TV is Good for You According to Steven Johnson’ s New Book Everything Bad Is Good For You: How Today’s Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter
Video games, television, the internet, all of these things, according to legendary author, Steven Johnson, are good for kids. In his novel, Everything Bad Is Good For You: How Today’s Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter he discusses how popular culture, specifically movies, television, and video games, have grown in complexity through the years and is making the consumers smarter.
II. Abstract
In the realm of today’s video games, they are filled with complicated problems to solve, and new and exciting places to explore. These new advances in popular video games help teach the consumers valuable critical thinking skills. Johnson asks the reader to flip the cycle, what if books became the new video game? Critics would then have the same problem with books – which are to be less stimulating than video games. Video games, according to Johnson, help players cope with issues such as decision making, problem solving, and cooperating with others (more applicable to strategic and multi player games). The complexity in video games has increased to the point where the average Joe would need to read the “Player’s Guide” in order to play the game correctly.
To show that video games have increased in complexity through the years, consider the highly acclaimed video game, ESPN Baseball. The old video games consisted of picking a team, setting up the roasters, and playing ball. In today’s complex world, players are able to manage, own, and play for a team of their choice. They have the ability to play in Manager and Owner Modes, where they oversee the financial aspects, and general mood of the players. Johnson refers to this phenomenon as “telescopic thinking”, where the consumer is learning new skills and thinking at the same time. Another realistic example is the classic arcade game, PacMan, the goal is to eat the goods, avoid the monsters, and eat the strawberries. This is true of real life, you want to make money, avoid your enemies, and eat the fruit you earned.
Television, it has been around since the 1970s, and has changed dramatically through the years. The conceptions of television have gotten worse through time, but, according to Johnson, television has improved. He refers to The Bill Cosby Show as an example of a show that is formulaic and typical of the time period. Television shows throughout the years have become more complex, Johnson uses several innate graphs to illustrate the concept. Johnson compares Dallas to 24; in contrast the graph of 24 was much more complex, having multiple plots, almost reading like a book. Even in the past few years Reality TV has became one of the most popular genres of television, and are undoubtedly more complex than a game show such as The Price is Right.
The complexity of television dramas has increased through the years as well; Johnson makes a few very clear comparisons, which allows the reader to trace the complexity. Dragnet was the first show to have only one plot. Starsky and Hutch had a subplot per episode, usually in the form of a joke. Hill Street Blues had many plots per episode, perhaps more than ten. Lastly, the Sopranos had about ten plots per episode, but built off of previous episodes.
Johnson points out those innovations such as the VCR, Personal Video Recorders, and TiVo, have changed the way viewers watch their television. One may repeat a single episode of Law and Order, or Alias, and watch it many times. He refers to the video, Finding Nemo, where he and his children watch it repeatedly, looking for new surprises. Not to mention the fascination over DVD Box Sets of shows such as Law and Order, Seinfeld, and Friends.
With the emergence of the internet, an entire would open up, full of complexities and complications. According to Johnson the internet is valuable for several reasons, first, the general nature of the computer, one must click, type, or point to something, and it forces the end user to become an active participant. The internet forces people to learn new software, and lastly, enables users to socialize on a different level.
Movies have undergone some of the same changes that the realm of television has. Johnson compares the number of characters in the Lord of the Rings trilogy to that of the Star Wars trilogy. Johnson discusses the new form of sub-genre in which he calls “mind benders” and as an example he uses the movie Being John Malcovich.
With several television shows, video games, and even movies offering walk-through commentary and through the means of websites, internet journals, and blogs, no wonder these shows have grown in complexity. With changing times, there is more incentive for producers to place “Easter eggs” that can only be found by watching the episode several times.
III. Analysis
In analyzing Johnson’s statements, ideas, viewpoints, and blunt statements, he makes several “decent” arguments, and several “poor” arguments. When he discusses movies and the internet, those sections seem to be “added on” after he wrote the sections on video games and television. The book would be better without those sections, and to perhaps elaborate on the key subjects, video games and television.
The second half of the novel seemed to be very radical. Johnson failed to provide enough hard evidence to convey his belief that our IQ has increased with the increased complexities in movies, video games, the internet, and television. He failed to address such issues surrounding intelligence and IQ as genetics, the environment in which one lives in, and nutrition of oneself.
Addiction is a very important subject when it comes to video games and television. Johnson failed to consider the fact that these games could be addicting, releasing chemicals into the body, causing negative effects. These effects can include obesity, sleep deprivation, poor academic and job performance, and the possibility for someone to become depressed or unsocial due to video games. There are a list of medical concerns, most children who are obese watch more television and play more video games than the average person, due to the inability to play athletic sports.
As a counter argument, games do have positive effects on our society. Many games try and tell us the norms of society, reminding us of these values. Many games entail buying items (supporting the economy), making real life decisions, and problem solving. Not all games are like Grand Theft Auto, as it is indeed difficult to find something positive about that game, if one is taking it literally.
It is hard to agree with Johnson when it comes to television and news reporting when most television stations spend their time entertaining us rather than informing its viewers of newsworthy information. As with the news, if television is supposed to make us smarter, why is it that there are very few shows that deal with morals, politics, our health, and society? Are we supposed to believe everything is normal and fine if television tells us it is? When in fact there are numerous things that are “not fine” but the networks choose to ignore because it adds more work for them?
Video games and television had a very important impact on my personal life, being born blind, and eventually being able to see (80\90), video games allowed me to practice reading from far away as a child, because of the television screen being so large. The video game system has allowed for me, as a child, to practice hand-eye coordination by playing games such as Tetris. Although the console helped me when I was younger, it did not teach me any intelligence, simply skills any normal kid already had.
IV. Conclusion
Steven Johnson’s book has provided a light, fluffy, and perhaps loose analysis and summary of the issues discussed in the book. There was not an abundance of evidence to back up his accusations. There was a lack of statistical information, and he failed to provide both sides of the argument. He only discussed what he believes, and does not provide the reader with counter arguments. In the end, it is not believable that by playing video games, watching television, and surfing the internet will make you smarter and increase your intelligence and IQ score.
