Everything Bad is Good For You

Last week Steven Johnson spoke at my university and it got me to wondering what people on this list might think of his book, Everything Bad Is Good For You:  How Today's Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter.  Apart from having a great title, Johnson has an interesting thesis.  Contrary to the likes of George Will who argues that we are becoming an "increasingly infantilized society," Johnson argues that the growing sophistication of contemporary popular culture (in the form of games, television, film, and the internet) actually serves to sharpen our cognitive processes.  What do LawCulturers make of this thesis?  What import might it have for the study of law and culture?  For understanding the relationship between law, culture, and democratic authority?

Comments

[Corey Rayburn Yung]

If only it were true. While I want to believe it, I'm always suspicious of embracing a theory which just happens to align itself perfectly with my preexisting preferences. I've certainly learned a lot from pop culture, but a little concept called opportunity cost makes me wonder if I'm really "smarter" because of my time spent watching TV, surfing the web, and arguing endlessly with friends that the 2nd Matrix film was actually the most politically significant of the trilogy.

[greglas]

I think the best thing about Johnson's book (I haven't read it, but I've read several reviews and heard him talk about the ideas) is that it provides a high-profile counter-weight for simplistic arguments from the other side of the fence.

I strongly suspect, though, that his urge to score his counter-intuitive point gets in the way of more nuanced arguments about media shfits and the goals of all this hyper-stimulated multi-tasking. Malcolm Gladwell likes it, which is a mixed signal to me:
http://www.newyorker.com/critics/books/articles/050516crbo_books

There are some educational theorists that are doing some interesting work in this area, btw --e.g., see Constance Steinkeuhler:

See http://tinyurl.com/khl9c