Forget everything you've read about the age of dumbed-down, instant-gratification culture. In this provocative, intelligent, and convincing endorse...
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Dec 16, 2009
Isaiah
rated it: 
This book makes the following its central thesis:
Because popular media (TV, video games, movies, etc.) are becoming more complex, and requiring more cognitive work to process them, they are making us smarter. This is the so-called "sleeper curve."
The logic of this argument is identical to the claim, "market heroin is steadily growing in purity, therefore heroin is good for us." HOW DOES ANYONE BELIEVE THIS RUBBISH? It wouldn't have anything to do with the fa More...
Because popular media (TV, video games, movies, etc.) are becoming more complex, and requiring more cognitive work to process them, they are making us smarter. This is the so-called "sleeper curve."
The logic of this argument is identical to the claim, "market heroin is steadily growing in purity, therefore heroin is good for us." HOW DOES ANYONE BELIEVE THIS RUBBISH? It wouldn't have anything to do with the fa More...
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Jul 16, 2010
Michael
rated it: 
Despite the critical readers on here giving this book one star for not, you know, being RELIABLE, I'm going with four. I'm rating it based on what I usually rate books on: entertainment value.
That said, the logic here is severely shitty. Thesis: modern films, television, and other technologies are more complex than they used to be. People nowadays have slightly higher IQs on average than they used to have. Therefore, modern media is making people smarter.
This is f More...
That said, the logic here is severely shitty. Thesis: modern films, television, and other technologies are more complex than they used to be. People nowadays have slightly higher IQs on average than they used to have. Therefore, modern media is making people smarter.
This is f More...
18 comments
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Dec 16, 2008
Michael
rated it: 
In Everything Bad is Good for You, Johnson attempts to de-bunk the popular narrative that the culture industry is making us stupider, by feeding us more and more banal television shows, video games, and movies. He argues for understanding a Sleeper Curve in popular culture that is actually making texts more complicated over time. That is, many video games, television shows, Internet sites, and movies are making us smarter by challenging out mental faculties: we have to make more mental and socia
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4 comments
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(2 people liked it)
Sep 29, 2010
Richard
rated it: 
Sept 2010 update below.
Excellent book. Not a convincing argument, but a very refreshing and provocative contrarian perspective.
Johnson provides evidence that much of our mass entertainment, even the stuff we often shudder at, is gradually pushing the IQs of its consumers steadily up. He focuses our attention on aspects of television -- including reality TV!, video games, and much else in this effort.
Two things are crucial to note, though.
First, Joh More...
Excellent book. Not a convincing argument, but a very refreshing and provocative contrarian perspective.
Johnson provides evidence that much of our mass entertainment, even the stuff we often shudder at, is gradually pushing the IQs of its consumers steadily up. He focuses our attention on aspects of television -- including reality TV!, video games, and much else in this effort.
Two things are crucial to note, though.
First, Joh More...
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Dec 10, 2007
Arlynda
rated it:
This book is so poorly written that I don't know where to begin. By the end of the introduction, Steven Johnson has already told us that he doesn't care about morals, and apparently neither should we. Well, I do. Knowledge with out serious thought about the implications of misuse of such knowledge is worse than ignorance. I think that nuclear technology is amazing, but I don't think that we should make bombs out of it and use them. Morals helps us to decide how to use technology. I think t
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(3 people liked it)
Dec 19, 2007
Tracey
rated it:
First heard about this on NPR's Morning Edition in May; then Johnson appeared on The Daily Show early in June. I'd read his Mind Wide Open a month or two ago & really enjoyed it, so I put this book on hold at the library.
Johnson's basic theory is that popular culture has gotten more complex and challenging over the last few decades, and our consumption of such has assisted us with problem solving and dealing with complex relationships, referring to this as the Sleeper Curve. He also More...
Johnson's basic theory is that popular culture has gotten more complex and challenging over the last few decades, and our consumption of such has assisted us with problem solving and dealing with complex relationships, referring to this as the Sleeper Curve. He also More...
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Jul 29, 2007
Elise
rated it: 
What's nice about Steven Johnson's Everything Bad Is Good For You is that you can finish it in several short sittings. Three cheers for that. The book is quick and succinct, an easy but thoughtful and though-provoking read.
Johnson argues that over the last three decades, popular culture has become more complex, sophisticated and challenging, in spite of everybody's eagerness to dub it "lowbrow fluff." That is, for all the crap they get, programs on "the idiot box" More...
Johnson argues that over the last three decades, popular culture has become more complex, sophisticated and challenging, in spite of everybody's eagerness to dub it "lowbrow fluff." That is, for all the crap they get, programs on "the idiot box" More...
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Jun 04, 2007
Ryan
rated it:
i wanted to throw this book against a wall, many, many times while reading it.
my main problem with the book is the lack of data to support the hypothesis that johnson argues. if it were simply a polemic arguing that media has become more complex, and that complexity warrants closer inspection and not dismissal, i'd forgive it.
however, johnson begins the book by admitting that he isn't a scientist and then goes on to try to support his claims with scientific data. i'm not More...
my main problem with the book is the lack of data to support the hypothesis that johnson argues. if it were simply a polemic arguing that media has become more complex, and that complexity warrants closer inspection and not dismissal, i'd forgive it.
however, johnson begins the book by admitting that he isn't a scientist and then goes on to try to support his claims with scientific data. i'm not More...
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Jul 31, 2011
Jennifer
rated it:
A little bit repetitive and somewhat simplistic, but an interesting idea to explore the complexity of popular culture and how it compares to television, videogames, and other distracting entertainment technology. Johnson's basic argument is that popular culture today requires more from its audience-more mental involvement, whether it is making decisions in a highly complicated video adventure game, or arguing the pros and cons of keeping particular reality show characters on the island / on the
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Oct 08, 2008
Lindsay
rated it:
I found Johnson's argument that pop culture has become more complex to be interesting, even compelling. I'm still not sure I completely agree with him, but if nothing else it gave me a little more respect for video games and the people who play them. One thing that did bother me (and perhaps it's because I've been spending a lot of time lately reminding students to evaluate their information sources) is that I didn't get a good sense of Johnson's credentials. Based on some of the things he menti
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Dec 08, 2008
Ruby
rated it:
(Social Commentary)—Everyone knows how captivating popular technology is--it sucks you right in and can chew up vast amounts of your time. In the midst of our addiction, we all intuitively believe that this is a bad thing. Johnson believes otherwise. He argues convincingly that modern computer gaming and television programming actually challenge us intellectually in a way that improves our capability to navigate a complicated world. He is willingly to concede however that while we may be gett
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Sep 27, 2011
Patrick
rated it:
I have to say that Steven Johnson, author of Everything Bad For You Is Good For You, is a persuasive individual. He starts off by identifying the “Sleeper Curve”-which is how in the Woody Allen film, of the same name, things that were thought to be bad, deep fat, steak, cream pies, and hot fudge in the future are good. I never thought that I would budge from the position that there is nothing redeeming about computer games, but Johnson has shown that the role playing games in particular require
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Sep 21, 2011
nice try, but i still am not convinced that being parked in front of an electric monitor is healthy. Yes, he does have a point that we are forced to learn more to deal with this brave new electronic world, but some of us already have interests that have little to do with that field of expertise, and it is more than a little annoying to be forced to put time and energy into these activities to function in the daily world, when we already HAVE agendas and projects we want to give our 100% attentio
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Aug 07, 2011
Ron
rated it:
A blurb from Malcolm Gladwell promises shallow analysis and pseudo-intellectual posturing, and Johnson doesn't disappoint. His failure is a stated desire to diagram and not decode, which closes his argument to qualitative judgement. Like Gladwell, Johnson dresses up old concepts like subliminal forms (Sleeper Curve and Collateral Learning) and exploration and foresight (probing and telescoping) in pretty new clothes to appear to offer new insight, instead stretching the limits of credibility in
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Jul 31, 2011
Michael
rated it:
Very good book, written from the perspective of a teenaged gamer made good.
Johnson played games as a kid, baseball strategy games, as well as Dungeons and Dragons, and one can detect a certain bias in his outlook. However, his statistical references and footnotes make this book a scholarly look at popular culture - in particular movies, TV and videogames - and is a nice refutation of the "our culture is going into the toilet" crowd.
Johnson argues - to me, convincingly - that even thoug More...
Johnson played games as a kid, baseball strategy games, as well as Dungeons and Dragons, and one can detect a certain bias in his outlook. However, his statistical references and footnotes make this book a scholarly look at popular culture - in particular movies, TV and videogames - and is a nice refutation of the "our culture is going into the toilet" crowd.
Johnson argues - to me, convincingly - that even thoug More...
May 15, 2011
Ed Wagemann
rated it:
If everything bad is actually good for you, like the title of Steve Johnson’s study of pop culture suggests, then his book must be the best thing since penicillin. In attempting to make the argument that pop culture is actually making mankind smarter, Johnson is guilty of huge lapses in logic which stems from a very limited view of reality that pretty much totally misses the point on almost every level. Even the one tool of pop culture that actually is improving mankind, that being the interne
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(2 people liked it)
Feb 27, 2011
Michael
rated it:
The trend of publishing idea books (books that argue in favor of a central, seemingly narrow, thesis) has grown in the past decade, from Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point (and others) to Cheap Heath's Made to Stick to Nassim Taleb's The Black Swan to James Surowiecki's The Wisdom of Crowds. Besides structure, they all have in common the ability to raise discussion about the idea they champion. (This may stem from their rather poor academic standard and their mostly qualitative rather than qua
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Dec 26, 2010
Pikachu
rated it:
This book has a very interesting premise, which is that all those things condemned by the media--the boob tube, internet, video games--might not actually be as bad for us as we're led to think. In fact, if you buy Johnson's logic, they might actually be GOOD for you.
However, I don't really buy Johnson's logic. As a Psychology major, I'm pretty familiar with most of the studies he cites in his book. And he succumbs to a temptation many amateurs do: ascribing causation to correlations. More...
However, I don't really buy Johnson's logic. As a Psychology major, I'm pretty familiar with most of the studies he cites in his book. And he succumbs to a temptation many amateurs do: ascribing causation to correlations. More...
Feb 23, 2010
Jessica
rated it:
Johnson discusses the background and implications of what he calls "The Sleeper Curve" or the positive cognitive impact popular media has on the mass culture. In a nutshell, he relates how today's video games, television, and movies, are created with the expectations that players/viewers will be active participants parsing out relevant details, organizing the social networks in their own minds, and taking advantage of syndication, TiVo, etc. to watch episodes over and over (calling for
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Jul 23, 2009
Daniel
rated it:
Ironically, this was a difficult read. Not because the theme is hard to digest, or because Johnson's diction is criminally elevated (neither of those are true), but because I couldn't really decide whether I believed him.
The crux of Johnson's argument relies on the increasing complexity with which our popular culture is deliberately built, a complexity which forces its audience to multi-task, follow and understand multiple narrative threads, all the while developing advanced cogniti More...
The crux of Johnson's argument relies on the increasing complexity with which our popular culture is deliberately built, a complexity which forces its audience to multi-task, follow and understand multiple narrative threads, all the while developing advanced cogniti More...
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May 17, 2009
Yune
rated it:
I don't own a TV, and spent most of my life oblivious to the most popular TV shows. (I'm told I'm missing out on millions of Seinfeld references.) It's unsurprising that the friend who is introducing me to a few shows recommended this book. It actually made me feel better about starting to watch television.
Johnson starts by talking about video games, and how common perception is that kids are wasting their time on it. But he points out that much of playing video games is spent be More...
Johnson starts by talking about video games, and how common perception is that kids are wasting their time on it. But he points out that much of playing video games is spent be More...
Apr 12, 2009
Eric_W
rated it:
Johnson has written several books on science and technology and his analyses are provocative. He suggests that television has evolved from shows that are essentially linear, with few characters and a simple story line, to shows like "The Sopranos" in which a single show would encompass multiple narrative threads and characters who move in and out of the plot, often with little explanation, requiring the viewer to do a lot of "filling in." Television now forces an engagement o
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Apr 05, 2011
Julie
rated it:
I give up. I was interested in reading this book because I love pop culture. I was expecting something lively, fun, and interesting, and what I got was a book that's boring, repetitive, and based entirely on conjecture.
Johnson's thesis is that since games and TV shows have become more complicated over the years, they require more of the audience's attention and thus make them smarter. That's the entire book. (I skipped ahead a little bit.)
I knew he'd lost me in the forward wh More...
Johnson's thesis is that since games and TV shows have become more complicated over the years, they require more of the audience's attention and thus make them smarter. That's the entire book. (I skipped ahead a little bit.)
I knew he'd lost me in the forward wh More...
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Jul 19, 2009
Olivia
rated it:
This book starts with attacking the popular notion that pop culture represented by games, TV, movies are bad for society, especially children. From my opinion, this book achieves to counterattack that notion by showing the complexity of pop culture stimulates learning. For example, children can learn how to organize a city in a fun way, not in a boring class session. I have to admit that this book opens up my mind in that part.
However this book fails to reason why violence in games, More...
However this book fails to reason why violence in games, More...
Feb 05, 2009
Though the research behind Johnson's theories proves interesting, most critics found a few quirks in the construction of its delivery. Driven by a fervent desire to prove that today's media are more beneficial to the human mind than they are damaging, Johnson, author of several books on science and technology (see Mind Wide Open, **** May/June 2004), fails to adequately define his agenda other than showcasing his research. Though his prose is captivating and his enthusiasm infectious, Johnson do
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May 25, 2010
Lauren
rated it:
Compelling thesis and while there isn't a lot of data presented to back up his claims, I believed that it was all very plausible that some elements of popular culture are actually making people smarter. Smarter vs. more evolved - there's the rub. He made a pretty strong case for problem-solving skills (classic case of the whiz kid who fixes all the gadgets in the house or programs all the electronics while the parents are left scratching their heads...) citing the Flynn Effect numbers as a mir
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Oct 08, 2010
David
rated it:
The book that inspired me to join goodreads. This book inspired both hope and despair in me. Hope because it means the bar has been lowered for what gets published meaning it'll be that much easier to fulfill my dream of paying off student loans by writing a book. Despair because it was pure tripe and I'm concerned someone might actually take it seriously. I would say that he pulled most of this out of his a** except that he was so good at referencing actual research and then COMPLETELY MISSING
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Sep 16, 2010
Greg
rated it:
Correlation and causation; there's a difference, and the author doesn't understand it.
A sensational thesis opens the discussion: those once-dismissed hours spent playing video games watching reality TV are actually making you smarter!
Sounds too good to be true, right? That depends if you buy the author's argument: the average IQ has continued to rise over the past 30 years due to more intellectually demanding media, i.e., more complex video games, film, and television. More...
A sensational thesis opens the discussion: those once-dismissed hours spent playing video games watching reality TV are actually making you smarter!
Sounds too good to be true, right? That depends if you buy the author's argument: the average IQ has continued to rise over the past 30 years due to more intellectually demanding media, i.e., more complex video games, film, and television. More...
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May 11, 2009
Becky
rated it:
Johnson is a man on a mission. He selectively cites a few theorists to push his view that popular culture has become increasingly more complex over the past 30 years and that this shift from books and simple television shows to complex video games, film, television, and internet media is the reason for increases in IQ scores across the same time span. Insisting that he believes children should be taught to love books from an early age and that he is not disparaging print media, he essentially re
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Jul 01, 2009
Mehrsa
rated it:
I think if the author would have stuck to his narrow thesis, this book could have been a tight and convincing argument, but he unjustifiably broadens it and weakens his argument. The narrow thesis, "the sleeper curve" argues that popular culture has gotten slowly smarter. TV shows give us less clues, demand more of our attention, and ask us to remember things from prior episodes, seasons, and even to incorporate popular events. Video games have become much more complex and demanding an
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