Book review
Everything Bad Is Good for You
Computer games, TV, internet and iPods
make us smarter!
Riverhead Hardcover, 2005
Author: Steven Johnson
What an interesting idea, right or wrong. Could it
be that all this angst over kids playing computer games, spending
hours on the internet, watching TV and listening to their iPods,
is actually good for them? Johnson has already scored a hit with
his excellent book Emergence and this time he's got a fabulous debate
going.
We have assumed that mass market media have dumbed-down
television and entertainment, spoiling any attempt to teach our
kids anything meaningful. "In fact, the exact opposite is happening:
the culture is getting more intellectually demanding, not less,"
says Johnson.
His big idea is the 'Sleeper Curve', a theme borrowed
from Woody Allen. How post-modern is that? The Sleeper Curve is
a long-term trend that sees popular culture, not as dumbing-down,
but smartening-up. It's become complex and cognitively challenging.
In short, popular culture is making us smarter, an idea both simple
and astonishing.
Firstly, IQ scores in developed nations have been
steadily rising. In fact they've getting better, faster, rising
at an annual rate of 0.31 points since 1993, in the 1990s, accelerating
up to 0.36 points. These rises and accelerations coincide with the
rise of popular media.
Secondly, these complex systems, especially games
and the internet, but also mobile phones and other consumer devices
and services, teach our children vital skills in understanding complex
systems (systems analysis), probability, spatial geometry, and strategic
thinking. Try playing any newly released computer game and you'll
get the point.
Thirdly, multi-layered narratives in TV shows such
as 24 or The Sopranos have made us all sophisticated media students.
Our skills in handling threaded narratives have moved way beyond
those we possessed in the early days of film and television. Take
'24'. In a one hour episode we connect the lives of 21 characters,
each with a defined ''story arc''. There's also nine primary narrative
threads, each drawing upon events and information revealed in earlier
episodes. We simply look at TV through rose-tinted glasses (remember
The Love Boat). We've moved way beyond the simple, single storylines
of, for example, Starsky and Hutch and Johnson's point is that more
does mean better. We already have great examples of this on TV with
Twin Peaks, N.Y.P.D. Blue, E.R., The West Wing, 24, The Sopranos
etc.
Reality TV is also praised in having taken key elements
from games, and put the viewer into the position of examining the
psychology of human interaction in unpredictable environments. We
are now active participants and social observers of psychology,
leadership and human interactions.
If anything, he doesn't take the arguments far enough.
By relying too much on TV, he relies on passive, lean-back media.
The stronger evidence actually comes from games, the internet and
other lean-forward media and devices. This is where the true cognitive
acceleration takes place. It's the internet, games console, email,
messenger, texting generation that are seeing the true accelerated
benefits of technology. He also misses some big themes such as timeshifting,
and true knowledge acquisition. It's a short book, but the internet
is greatly underplayed.
This book puts forward the idea that e-learning in
a very wide sense is already at work on the minds of our children.
As digital natives to our digital immigrants, they are benefiting
from technology driven improvement without having to try too hard.
The future of learning may well be in the hands of a fruitful combination
of technology, entertainment and learning.
Of course, the backlash is predictable. Every generation
sees its own era as being intellectually superior to the present.
We all look back to our own 'golden ages' of television and film.
But my generation can't look back to a 'golden age' of computer
games, internet and mobiles - they didn't exist!
Whatever your views, this book should set your dinner
parties and pub conversations on fire.
top
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