Aiden Thieme

Professor Jennifer Weeks

20594 ENGL100L

11 February 2020

Media and its Impact Discussion

The readings for this week centered around the most common forms of media and

entertainment that we engross ourselves in today; television, video games and our cellphones

(with social media to boot as an extension of that phone). Each of these readings took a deep

dive into how exactly these mediums are affecting our choices, lifestyles, skills and even family

life. Marie Winn tells of the history of television sets that quickly became a commodity

bordering household necessity “along with clothes and cooking utensils.” Going on to explain

the ill effects that an overabundance of television viewing can have on a family, discouraging

one-on-one time to converse and even serving as an anesthetic to deeper issues in family by

serving as a shield to avoid interacting with one another. Steven Johnson takes a more positive

approach (though with a different medium) in “Your Brain on Video Games” where he opens

with the story of a Professor who was blown away at just how difficult a video game for children

was, let alone one meant for adults. Focusing on the positive impact gaming can have by

promoting different skill sets in the brain, Johnson speaks out against the stereotype that

videogamers are “attention-deficit crazed stimulus junkies.” Jean Twenge’s article in ​The

Atlantic​ highlights the more destructive effects that smartphones have had on the younger

generations across all countries and backgrounds. “Have Smartphones destroyed a Generation?”
provides a grim reflection as to just how much time gets dedicated to “screentime” and what all

that time has built up to cause.

Marie Winn takes an academic tone that while speaking to harmful enabling television

allows, doesn’t ooze with bias. Television was not created with the ill-intent of breaking down

family life and those commentated on it at the time thought quite the opposite according to

Winn’s findings. Yes, sitting around the television became a group activity for families; but this

was only because of the high price that accompanied a t.v. set back in the day. As time went on,

t.v.s became more affordable and improvement in the economy allowed the family to get two,

three, maybe even four televisions for the house. And an increase in material possessions will

only cloud the abstract that has real meaning. Everyone could watch whatever they wanted

without having to try to reach a group consensus; but that is just it. Interactions, discussions,

even conflicts are all normal parts of everyday life that are undermined when the distraction of

television is so ever present. It’s easier just to switch on nickelodeon rather than solving

problems. Winn relays one example of a mother who finds herself “with three children, really

wanting to turn on the tv when they’re fighting” She says she struggles with this because she

feels that this is telling them this is the solution, and she’s right. Television almost borders a

depressant, like how alcoholics will use their drinking just to avoid a problem. This will go on

and on and only stunt other aspects of family life that are more positive because that avoidance

will become ingrained in what is to be expected in the house, and no one will think anything of

it. Video games, so often labeled as being the source of violent outbursts and blamed for awful

acts committed by others simply because they played a shooter before; don’t have as clear a line

when it comes to positive/negative effects. Yes, the stereotype of a Secretlab-bound gaming

addict who struggles to pry themselves away from their screen is one with some truth to it. But

like Steve Johnson says, this addiction may stem from the difficulty of solving these problems in

a video game. All video games can boil down to being a problem that needs a solution, those

solutions just take on different facades. People get positive feedback from solving problems and

that’s where video games really shine, because many games will promote delayed gratification.

For example, a game like Pokemon (while centered around battling hundreds of creatures is a

role-playing game) stretches out the euphoria of success by splitting the game up into many

smaller victories that ultimately the player will control. Whether this be from defeating one of

the eight gym leaders (that serve as the games more difficult “levels”) or evolving a monster that

the player had to meticulously train themselves, these both are gratifying experiences to the

player and weren’t just a result of one sucess. The idea of non lateral thinking is present in many

video games as well, and promoting that inside of a video game itself can do itself wonders.

Teaching indirect problem solving inside of a video game, where the player can be rewarded for

this further promotes thinking like this, even so that it could become second nature and the

“player” wouldn’t even need incentive to think like this in the real world.

I thought the readings for this week all connected well together and I enjoyed that each

piece had a different view on media as a whole. Marie Winn was very scholarly and I had never

thought about the “anesthetic” properties television could have on the family. But as part of

family who actually didn’t have a tv in the household later on in high school (that’s a story for

another time) I began to reflect on how much richer my life at home was without it. I enjoyed

Steve Johnson’s opinions and findings on video games, as so many articles on video games aim

to point out all the supposed harm they do to our brains when it serves a far better to look at what
good something can do first before looking at its bad qualities. I also was haunted with the piece

on smartphones and just how deep the research goes into backing up the theories of what has

been the root of such a huge mental health epidemic in my generation. I’ve struggled with mental

health throughout my life and I can attest that it was certainly at a peak when I was first

maneuvering social media on my new iphone in early high school. I’ve since learned how to

healthily distance myself so that my phone is nothing more than a way to communicate (in the

simplest sense) find information and lift others up. But I think it took me too long to realize that

social media was a huge part of those problems, and I would have greatly benefited from reading

Joan Twenge back in the tenth grade.