Everything Bad Is Good For You (2006) - Plot & Excerpts
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 social connections, these texts leave out information that we have to figure out, and they rely on delayed gratification, and we have to figure out the rules of the game/text because they aren't told to us explicitly. Johnson shows that IQ tests scores have been improving over the last few decades, and while it's problematic to compare IQ tests across cultures, races, and locations (because the tests probably are biased), it's not as problematic to compare them across generations. (He readily admits that IQ tests don't actually test all of our mental capacities, but rather serve as an indicator that at least gives us some data.)I think Johnson provides some pretty good nuance to his book and gives some pretty strong evidence for his case. A lot of the first half of the book reads like James Paul Gee's What Video Games Can Teach Us about Learning and Literacy, though without the methodological explanation and some of the depth. Additionally, Johnson is clear to explain that he's not advocating quitting reading books, and that books do provide a kind of intellectual work unique to them. He's less likely to see declined book reading as a threat to culture, because he notes that all sorts of activities are in decline (television viewing, movie going, etc.). Also, he's not advocating playing video games 24/7, and he cautions that his book is not about the effects of texts' contents (e.g., violence, sexism, etc.). He argues that "[t]he work of the critic, in this instance, is to diagram those forces [neurological appetites, economics of culture industry, changing technological platforms], not decode them" (10). Overall, this is a pretty good read and makes a convincing case. I am inclined to agree with him, though I do wonder more about the economic effects of all of this, and who benefits and who is left out of his narrative. Johnson, defending himself against critiques of his book that he is supporting capitalism, notes that some of the effects of gaming culture have been to question capitalist notions of private property, and also states that he sees himself as "much more of a technological determinist than an economic determinist." He doesn't want to ask "What is capitalism doing to our minds? Rather, the question is: What is the reigning technological paradigm — combined with both market and public-sector forces — doing to our minds?" (205). While I don't see myself as much of a determinist, I do think there is much to be said of the economic consequences (who is getting rich, and who is "feeding" those that get rich). Additionally, what does it much matter if we are getting cognitively smarter when most those energies are focused on perpetuating a capitalist system? Okay, that's cynical. It matters. But, from my vantage point, systems analysis needs to be coupled with an imagination for what's outside the system: what other worlds are possible, and how can they be achieved? Perhaps this is best left to follow up work to Johnson's text.
i knew someone who read this a while back, and her description of the book made it sound idiotic to me (although she was in love with it). last year i read and fell in love with johnson's book the ghost map, an engagingly narrated work about the soho cholera epidemic. i couldn't believe that the guy who wrote that book had also written this one. when i found it on remainder for $3 last week, i decided to give it a go. i'll start by saying that this is a quick read and well-written. i find myself sometimes wanting to agree with johnson and sometimes liking his points. the basic problem with this book is inherent in the title: johnson relies entirely too heavily on the good vs bad paradigm. it's too simplistic. he's criticizing others for blanketly calling pop culture "bad," but he's guilty of the same gross oversimplification in calling tv shows and video games "good." i can agree with many of his statements about the increasing level of complexity in american entertainment and i can even agree that much pop culture media engages a person's mental faculties in innovative and worthwhile ways. however, just saying that the stuff that's "bad" now is better than what was "bad" thirty years ago doesn't make the "bad" stuff "good." the willful ignoring of shades of gray is exactly the problem with most media critics (also, with most journalists), including johnson. the other big problem with his theory is that it only works for his own, and perhaps the preceding, generation. to say that older forms of entertainment have somehow "trained" people to grasp today's more complex and rewarding entertainment is to ignore the fact that large swaths of pop culture consumers have little to zero experience with earlier forms. honestly, how many people who are currently in high school or college have any significant exposure to dragnet? dragnet did not somehow prepare these people to follow the sopranos. unless he's trying to argue that this training is somehow genetically passed down, the argument is nonsensical in terms of the general american populace. johnson also misses what, to me, seems a prime opportunity. in the introduction, he cites the recent national endowment for the arts study (which i like to personally call the doom and gloom study) that purports that reading for pleasure is on a sharp decline in the american adult population. johnson brings up the study without bothering to follow through with the pop culture implications of it, specifically that the study did not include such materials as graphic novels or magazines (among other categories) in the survey and also excluded any reading that might be done for job or school related purposes. you'd think johnson would hop on the chance to harp on how the definition of "reading," particularly of "reading for pleasure," has been twisted by the nea in order to exclude much of what people, and often highly educated people at that, might choose to spend their leisure hours enjoying. i'm glad to be reading it but that i'm highly disappointed in johnson's reliance on hyperbole and the gaping holes he leaves in his theories. for all that, though, the way that he's thinking about pop culture is relevant and, i think, a positive direction for sociological and cultural studies. i would love to see a more comprehensive analyst pick up his ideas and take them to the next level. and it's certainly a book that's made me think and engaged me, which earns an extra star.
What do You think about Everything Bad Is Good For You (2006)?
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" and "those damn video games" are actually more of a brain workout than most critics are willing to give them credit for...I like some of his arguments (which are too in-depth and numerous to summarize here), although there are times when the logic gets a bit patchy and I just don't buy it. That said, I can't wait to tell Mom and Dad that all those years of sitting at the computer, eyes glazed, playing Commander Keen Episode IV: Aliens Ate My Babysitter would actually improve my set of problem-solving skills and exercise areas of my brain I didn't even know I had.Time to go see what's on TV.
—Elise
A refreshing thesis and a convincingly told story, paired with a healthy dose of cultural and psychological optimism. This would ordinarily have gotten four stars from me, but I give it five to cancel the silly deluge of very bad reviews based on sciencey catchphrasing and moral bias.Yes, "correlation is not causation", thanks for the cliché, but Johnson doesn't really claim to have good evidence. In fact, he says quite clearly that he could have made the argument, as his evil twins on the other side have done repeatedly, purely ad hoc and without any data to back it at all, but chose not to in order to encourage research being started. And I wholeheartedly agree that too little is done to counter the insulting arguments cropping up every time somebody does something bad and has played a computer game before doing it.Of course it is entirely possible, likely even, that the Flynn effect of rising average IQs is caused by a number of other things, and that the complexity of entertainment has risen along with the rising demand of audience brains for quality input. But Johnson has compelling arguments for technological changes causing more complex content (mainly the repeatability mechanism in all its forms), and repeated exposure to challenging content trains cognition. Evidence or no, this is hard to dismiss.But the most important contribution, I feel, is the shift of perspective, viewing popular culture not as a poison, but as something worthy of study, an under appreciated form of cultural expression, and wholly inadequate straw man for the need for condescension some cultural factions seem to feel.
—Kai Schreiber
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 does not muster enough evidence to prove that today's games and television shows help one's mind; and yet, in his defense, there doesn't seem to be enough evidence proving him wrong. Either way, Everything Bad Is Good for You is a creative, flawed look at a society where the term "reality" refers to television rather than, um, reality.This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.
—Bookmarks Magazine
