Everything Bad Is Good for You (Essay)

The Innovation of Educational Tools Playing video games and watching TV shows are beneficial types of popular culture. Conventional wisdom would argue that new media is a bad influence and that the only way to be intelligent is by reading. In the book Everything Bad is Good For You, author Steven Johnson, argues that even though our popular culture seems to get dumber, it is actually getting smarter. Johnson proves his arguments by comparing and explaining the benefits of the complexity of modern video games, television shows, and movies that require active participation and critical thinking in order for players and viewers to understand what is going on. Modern popular culture requires a lot of mental work, active engagement and problem solving. Rather than being the mindless, mind-numbing time-wasters as conventional wisdom believe, these activities strengthen problem-solving, reasoning abilities and skills that can help people in their daily lives and professions. In addition, Johnson explains that the reason why popular culture is becoming harder is because our brain likes to be challenged and the entertainment industry makes a profit by creating complicated video games, TV shows and new technology because that is what people want. As a result, new media should be approached as a new tool that helps society to become more analytically prepared for real life situations. According to Johnson, popular culture improves the way young people think. Video games for example require that players improve their skills and master certain levels before moving to the next one. Popular culture critics judge video games by its content, not by the way it is played, which challenge the players to solve problems. Although the old fashioned entertainment of reading has a lot of rewards, so do video games. For example, Johnson at one point points out that, “the culture is getting more intellectually demanding, not less” (9). Our culture is getting more complex; therefore, we

Cited: Johnson, Steven. Everything Bad is Good For You. New York: Riverhead Books, 2005. Print.