Everything Bad is Good for You!

The book Everything bad is good for you, by Steven Johnson is “an old fashioned work of persuasion that ultimately aims to convince you of one thing: that popular culture has, on average, grown more complex and intellectually challenging over the past thirty years” (Johnson, xxii). In this book, Johnson discusses what he refers to as the sleeper curve. This notion was taken from a Woody Allen film where scientist failed to discover the nutritional value of “junk food”. Johnson believes that many of popular culture critics today are mistaken and that television shows, video games and other forms of popular culture are actually making us smarter.
In a portion of his book, Johnson discusses the significance of video games. He counters the point made by Dr. Spock that video games are a waste of time and at best only promote hand eye coordination. Johnson argues that video games improve visual intelligence as well as manual dexterity. The interactive nature of video games demands a high ability in wise decision making and complete concentration and focus. Johnson may be completely correct in his assumptions about video games. There are plenty of scientists that feel studying video gamers will prove that games do have a positive impact on cognitive abilities. “There's a lot of ignorance about gaming, but overseas research in the area is now gaining recognition at the highest level. In the US, Harvard and MIT are doing similar studies” (www.unitech.az.nz). He also argues that although video games are not making kids today less intelligent, he does not deny the benefit of reading or engaging in other activities. Johnson also mentions the argument that television is lowering our intellectual levels.
Johnson discusses how television today has become very complex. He talks about the different types of television shows and movies available today. Today in television there is a huge use of multiple story lines in one show. Viewers are forced to get to know characters and their ties to other characters and events within the shows. Viewers must also analyze plots and storylines to gain the full effect of the shows and understand the message being relayed to them. Here is where television is requiring us to think more and to “read between the lines”. DVD’s, Tivo, and On Demand can help those watching shows to gain the perspective needed to follow the story, just by allowing the viewer the opportunity to review a television show more than once. Johnson argues that viewers of shows like West Wing and Lost “no longer require training wheels, because twenty five years of increasingly complex television has honed their analytic skills” (Johnson, 77).
He also touches on the internet as an extremely valuable instrument for social networking and information retrieval. Johnson reviews the idea of intelligence testing in his book. He feels that these tests are not completely valid and do not measure fully, all areas of intelligence. He argues that many factors of intelligence are left out of these tests.
I am not sure if I can completely agree with Johnson’s arguments. Sure he has some valid ideas about the increase in complexity of television and that video games offer more than just an exercise for hand-eye coordination. But something just doesn’t sit right with me. Maybe it’s the fact that Johnson argues against content being important. Content is very important in my point of view. Much of the point of popular culture is to absorb the content. You don’t learn anything unless you analyze all aspects of the form of popular culture. “A content analysis is a more quantitative approach that broadly surveys things like how many instances of violence occur on a typical evening of prime time TV viewing, or how many Asian American women appear in a day’s worth of TV commercials. This information, especially when linked to more qualitative kinds of analysis, can be very valuable in moving beyond the analyst’s somewhat subjective observations” (www.wsu.edu).

http://www.wsu.edu/~amerstu/pop/text.html
http://www.unitec.ac.nz/?1A61532B-FED5-4C57-85C3-60163A08462F