Everything Bad is Good for You

I just finsihed an interesting book called Everything Bad Is Good For You. The subtitle is How Today's Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter. Interesting, not phenomenal. It was quite a "heady" book - lots of psychology, media theory and neuroscience involved, so at times it was tough to stay with the train of thought.

Anyway, the author's premise (Steven Johnson) is that over the last 20-30 years (and especially in the last 10), popular culture has actually been developing our brains and making us smarter. Contrary to the popular thought that mass media will always gravitate to the lowest form of intellect, and head us all in an increasingly downward spiral.

He calls this upward trend the "Sleeper Curve". The Sleeper Curve basically suggests that popular culture (and he is looking at all forms of media and entertainment) is becoming more and more complex, thus demanding greater cognitive abilities to follow it and to navigate the various and new interfaces.

Johnson argues that to truly evaluate what pop culture is doing to our brains, you cannot look at it from a moral perspective. And I would have to agree with this. If you put morality and ethics aside, the trend is definitely toward more complex ideas, and it is forcing us to learn at a greater rate. We are becoming smarter as a society in relation to complex decision making, complex systems, and understanding how to explore new interfaces. At the very end, Johnsons also makes a small argument for the idea that pop culture is not making us morally bankrupt either. He points to evidence that most of the "research" done that points to a morally downward trend is completely unreliable because it is based on too many assumptions. Again, I think he has a case there.

One thing that he does say is suffering in today's pop culture is the ability to stay with a sustained, long-term argument. He gives the example that contrary to popular belief we are actually becoming a more text-based culture (emails, blogs, chat rooms, etc.), but that these texts come in short bursts. Whereas a sustained argument (like the book he is writing) is beginning to suffer in this reality. To counter this, he calls for a balanced approach between all forms of media that interest you (gaming, TV, film, print, etc.).

So, if you want a complex read, check it out.

J