The Naïve Power of Television: David Foster Wallace Between Boredom and Entertainment

The aim of this paper is to show the importance television has got in American culture. To this extent, I will discuss the analysis proposed by the American writer and philosopher David Foster Wallace, considering the years between 1985 and 1990. In this period, in fact, he examined the impact of TV on people’s lives, underlining how this technology effectively affects language and human relations. I shall argue through the process of recognition activated by literature, it is possible to reach a shared dimension thanks to which individual may feel less alone and engaged ones to each other. Instead, TV contributes only to enlarging the feeling of loneliness and incommunicability.