Does watching TV make you smarter?

            After having read three articles, including this one about the connection between the watching of television, and it's correlation with intelligence, or lack thereof, I find myself agreeing with the former premise. TV shows have gotten almost excessively complex nowadays, and they explore much more varied, and deeper subjects, in more detail than ever before. Many stereotypes exist about TV today, and I believe these to be remnants of the early days of TV. With any new format of expression, there are growing pains to be had. With the advent of video people simply recorded plays from a static viewpoint, until they discovered what was truly possible; the first webpages were blocks of text, etc, etc. 

          

          TV at first, was treated like an extension of radio, something to play in the background, be light-hearted, simple even. It has evolved, to become as cinematic as a movie while also as involved and descriptive as a novel. TV is a flexible format. Long, epic stories are told over several seasons, whereas as short 1-2 season run may suffice for a comedy or concept show. Directors are just now experiencing a sort of "TV Renaissance", with various off-the-wall shows being written and filmed, from the fantasy epic that is "Game of Thrones" to the deep,dark human dramas like "Breaking Bad","House of Cards", and "Mad Men". It has become the perfect medium for stories that are just too long to tell in a movie.

           While many literary elitists will never consider the possibility that anything not written 100+ years ago could have any significance, I believe these shows, and the TV format in general, are an exciting development for literature. Opening up new possibilities for stories to be thought up and told.I believe that if we can become smarter as readers, then, when writers pour similar efforts into the story telling of their TV shows, we are capable of learning just as much from TV as from books.I believe that at the heart of literature, it is the stories that matter most. We read to learn from others, from the heroine of the novel, as well as the writer that thought her up. These stories, are platform agnostic; we can learn the same thing, and become the better for it, be it by oral tradition, novel, or exciting TV action-drama. As long as the story is good, everything else is preference.