Explain Race and the Wrong Side of the Bed in American History - Essay Example

Is Pop Culture Affecting Our Intelligence? Many people believe that things like videogames, texting, and television are making people less intelligent. However, if we take a close look at these fears, and consider the kind of intelligence it takes to use these types of technology, we will see that that’s not the case at all. Videogames allow people to use a different kind of intelligence than they need for other activities in life, like reading or having a conversation. Texting has caused people to invent and learn a new language.

Television has changed over the years to become more demanding, so that now more intelligence is required to follow the plots of shows than ever before. Technology and popular culture is not making us less intelligent; instead it is making us stretch our intelligence in new directions. One of the parts of modern technology and pop culture that people like to complain about the most is videogames. People say that gamers are “melting their brains” as they waste away indoors, doing a time-wasting activity that doesn’t stretch their minds.

However, by taking a closer look at videogames, we can see that this isn’t the case at all. Videogames force us to use a type of problem-solving intelligence that most other activities don’t help us to use. By becoming good at videogames, people become good at solving puzzles and working out spatial relationships that are too complex for other activities. People who are good at videogames are the people who will be the next generation of software designers and technological problem-solvers.

Texting is another form of technology in pop culture that many people view with suspicion. People see “textspeak” as an illiterate means of communication. However, texting actually causes people to think creatively about language. In order to make messages as short and easy to type on a number pad as possible, people who text come up with clever ways to abbreviate words. For example, they might use “C U l8r” to mean “see you later.” These abbreviations have to be understood by the recipient, so it won’t work to come up with abbreviations that don’t make sense.

This shows that texters are thinking about language in creative ways. For many years, people have seen television as the ultimate waste of time; something that is dumbing down society. It’s true that there are a lot of bad shows on TV that do play to the lowest common denominator. But over time, many shows have become much more complex and difficult to follow. Compare an older show, like I Dream of Jeanie, to a modern show, like 30 Rock or Community. On the modern shows, viewers have to follow many more characters, and they have to be very connected with their culture to understand the dozens of clever references embedded in the shows.

Cable and premium channel dramas take even more concentration to follow, as they have multiple storylines that stretch over many episodes. The viewer has to keep all this information in mind while watching in order to know what is going on. A new viewer who starts in the middle of a show like Mad Men, for example, will be utterly lost. New technology and our use of it in pop culture is not making us less intelligent. It is actually making us more intelligent in some areas. People are now stretching their minds in ways that our culture never required before.

Through these methods, we tap into out creativity in fascinating new ways. It will be interesting to see how this changes the world in the future, and what new ways of thinking future advances will bring.