madmonkey
05-20-2005, 10:42 AM
Validation at last! :D
NEW YORK - Video game junkies, rejoice. Reality TV fans, stop feeling guilty. Pop culture is good for you, according to a new book that has a lot of people wanting to believe it.
“Everything Bad is Good For You: How Today’s Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter” argues that video games, television and movies help children develop problem-solving and reasoning skills and emotional intelligence.
Author Steven Johnson says the reaction has been intense.
“I’ve had a few people who were filled with rage,” he said in an interview this week.
But for the most part the book published this month seems to have tapped into a guilty pleasure that many are happy to think is not so guilty after all.
“My gut feeling is people were tired of getting scolded all the time for what they were doing,” Johnson said.
The premise of the book is that in the past 30 to 40 years, television and movies have become dramatically more complex, with programs like “The Sopranos” juggling dozens of characters and plot lines. In comparison, older, simple, linear shows like ”Dragnet” and “Starsky and Hutch” made few demands on viewers.
At the same time, video games have developed from simple repetitive games such as “Pac-Man” to games like “Zelda,” which depict complicated and challenging interactive worlds demanding innovative and imaginative reasoning from players.
Johnson emphasizes that he is not arguing that children should watch television or play video games for six hours a day, just that moderate exposure to them is not bad in itself.
Or maybe not ...
Melissa Caldwell of the lobby group Parents Television Council said the theory lacked scientific proof and even if it were to have some validity, it overlooked the damage to children from indecency and violence that she said was prevalent on U.S. television.
“Whatever good could be said to come out of these shows in terms of brain development, surely it doesn’t compare with reading a book or learning a musical instrument,” she said.
“If he’s neglecting to look at the potential negative consequences from watching these programs, he’s overlooking a major element,” Caldwell said.
Johnson said he was not aiming to address the question of whether modern entertainment has too much sex and violence.
“It’s about the mental workout, not the morals,” he said. ”I’m really not talking about values, I’m not talking about what the life lessons are, about what you’re getting on how to live morally in the world.”
Johnson said the loudest criticism had come from liberal intellectuals who bemoan the “dumbing down” of popular culture, from reality television to Internet blogs.
“Maybe the right will pick up on it and they’ll start being upset too,” he added. “This book is uniquely designed to annoy people on both sides.”
In one controversial passage he imagines a parallel universe where kids had been playing video games for centuries and then suddenly books were invented.
Reading books “chronically understimulates the senses” and books are “tragically isolating” and “discriminatory,” he says, while hastening to add the passage is not serious.
“I do not actually believe that about books,” he said.
NEW YORK - Video game junkies, rejoice. Reality TV fans, stop feeling guilty. Pop culture is good for you, according to a new book that has a lot of people wanting to believe it.
“Everything Bad is Good For You: How Today’s Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter” argues that video games, television and movies help children develop problem-solving and reasoning skills and emotional intelligence.
Author Steven Johnson says the reaction has been intense.
“I’ve had a few people who were filled with rage,” he said in an interview this week.
But for the most part the book published this month seems to have tapped into a guilty pleasure that many are happy to think is not so guilty after all.
“My gut feeling is people were tired of getting scolded all the time for what they were doing,” Johnson said.
The premise of the book is that in the past 30 to 40 years, television and movies have become dramatically more complex, with programs like “The Sopranos” juggling dozens of characters and plot lines. In comparison, older, simple, linear shows like ”Dragnet” and “Starsky and Hutch” made few demands on viewers.
At the same time, video games have developed from simple repetitive games such as “Pac-Man” to games like “Zelda,” which depict complicated and challenging interactive worlds demanding innovative and imaginative reasoning from players.
Johnson emphasizes that he is not arguing that children should watch television or play video games for six hours a day, just that moderate exposure to them is not bad in itself.
Or maybe not ...
Melissa Caldwell of the lobby group Parents Television Council said the theory lacked scientific proof and even if it were to have some validity, it overlooked the damage to children from indecency and violence that she said was prevalent on U.S. television.
“Whatever good could be said to come out of these shows in terms of brain development, surely it doesn’t compare with reading a book or learning a musical instrument,” she said.
“If he’s neglecting to look at the potential negative consequences from watching these programs, he’s overlooking a major element,” Caldwell said.
Johnson said he was not aiming to address the question of whether modern entertainment has too much sex and violence.
“It’s about the mental workout, not the morals,” he said. ”I’m really not talking about values, I’m not talking about what the life lessons are, about what you’re getting on how to live morally in the world.”
Johnson said the loudest criticism had come from liberal intellectuals who bemoan the “dumbing down” of popular culture, from reality television to Internet blogs.
“Maybe the right will pick up on it and they’ll start being upset too,” he added. “This book is uniquely designed to annoy people on both sides.”
In one controversial passage he imagines a parallel universe where kids had been playing video games for centuries and then suddenly books were invented.
Reading books “chronically understimulates the senses” and books are “tragically isolating” and “discriminatory,” he says, while hastening to add the passage is not serious.
“I do not actually believe that about books,” he said.