Everything Bad is Good for You Link
Transcript:
“Good Evening. I’m Veronica Cuttingstone and this is WLSC News. We begin our reporting tonight with our lead technology correspondent, Dan Fantana, who has uncovered a surprising theory claiming that modern media is actually making us smarter?! Dan, what can you tell us?”
That’s right Veronica. Bestselling author Steven Johnson claims that television, movies, and video gaming long criticized as time wasters are actually beneficial to the brain; which challenges the long held notion that they stupefy their users like a Harry Potter incantation.
In Everything Bad is Good for You Johnson declares that the so-called “dumbing of America” is a fallacy. In reality IQs have risen a surprising 13.8 points over the last forty-six years and Johnson says THAT is directly related to how media provides the brain with multi-layered thinking levels or as he calls them, “cognitive threads.”
Social media--Facebook, Twitter, and blogging-- have exploded and this too has added IQs points. This high-tech socialization gives fans the ability to compare notes and synthesize the intricate plot lines video games and television dramas offer today; a stark comparison to simplistic bygone era offerings like “PacMan, or “Dragnet.”
Films such as Shrek, Toy Story, and Finding Nemo are examples of how today’s movie makers are enabling IQs to rise; providing multiple layers of entertainment so whether the viewer is 6 or 66 she is amused. Being offered wide-ranging humor, audiences are again given opportunities to construct those cognitive threads.
To try to give readers a fresh perspective on learning and playing, Johnson asks us to imagine a world in which video games were invented before books. In this case a mother may be anxious to see her child struggling to read a “barren string of words on a page” rather than engaging in a vivid, three dimensional storyline with moving images and sound in a game that he controls with his own complex muscle coordination often with comrades from around the globe.
The reward systems that designers have built into these games induce players to want to achieve yet players’ brains desire more, they crave a continued challenge. It is this addictive reward, challenge continuum that compels video gamers to persist in playing. No challenge and the player feels unworthy of the reward leaving the gamer to seek his challenges and thrills elsewhere. If they achieve they will be rewarded, and so on. It is keeping the gamer on the brink of what he or she can accomplish that produces better decision-making and strategizing skills.
So does all this mean we should be encouraging our teens to play video games, go to the movies, and watch television rather than reading a book?
No, of course not. Johnson readily concedes that novels offer unparalleled intimacy into the author’s universe and that there is NO replacement for the guidance and education that parents, teachers, and schools can provide our young people.
Instead he is challenges us to become educated in the media our children enjoy and then to reevaluate our preconceptions. Once parents acknowledge and embrace the trend toward media complexity they can then offer children choices of one game or show over another instead of a full blown embargo.
Finally Johnson would like us to know, “if your [media] selection principle is built around cognitive challenge and not content [there is] no need to limit your child’s media to Jim Lehrer and Nova, our popular culture is supplying plenty of cognitive work out….”
Although it lacks scientific credibility and substance Everything Bad is Good for You is fun, thought provoking, and entertaining; sort of like a video game in pages. (SMILE) I’m Dan Fantana and that’s the latest in technology.
Back to you Veronica.
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