NUTHIN' BUT A "G" THANG: In Part One of Everything Bad Is Good For You, Steven Johnson argues that popular culture (particularly video games and television) has become increasingly complicated and intellectually demanding over the past generation or so. In Part Two, Johnson asks whether this cognitively challenging culture is indeed making its consumers "smarter." As you might imagine, his answer is "yes."
Johnson builds his argument around the phenomenon known as the the Flynn Effect, named for the philosopher James Flynn, who discovered that IQ scores have been steadily and significantly rising over the past fifty years (once you remove the periodic recalibrations that help to ensure an "average" IQ is 100). This increase has been particularly striking on tests that measure "general intelligence factor," or g, which governs our problem-solving and pattern-recognition abilities. Although experts have offered a range of possible reasons for the Flynn Effect (broader education, better diet, growing familiarity with standardized testing), Johnson's hypothesis -- summarized in a May 2005 article for Wired -- is that the growing complexity of popular culture may well be contributing to the increases in IQ and g. After all, the features of today's video games, TV shows, and movies that Johnson most celebrates -- probing and telescoping, following narrative threads, tracing networked connections, "filling in" and "leaning forward" -- both shape and reflect precisely the cognitive qualities measured by g. Now, Johnson is careful to frame this claim as a hypothesis, not a causal analysis, and he also admits that the whole enterprise of intelligence testing is fraught with controversy. Still, he comes pretty close to stating that playing Zelda or watching 24 will help you score better on an IQ test.
But why have we been choosing more "complicated" pop culture in the first place? Isn't pop culture all about the race to the bottom, the lowest common denominator, what 1970s TV executives called the Least Objectionable Programming? Johnson argues (in a section excerpted here) that this conventional wisdom is undermined by some fundamental economic, technological, and neurological realities. The "economics of repetition" demonstrates that producers will profit most by creating popular culture that can withstand and even encourage repeat viewings, as consumers uncover and enjoy the complexity of a multi-level video game or a richly layered TV show like The Simpsons in syndication or Lost on DVD. Technology has reinforced this economic trend over the past couple of decades, thanks to devices like VCRs, DVDs, and DVRs, all of which facilitate repeated "close readings"; moreover, the rapid appearance of these and other technologies (video games, PCs, the Web) itself forces our minds to "adapt to adaptation," exploring and mastering complicated new platforms and systems and thereby becoming more receptive to challenging content. And neurologically speaking, Johnson asks, don't we want, even need to be mentally stimulated and exercised? Neuroscientists have found that our brains are hard-wired to seek out challenges, not to wallow and atrophy. For all of these reasons, then, consumers have demanded more complicated popular culture over the past thirty years, and it's that complexity -- rather than any offensive or objectionable content -- that Johnson believes deserves our attention, even our praise.
So, once more, with feeling: How persuasive are Johnson's arguments? Do you believe that today's popular culture actually fosters increased intelligence? Why or why not?
Next week: classes end Monday, so we'll fill out some course evaluations, and then we're done. Hope you're ready for finals!
Johnson builds his argument around the phenomenon known as the the Flynn Effect, named for the philosopher James Flynn, who discovered that IQ scores have been steadily and significantly rising over the past fifty years (once you remove the periodic recalibrations that help to ensure an "average" IQ is 100). This increase has been particularly striking on tests that measure "general intelligence factor," or g, which governs our problem-solving and pattern-recognition abilities. Although experts have offered a range of possible reasons for the Flynn Effect (broader education, better diet, growing familiarity with standardized testing), Johnson's hypothesis -- summarized in a May 2005 article for Wired -- is that the growing complexity of popular culture may well be contributing to the increases in IQ and g. After all, the features of today's video games, TV shows, and movies that Johnson most celebrates -- probing and telescoping, following narrative threads, tracing networked connections, "filling in" and "leaning forward" -- both shape and reflect precisely the cognitive qualities measured by g. Now, Johnson is careful to frame this claim as a hypothesis, not a causal analysis, and he also admits that the whole enterprise of intelligence testing is fraught with controversy. Still, he comes pretty close to stating that playing Zelda or watching 24 will help you score better on an IQ test.
But why have we been choosing more "complicated" pop culture in the first place? Isn't pop culture all about the race to the bottom, the lowest common denominator, what 1970s TV executives called the Least Objectionable Programming? Johnson argues (in a section excerpted here) that this conventional wisdom is undermined by some fundamental economic, technological, and neurological realities. The "economics of repetition" demonstrates that producers will profit most by creating popular culture that can withstand and even encourage repeat viewings, as consumers uncover and enjoy the complexity of a multi-level video game or a richly layered TV show like The Simpsons in syndication or Lost on DVD. Technology has reinforced this economic trend over the past couple of decades, thanks to devices like VCRs, DVDs, and DVRs, all of which facilitate repeated "close readings"; moreover, the rapid appearance of these and other technologies (video games, PCs, the Web) itself forces our minds to "adapt to adaptation," exploring and mastering complicated new platforms and systems and thereby becoming more receptive to challenging content. And neurologically speaking, Johnson asks, don't we want, even need to be mentally stimulated and exercised? Neuroscientists have found that our brains are hard-wired to seek out challenges, not to wallow and atrophy. For all of these reasons, then, consumers have demanded more complicated popular culture over the past thirty years, and it's that complexity -- rather than any offensive or objectionable content -- that Johnson believes deserves our attention, even our praise.
So, once more, with feeling: How persuasive are Johnson's arguments? Do you believe that today's popular culture actually fosters increased intelligence? Why or why not?
Next week: classes end Monday, so we'll fill out some course evaluations, and then we're done. Hope you're ready for finals!
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