The Sopranos Effect

Watching TV Makes You Smarter

This article by Stephen Johnson has been widely discussed the last few days; I think it's worth judging for yourself. Johnson suggests that, as a society and as individuals, we've become more adept at following more complicated and more numerous plots in our television programming than we used to be. His argument, in its essence, is that TV--good TV, at least--is becoming like literature, capable of training the mind to think more effectively and actively. He suggests that the very things the moral values crowd decries--more sex, more violence, more of everything that really does happen in the world--are the things that are making TV (or at least programs like The West Wing, The Sopranos, and Six Feet Under) less and less like intellectual junk food and more and more like a sumptuous but healthy feast for the imagination.

A very good article, well worth reading, especially if you feel the need to justify watching American Idol to yourself.