Pop Dumbing

Nur Fajrianti

Review Journal : Is pop culture dumbing us down or smartening us up?
This journal is telling us about the fact that American people are getting smarter. That statement is based on American people’s I.Q. tests results which are rising about three points per decade by using the same standard score of I.Q. test that has been kept for years. This fact is uncovered by a political philosopher named James Flynn. Meanwhile, other people over the developed world also get better I.Q. test results. One of the factors that make them to get smarter are economic progress which helps them in getting better life quality that helps their I.Q. to be more well developed. Another factors that actually help modern people become smarter are modern television programs and modern video games which are included as popular culture for people and often instantly interpretated as the things that making people dumber while they are not.
Television programmes now are actually different than television programmes decades ago. Modern television programme like in the episode of a programmelike soap opera tend to have more nararative threads and have dozens characters who weave in and out of the plot. Also modern televison program contain numerous of allusion to politics, or cinema, or pop culture that requires us to do something called “filling in”. Johnson, the former editor of the one of online magazine and the author of a number of books on science and technologies who also getting on to understand the popular culture tells that modern televison programmes help people to use more parts of the brain by scrutinizes on the screen and looking for clues of the stories from the programme and by analyzing the program they watch because the pattern is not as simple as the old televison programme.
Johnson also have the same argument about video game as his argument about modern television programme which help people get smarter and rising their I.Q. test results. He tells that modern video games make people become smarter beacuse modern video game has more complexity than the old video game. The complexity of modern games make the player learn more about the game through walkthrough or guide which make them use more their part of brain not only by finding the game pattern but also by revealing the riddle, level, and the story of the game. Those activities help more brain parts to work and help to rise the I.Q. scores. The old video game does not help much in rising the brain work while playing it because it usually only help people to do simple exercises in motor coordination and pattern recognition and does not have any other things to be solved and revealed.
In conclusion, there are some factors which rising people I.Q. such as economic development, television program and video games. Television and video games are part of popular culture that help brain getting smarter with those innovation unfortunately, some people think that popular culture making people dumber.