Everything Bad Is Good for You

April 4, 2005
Worried about how much time your children spend playing video games? Don't be, advises Johnson—not only are they learning valuable problem-solving skills, they'd probably do better on an IQ test than you or your parents could at their age. Go ahead and let them watch more television, too, since even reality shows can function as "elaborately staged group psychology experiments" to stimulate rather than pacify the brain. With the same winning combination of personal revelation and friendly scientific explanation he displayed in last year's Mind Wide Open
, Johnson shatters the conventional wisdom about pop culture as pabulum, showing how video games, television shows and movies have become increasingly complex. Furthermore, he says, consumers are drawn specifically to those products that require the most mental engagement, from small children who can't get enough of their favorite Disney DVDs to adults who find new layers of meaning with each repeated viewing of Seinfeld
. Johnson lays out a strong case that what we do for fun is just as educational in its way as what we study in the classroom (although it's still worthwhile to encourage good reading habits, too). There's an important message here for every parent—one they should hear from the source before savvy kids (especially teens) try to take advantage of it. Agent, Lydia Wills at Paradigm.

April 15, 2005
A quote from George Will labeling video games, computer games, hand-held games, and movies on computers as "progress: more sophisticated delivery of stupidity" opens this fascinating book. "Discover" magazine columnist Johnson ("Mind Wide Open") convincingly argues that, on the contrary, much contemporary popular culture is intellectually demanding, honing complex mental skills and encouraging well-reasoned decisions on the basis of available information. Drawing on research in neuroscience, literary theory, and economics, he posits that reality television pressures people to think while they watch and that IQ levels are rising in developed countries in response to the problem-solving challenges of the new media, which made unprecedented advances in the last decade. While violence is present in some media offerings, as content it has far less influence on our minds than the opportunity to learn to analyze, interpret, and evaluate in complex settings and circumstances. Highly recommended for both public and academic libraries. -Suzanne W. Wood, emerita, SUNY Coll. of Technology, Alfred

Copyright 2005 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2005
Adult/High School -Johnson puts the much-maligned pastime of playing video games under the microscope and comes up with some startling conclusions concerning the intellectual value and cognitive demands of this pop-culture activity. He argues that it isn't the content of today's games that engages the mind and makes one smarter; rather, it is their ever-increasing level of complexity and sophistication that challenges the mind to grow neurologically. One only comes to understand how to play a game by probing the complex interfaces within its levels to see what works as one goes along. Johnson observes that this is much like real life. He urges parents to sit down with their children and play in order to understand just how mentally challenging the games can be. He extends his argument to TV series such as "The Sopranos", "24", "Six Feet Under", and "Law and Order", all of which, he argues, are -multi-threaded - and require viewers to think in order to follow the increasingly complex character and plot developments. While the book and its arguments endorsing the cognitive challenges of video games and other mass media are thought-provoking and somewhat convincing, Johnson is less successful in convincing readers that video games -especially the more violent ones -are good for a player's mental health. While the book should be of value for reports, don't be surprised if many students can't resist citing it the next time their parents ask why they haven't finished their homework." -Catherine Gilbride, Farifax County Public Library, VA"

Copyright 2005 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2005
By " everything bad" Johnson means video games and today's TV, which supposedly stupefy and corrupt their users with repetition and violence. But set aside characters, settings, and other representational content, Johnson says, and consider procedural-systemic content. The games require discovering and employing their rules in increasingly complex situations; new TV, including reality TV, requires construing and remembering relationships among many characters and interpreting developments inferentially from what is learned. Such games and shows teach users how to find "order and meaning in the world" and make "decisions that help create that order." Later Johnson points out that, despite contemporary Cassandras screaming that pop culture and its consumers just get dumber and dumber, average IQ has risen at the same time that games and TV have become increasingly complex. The violent crime rate, the demographic for which overlaps heavily with that for video-game playing, has plummeted, too. Exemplifying from such hits as " Sims," " Grand Theft Auto," " Seinfeld," " Survivor," and " 24"; never disparaging high culture, especially literature; and writing with maximum clarity, Johnson broadcasts good news, indeed.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)