Everything Bad Is Good For You
BusinessWeek has a review of Steven Johnson's Everything Bad Is Good For You, that makes me want to pick the book up, should I find it cheap at the local used book store (I refuse to pay full price for books anymore). The book proposes that as culture has grown more complex over time, we have had to cope -- and the coping, especially with today's pop culture, is actually making us smarter. Why? Pop culture challenges our minds in "new and productive ways." From television, movies, video games and the internet -- culture consumers have had to deal with multi-threaded narrative that requires inference. The consumption of new media requires to become an active participant -- and exercises different parts of the brain. Johnson credits the new complexity in culture for the fact that our collective IQs have been increasing.
Steven Johnson also authors an article with a similar topic for the latest issue of Wired magazine. In the article, Johnson further assets that video games have played a big part in the rise of our collective IQs. I'm don't fully agree with this assertion -- especially the focus on video games -- and even the extension to pop culture. Yes, our environment has gotten more complex, and in response, our brains have adapted. But are we really smarter? Not necessarily. We've adapted well to our changing world, but that doesn't mean we have greater intelligence that those that came before us. We are good at digesting the sensory input of today, making sense of it and navigating the world before us. Our brains have learned to think in different ways -- but take us out of this environment and plop us into another -- just move a first world person to a third world country, without the amenities of the modern world, and you'd see how quickly the first world person that was nurtured on reality TV, Grand Theft Auto and Paris Hilton escapades, smoke their brains through their ears.
Steven Johnson also authors an article with a similar topic for the latest issue of Wired magazine. In the article, Johnson further assets that video games have played a big part in the rise of our collective IQs. I'm don't fully agree with this assertion -- especially the focus on video games -- and even the extension to pop culture. Yes, our environment has gotten more complex, and in response, our brains have adapted. But are we really smarter? Not necessarily. We've adapted well to our changing world, but that doesn't mean we have greater intelligence that those that came before us. We are good at digesting the sensory input of today, making sense of it and navigating the world before us. Our brains have learned to think in different ways -- but take us out of this environment and plop us into another -- just move a first world person to a third world country, without the amenities of the modern world, and you'd see how quickly the first world person that was nurtured on reality TV, Grand Theft Auto and Paris Hilton escapades, smoke their brains through their ears.
Comments
Post a Comment