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How TV Can Make You Smarter
How TV Can Make You Smarter is a lively guide that shows readers the numerous emotional and intellectual benefits of TV.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, television can do more than help you veg out, chill, and escape.
Author and TV critic Allison Shoemaker rewires our thinking to show readers how to take advantage of our 24/7 access to this ever-evolving medium.
• TV is a powerful tool and How TV Can Make You Smarter will teach you how to use it.
• Covers a wide selection of diverse genres from scripted comedies, dramas, and classics to reality and beyond
• Find acceptance in embracing "bad" TV, and learn to love yourself in the morning.
Lessons include learning how to gain empathy ( Mad Men ), broadening your perspective ( Rupaul's Drag Race ), and discovering how working within boundaries ( Doctor Who ) or breaking them apart ( Buffy the Vampire Slayer ) can be good for you.
Part of the HOW series, the accessible and authoritative guides to engaging with the arts the world, and ourselves.
• Filled with smart, unintimidating content in a giftable foil-stamped package
• Great gift for TV and movie buffs, Netflix and Hulu subscribers, DVD owners, and anyone who loves to unwind with television
• Packed with insightful tips and tricks for making the most out of what you watch
• Add it to the shelf with books like Amusing Ourselves to Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman, Everything Bad Is Good for How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter by Steven Johnson, and I Like to Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution by Emily Nussbaum.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, television can do more than help you veg out, chill, and escape.
Author and TV critic Allison Shoemaker rewires our thinking to show readers how to take advantage of our 24/7 access to this ever-evolving medium.
• TV is a powerful tool and How TV Can Make You Smarter will teach you how to use it.
• Covers a wide selection of diverse genres from scripted comedies, dramas, and classics to reality and beyond
• Find acceptance in embracing "bad" TV, and learn to love yourself in the morning.
Lessons include learning how to gain empathy ( Mad Men ), broadening your perspective ( Rupaul's Drag Race ), and discovering how working within boundaries ( Doctor Who ) or breaking them apart ( Buffy the Vampire Slayer ) can be good for you.
Part of the HOW series, the accessible and authoritative guides to engaging with the arts the world, and ourselves.
• Filled with smart, unintimidating content in a giftable foil-stamped package
• Great gift for TV and movie buffs, Netflix and Hulu subscribers, DVD owners, and anyone who loves to unwind with television
• Packed with insightful tips and tricks for making the most out of what you watch
• Add it to the shelf with books like Amusing Ourselves to Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman, Everything Bad Is Good for How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter by Steven Johnson, and I Like to Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution by Emily Nussbaum.
- GenresNonfictionTv
112 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
October 30, 2020
Wonderful 'view' of TV and all that it means to us - just the right balance of humor - while still a very
serious look at how we are 'tuned' by what we watch. It seems to me that more and more of my friends are just content to stay home and watch TV; there is so much to choose from now that you need not really leave home for entertainment.
serious look at how we are 'tuned' by what we watch. It seems to me that more and more of my friends are just content to stay home and watch TV; there is so much to choose from now that you need not really leave home for entertainment.
August 21, 2020
I'm the choir that Shoemaker is preaching to, so I'm an easier sell than someone who "doesn't own a TV" (joke's on them; most of us carry TVs in our pockets now) when it comes to the book's premise. If you already think TV is worthwhile, the book may offer a crystalization of your own thoughts.
The middle section, about 30 pages worth of writing, is the strongest bit. A focus on how TV programming cultivates education and empathy speak to the true thrust of the book. The pages are Shoemaker at her most persuasive and considerate.
I do ding the book for an overwhelming sense of recency bias in the examples and case studies, however. It undersells the merits of programs from TV's earlier periods in this sort of a conversation. I get why -- almost all the shows Shoemaker mentions are available for streaming somewhere, and thus the book becomes a handy guide -- but it still shrinks a sense of TV's history in frustrating ways.
Still, if you somehow have a friend who dismisses TV, this book might get them on board.
Full disclosure: I know Allison Shoemaker and talk to her about TV pretty much every single day right now on a podcast we both do.
The middle section, about 30 pages worth of writing, is the strongest bit. A focus on how TV programming cultivates education and empathy speak to the true thrust of the book. The pages are Shoemaker at her most persuasive and considerate.
I do ding the book for an overwhelming sense of recency bias in the examples and case studies, however. It undersells the merits of programs from TV's earlier periods in this sort of a conversation. I get why -- almost all the shows Shoemaker mentions are available for streaming somewhere, and thus the book becomes a handy guide -- but it still shrinks a sense of TV's history in frustrating ways.
Still, if you somehow have a friend who dismisses TV, this book might get them on board.
Full disclosure: I know Allison Shoemaker and talk to her about TV pretty much every single day right now on a podcast we both do.
June 11, 2026
The book was fine, but all of her points could have fit into an essay. Even though this is a very quick read, the actual insights and information still felt thin, padded out with many anecdotes about specific shows.
These are all of the ways that the book proposes that TV can make you smarter:
-Discussing and analyzing shows, either in-person or online
-Educational and travel shows
-Learning about people who are different from you and social issues you haven’t personally experienced
-Following a long story and really getting to know characters
-Analyzing the moral failings of flawed characters and thinking rationally, in order to see past the natural tendency to sympathize with a show’s protagonists, to understand whether characters are truly good or bad people
-Being trope-savvy about TV lets you analyze and appreciate the use and subversion of those of tropes, which helps you understand the creative process
-Analyzing unsuccessful episodes and poorly written plotlines, and figuring out what’s wrong with them
-Learning about the historical events and culture of the past by watching TV made during that time period
One additional remark - she praises the plot of Lost, even though the final season had already come out (10 years before this book was published). Really?
These are all of the ways that the book proposes that TV can make you smarter:
-Discussing and analyzing shows, either in-person or online
-Educational and travel shows
-Learning about people who are different from you and social issues you haven’t personally experienced
-Following a long story and really getting to know characters
-Analyzing the moral failings of flawed characters and thinking rationally, in order to see past the natural tendency to sympathize with a show’s protagonists, to understand whether characters are truly good or bad people
-Being trope-savvy about TV lets you analyze and appreciate the use and subversion of those of tropes, which helps you understand the creative process
-Analyzing unsuccessful episodes and poorly written plotlines, and figuring out what’s wrong with them
-Learning about the historical events and culture of the past by watching TV made during that time period
One additional remark - she praises the plot of Lost, even though the final season had already come out (10 years before this book was published). Really?
January 4, 2022
A simple and immersive read.
Shoemaker gives readers a very high level take on the inherent value to be found in shows (television or otherwise) as well as directions on how to maximize these values. This light read also breaks down the "languages" of various types of shows (their presentment and structure - or lack thereof) as it aims to help readers be more conscious viewers.
However, it would have been an interesting addition to read more on the impact shows can have upon the greater pop culture, and on the knowledge that could be gained from understanding the significance of such impact.
Verdict
Would I buy it for my collection: Maybe
Would I read again: Yes
Would I reccomend: Yes
Shoemaker gives readers a very high level take on the inherent value to be found in shows (television or otherwise) as well as directions on how to maximize these values. This light read also breaks down the "languages" of various types of shows (their presentment and structure - or lack thereof) as it aims to help readers be more conscious viewers.
However, it would have been an interesting addition to read more on the impact shows can have upon the greater pop culture, and on the knowledge that could be gained from understanding the significance of such impact.
Verdict
Would I buy it for my collection: Maybe
Would I read again: Yes
Would I reccomend: Yes
April 21, 2021
The best argument for why TV matters that I have come across broken down into short, digestible essays.
I disagree with the author on some minor points but nothing to rant about.
Check this one out. You might discover a new favorite show based on Shoemaker’s insights.
I disagree with the author on some minor points but nothing to rant about.
Check this one out. You might discover a new favorite show based on Shoemaker’s insights.
September 21, 2020
The title alone would give it a 5 star rating, but luckily the short essays contained within back the claim up. Excellent read.
June 26, 2021
I am hugely biased.
December 17, 2022
I'm not sure what I was expecting.
March 24, 2023
the writer’s so me… like she put all my sentiments about tv into words.
July 18, 2026
I don't know who needs to hear this, but the title is a joke. This book is mostly humor, a love letter to the "boob tube" - TV DOES NOT MAKE YOU SMARTER.
December 28, 2020
TV is a lot better now than it has ever been, and there is no longer any argument that it's not worth time and intelligent consideration. Shoemaker ably demonstrates how TV is valuable, and how to get value out of it, in this collection of short essays. (A possible drawback of the book is how many shows it will add to your must-watch list.)
This is a tiny book. I guess that could be read as an indictment of the weight of the author's argument, or of the expected reading ability of the audience, but you won't hear that from me. I love television, and have since we got our first one when I was eight. My family was insular, a super-nuclear family, so TV and books were my only windows into the lives and thoughts of other people. Since then I've used TV to escape, to connect, to learn, to inspire. TV shows have changed my life. I guess that's not part of the book review, but there it is.
This is a tiny book. I guess that could be read as an indictment of the weight of the author's argument, or of the expected reading ability of the audience, but you won't hear that from me. I love television, and have since we got our first one when I was eight. My family was insular, a super-nuclear family, so TV and books were my only windows into the lives and thoughts of other people. Since then I've used TV to escape, to connect, to learn, to inspire. TV shows have changed my life. I guess that's not part of the book review, but there it is.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews