Everything Bad is Good for You: How Today’s Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter
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From the New York Times bestselling author of How We Got To Now and Farsighted
Forget everything you’ve ever read about the age of dumbed-down, instant-gratification culture. In this provocative, unfailingly intelligent, thoroughly researched, and surprisingly convincing big idea book, Steven Johnson draws from fields as diverse as neuroscience, economics, and media theory to argue that the pop culture we soak in every day—from Lord of the Rings to Grand Theft Auto to The Simpsons—has been growing more sophisticated with each passing year, and, far from rotting our brains, is actually posing new cognitive challenges that are actually making our minds measurably sharper. After reading Everything Bad is Good for You, you will never regard the glow of the video game or television screen the same way again.
With a new afterword by the author.
Publisher : Riverhead Books; Reprint edition (May 2, 2006)
Language : English
Paperback : 254 pages
ISBN-10 : 1594481946
ISBN-13 : 978-1594481949
Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
Dimensions : 5.1 x 0.7 x 8 inches
Customers say
Customers find the book easy to read and enjoyable. They find the arguments interesting and enlightening, and the humor witty. The title is humorous and amusing.
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13 reviews for Everything Bad is Good for You: How Today’s Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter
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Original price was: $17.00.$12.82Current price is: $12.82.
Geraldo XEXEO –
This is good for you too
The writer’s style feels like a a conversation, where he tells about his ideas and some supportive research made by other persons. The lack of references in the text is compensated by a last chapter with comments about hte origin of the data he used to support his claims.This informal text is what makes the book an easy and enjoyable reading. However, as a scientific result, the book is not completely sound, since his conclusions are based only on what he think is happening and the supportive that is not necessarily correlated with his findings.Parents, researchers and educators will find the book provocative. Actually, it defends that beyond content, form is also important, and maybe more important when we are talking about the new media (basically TV and games).As a general reader, it is a very good book. As a position book, it really makes the author’s point of view. However, scientific oriented readers will feel something is missing.
Alli –
amusing and informative
The usual thought on popular culture is that its bad for your mind, that its a waste of time, and other negative preconceptions. This book goes through different parts of pop culture, including video games, TV, and the internet, and how they are good for your brain. Its an interesting and engaging read while also giving you a new side to pop culture you may not have thought about before.I had to read this for English class which usually turns me off of a book, but this one is so appealing that it keeps my full attention.
Gurudev –
Very good, but a bit thin
This book has a great concept behind it: the idea that all our modern pop culture isn’t destroying our minds, but rather making us smarter and teaching us problem solving and social skills.I found it to be pretty good, although not fantastic. The early parts in which Johnson describes his childhood experiences with baseball games and D&D closely mirrored my own, and I found myself pleasantly reminiscing about those days. I had no real disagreements with any of the arguments he put forth, and overall this book was a well-written and fun read.However, I was a little disappointed by the depth of it. Johnson goes through modern video gaming and reality TV, and although it’s all interesting stuff, I started to feel that he spent a lot of his time repeating myself. That is, he gave examples of the same ideas over and over. While all the examples were effective, it became a tad redundant, and by the end, I was wishing that the book was just denser and deeper, a heavier exploration. Of course, with this subject matter, perhaps it is self-limiting with regards to depth.It is a good book, but there’s just not enough to it to be totally satisfying. This would’ve probably been better a large essay in a compilation of futurist and modern thought papers. Still, it is a worthwhile read.
Byron –
NOT QUITE
Johnson is spot on about computer and video games and how they are fundamentally changing the way an entire generation thinks, learns, works, shares, etc. and raising IQ scores and cognitive abilities in the bargain. But he should have left well enough alone by sticking with exploring the gaming phenomenon. Instead, he throws gaming in the same grab bag as other “entertainment,” notably television. Once he wrote about The Sopranos and inane shows like Survivor and The Apprentice in the same sentence, he lost me. “Reality television provides the ultimate testimony to the cultural dominance of games in this moment of pop culture history…” Give me a break. This is yet another example of a potentially great full-length magazine article that never should have been turned into a book. A well-edited 5,000 words max would have covered it all.
Tony –
Great!
This is a great book, especially to all of those who think that TV, videogames and other media create “brain damage”. Johnson demonstrates the virtues of our pop culture, that is actually making us smarter in certain areas.As a high school teacher, it’s demonstrated the importance of the popular media consumed by our modern adolescents and given me a lot of ideas to be able to use the modern mass media in my classroom, and the importance of it’s use.If you think pop culture is damaging our “classic” culture, line Postman (Amusing us to death) or Sartori (Homo videns), read this book.
Brian G. Morin –
Great analysis of the complexity of pop culture and how we are drawn to it
The book categorized some things that were intuitively known to me but I had not systematized. That video games are more complex,and doing complex things makes us smarter. That tv shows were the same. That interactive challenging screen time is better and more challenging than hours of Facebook. I like it and feel justified in my geekhood.
corydave –
Should be required reading.
Steven Johnson defends video games and mass media. And he does it well. Anyone in education should read this, as it reframes the way people use their brain on a daily basis. Critics say the book rehashes his one argument in different ways, but it’s still a great read. I applaud his perspective, and wish more people would see the wisdom in what he says.
Jim B. –
Not bad, better than expected
This books starts out on rather slippery footing, but gains a foothold in the subject quickly. Quite a bit of time is spent on the topics of modern television and video games, but that is perhaps because those two things occupy so much of our daily lives nowadays.Johnson raises several salient points. I’m not yet sure how much of it I agree with, as some of the generalizations don’t fit in my own household. But all in all, an interesting read, and doesn’t take very long to get through.If you’re looking for some arguments to get your mom to stop picking on you for playing so much X-Box, this book is for you.
Mike Lutz –
My first time reading anything from this author and I have to say he presents and very interesting angle on new media, I rather enjoyed this work.
Mando –
Klasse Buch für jeden, der bereit ist, den “bösen neuen Medien” auch mal etwas Gutes beizusteuern. Nicht nur perfekt für Kulturliberalisten.
Siriam –
I read this book at the end of 2005 and found it one of the best eye openers in challenging a lot of my simple misconceptions regarding computer games, TV and the benefits of the internet (as an education/social interaction tool as opposed to a tool I use at work every day).I no longer look at my children’s fascination with playing computer games with such concern; it has not increased my viewing of TV (a medium I actually think too many people view with rose tinted historic spectacles given it formed such a key part of their early lives) but it has helped me appreciate the wider benefits of how TV series now operate and are structured versus the versions I saw as a child; plus the internet and its wider social impact is put into context with the end coverage that IQs are given these changes getting higher in the middle and lower zones of society if not so clearly helping the top intellectual end are well made even if you do not wholly agree everything.The book is US centric but given the author’s life, location and background that seems inevitable and indeed the beauty of the arguments presented for consideration is that you find yourself applying them to local UK TV programmes given the main messages are universal.While the style is too academic at the start, once the writer warms to his subjects he does present well and in a very creative structure that interlocks across the book. Finally, the end section on summarising areas for further reading on the different topics is one of the best I have seen in such a small book.
Peggy McKay –
thanks
Raven –
Gave as gift. No complaints.