows from the past.

[lookingfortruth]

23. I'm not saying there isn't a place for sit-coms like Bewitched and munsters or Dramas like Gunsmoke

but even those shows seemed to have better writing than what we have today in some shows.

I'm saying I can understand after a hard days work someone wanting to go home and "Veg" for a while in front of the TV to laugh and kind of recharge the batteries I'm also saying we seem to have more mindless stuff than thinking theater.

[patrice]

26. That is the main asset of some of it: you can zone out your brain, if you want to. I don't watch

most of it.

TCM, Gunsmoke & Bonanza, some food shows, Jon Stewart, some series when they were on: BSG, Capria, Damages, Breaking Bad . . .

[lookingfortruth]

14. You bring up Doctor Who (A favorite of mine...) and you know what's "scary" about that-- that's

listed as childrens/family programming in the UK.

[patrice]

12. Parents may have been different too, in that, like mine, though poor, they listened to opera & jazz

on our little turn-table, saw to it that all of us got private music lessons on various instruments (mine was the accordian - please don't laugh) and they expressed their open admiration for knowledge and culture.

[Egalitarian Thug]

18. This is an excellent point. Thank you. n/t

[Fumesucker]

22. Of course your post made me think of this cartoon..

No doubt you've seen it umpteen times by now..

[patrice]

25. I'm laughing!

[Initech]

16. The mere fact that Kim Kardashian is a celebrity while having contributed *NOTHING* of value to society...

Really says it all, I feel.

[Egalitarian Thug]

20. I am nearly television illiterate. What is/are she/they famous for?

The era of manufactured celebrities that seem to be celebrities for nothing other than being celebrities is just painful.

The old manufactured celebrities in the 30's - 90's had to do something pretty well, but now it seems one can be famous with no discernible talent at all. Most of them are not even very good looking, just average schmucks with professional hair & makeup.

[patrice]

24. There will never be another Marilyn! That combination of beauty, talent, and mind

cannot be matched.

[lookingfortruth]

27. You are right. She was smart. I saw the movie Don't bother knocking and I was amazed at her

depth.

[patrice]

29. Also Bus Stop & The Misfits. She was too unusual for her time; that made her vulnerable.

I just don't think there was ever anyone as pretty as she was.

[SwissTony]

31. I avoid such programs as much as possible.

My daughter was watching a program called "Ice loves Coco" (who the hell are they?) and I watched it for a few minutes. Maybe I'm misjudging the people, but it looked like an episode of "Not very bright but uninteresting people doing not very bright but uninteresting stuff".

[sendero]

33. Most TV..

... is aiding in the dumbing down of our society.

Stuff like Survivor is worse than dumbing down, it is sending a message that being a lying conniving sack of shit is a good thing.

[treestar]

48. +1

Every single set of Survivor shows ends up on this theme.

[cali]

35. No offense but if you're writing about the dumbing down of American culture

you should write in a grammatically correct fashion and without spelling errors.

In any case, I see reality TV as more a reflection.

[lookingfortruth]

39. Please rewrite my post! I guess since I am not Grammar-PERFECT I should be shoot in the head

I guess my thoughts and ideas are no better than a TEABAGGER


GUESS WHAT I may be stupid when it comes to Grammar BUT I have thoughts and insights that may be something more interesting.


Heads up: I make a lot of errors HUGE errors So put me on ignore now !

[Harry Monroe]

52. You mean HUGH?

[GeorgeGist]

37. It's CHEAP

[KansDem]

38. The laughtrack...

I believe the laughtrack from the 1950s and 1960s did much to dumbdown our society.

It didn't matter if the writing was good or not, the laughtrack told us it was. I mean, who were we to question the laughter from that "invisible audience?" If we heard laughter, then the show must be funny! Right?

Take this clip from the 1966 TV show, "It's about Time"

The lines aren't funny, yet the perception that they are is provided by the laughtrack.

And this ability to create perceptions carried over into politics.

Consider this compilation of quotes by GW Bush:

In this instance, the compiler used a laughtrack to accentuate the stupid comments made by GW, but remember how this kind of national rhetoric was passed off as the musings of a "regular guy?" One that you would want to have a beer with? After all, we all make mistakes, don't we?

During the 2000 campaign at GOP rallies, I heard asinine comments made by GW, comments that made no sense whatsoever, only to be followed by rousing cheers and applause. And the perception was created that he was a statesman who could lead this country!

[RagAss]

40. If the world was the corner Pub....

America is the drunken, loud-mouthed loser at the end of the bar that everyone else tries to avoid.

[KharmaTrain]

41. It's Cheap Programming...

There's no need for script writers or a large crew (mostly union)...just a guy with a handicam and let the drama begin. There's a glut of teevee channels looking for "new and unique" programming but only if it's cheap.

[Nay]

42. You should read some books that address this issue. First is "Four Arguments

for the Elimination of TV" by Jerry Mander. It's nearly 40 years old, but the truth of the four arguments has been shown by ensuing scientific experiments. A more recent book, "The Shallows" by Nicholas Carr, continues the dialogue with his assertion that the computer/smart phone explosion is continuing and exacerbating the decline of what we would call the "linear mind;" that is, the mind that allows humans to think in a linear order -- cause > effect, "if this, then that" -- and learn in a logical, reality-based manner.

Learning this way must be taught and encouraged, since for most people it is not a natural way of thinking/learning. (Many, many psych experiments bear this out.) The Enlightenment brought this way of thinking into regular use, but now we can see that TV (and more recently, computers) discourage the building of a reasoning, reality-based mind, especially in the young. Carr describes experiments that show that our minds are literally being physically changed by our interactions with computers; this was one of Mander's assertions about TV, but the experiments then weren't sophisticated enough to prove it. Turns out that Mander was right.

Reading seems to be the one pursuit that encourages the sort of linear mind needed to make sense of the world. It's not just reading a few paragraphs here and there, though; people have to read lengthy books, both fiction and non-fiction (and not just romances or Westerns), to develop the skills. Along the way, most people (except possibly the dyslexic) absorb and retain grammar, spelling, and punctuation skills as well. You will not learn those skills listening to TV or reading all the atrocious content on the internet.

Also, just as a short comment -- when Cali above mentioned (very kindly, I may say) that it would be a good idea to write more grammatically if you are going to comment on grammar/thinking skills, she was correct. I know you haven't been here very long and I'm certainly not accusing you of anything, but the 'teabaggers' you mention in your testy reply to Cali do come here often to disrupt things, and one of their hallmarks is horrible spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Only rarely do we see teabaggers who use good English. There are a few long-time democrats who post here who have lousy English skills, but there aren't very many of them, either. So, you see, your mistakes raised a big red flag here.

There are some people on here who hate the "grammar police," but I'm not one of them. I am one of the police, actually. But I usually don't bother correcting people on the internet because it truly is a thankless task. But in you I see a person who has posted a question in total sincerity, and I wanted to help out.

[lookingfortruth]

46. Then PLEASE place me on ignore. Or Complain I am a Troll which ever makes you happy

[Nay]

50. No problem; just trying to explain. nt

[Harry Monroe]

53. I don't doubt from your remarks here that you're intelligent and insightful

But PLEASE grow some thicker skin and quit whining!

[MadHound]

43. TV in general has helped dumb down the population,

As has most other mass media vehicles, including movies, video games, and social media. We're becoming a society of people who don't do things, but observe them instead.

[4th law of robotics]

44. If anything it's a symptom of a society that is already being "dumbed down".

Not that I agree with that premise but entertainment reflects our values.

[jade3000]

47. That seems about right

A symptom primarily -- but also a reinforcing factor.

[Posteritatis]

45. Feels like a symptom, not a cause, to me. (nt)

[rrneck]

49. The Wisdom of Crowds

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0385721706/ref=mp_s_a_1?qid=1339343891&sr=8-1

A crowd is a group of individuals thinking about a common problem. A herd is a group of the same kind of critter watching what the critter next to him does.

[whistler162]

54. Nope it the fault of them there penny dreadfuls

and get of my lawn!

[REP]

56. Take a look at the writing in those penny dreadfuls.

Many people today could not write as well nor follow the plots.

[RebelOne]

55. Yes, most of those reality shows are definitely dumbing down society.

The only reality shows I watch are the ones on Food Network, such as Restaurant Impossible, Food Network Stars and Gordon Ramsey's shows. The ones like Survivor are total garbage.

[JI7]

57. News Reporting has been dumbing down also