Everything Bad Is Good For You By Steven Johnson - 1349 Words

In â€Å"Everything Bad Is Good For You,† Steven Johnson discusses why and how he believes today’s popular culture is actually making us smarter, rather than dumbing us down. Johnson has his book split into two different parts, focusing mainly on the first part of his book, he talks about the ways people consume media and how it has become more complex and challenging over the years. The title headings for each sub-chapters are - Video Games, Television, Internet, and Movies. Within each subchapter he uses a vast number of examples from each section to support his argument. The biggest part the first chapter is dedicated to video games. Johnston suggests that when video games were first released that people thought they made us dumber and wasted our mind’s skills. He uses the example about how if video games had arrived before books, we would be more hesitant towards books. We would be looking at the negative aspects of book reading and how they are isolating, under-stimulating and do not engage enough. Stating that we use books to test cognitive benefits – attention, memory, focus and following threads, Johnston goes into a detail about how video games uses all these skills and more. He uses examples from Tetris, Pac-Man, SimCity200 and even The Legend of Zelda. Continuing his argument that video games engage us more that any other media our there at the moment, he acknowledges how to reward system and the desire to explore in video games keep us engaged. No other form ofShow MoreRelatedNeil Postman s An Internet Age Response1720 Words   |  7 PagesThirty years ago, Neil Postman argued that with TV, we are amusing ourselves to death. More recently, in an Internet-age response to Postman, opposing author Steven Johnson argues that everything bad is good for you, including video games, television, Internet, and film. Neil Postman builds his argument by breaking down television into its component parts: photographs and the telegraph. He argues that both of these media inherently decontextualize their content. Photographs are inherently outRead MoreThe Importance Of Video Games1354 Words   |  6 Pagesgreat possibility that video games could actually make us smarter. Steven Johnson explains that the games we are used to playing can improve our visual intelligence and that it would be good to learn new strategies through gaming. Video games should be an essential part of kid’s lives. They would be beneficial in helping them better understand life lessons while being in certain scenarios that involve quick decisions. Steven Johnson also introduces the idea of the â€Å"Sleeper Curve†, which states thatRead MoreHow Media Has Impacted Society1158 Words   |  5 PagesCurves, realism, linguistics, and overstated context. The point of this paper is to reflect how mass media has effected society in a positive and successful way although many people do not believe it. They, as in editor and writer Steven Johnson in Watching TV Makes You Smarter, celebrate the fact that, â€Å"The usual counterargument here is that what media have lost in moral clarity, they have gained in realism. The real world [does not] come in nicely packaged public-service announcements, and [we are]Read MoreWatching Tv Makes You Smart Essay1218 Words   |  5 PagesMakes You Smarter  by Steven Johnson, the author argues that by watching television shows various television shows, people actually become smarter and how it has a big impact in our lives. He feels that watching TV makes us smarter because why we view things we might have never heard of before. He also uses dialogs to explain for example he used dialogs from the show ER to break down what’s happening between the characters, what words and sentences there using. On response on Dana Stevens articleRead MoreEverything Bad Is Good for You (Essay)1660 Words   |  7 PagesPlaying video games and watching TV shows are beneficial types of popular culture. Conventional wisdom would argue that new media is a bad influence and that the only way to be intelligent is by reading. In the book Everything Bad is Good For You, author Steven Johnson, argues that even though our popular culture seems to get dumber, it is actually getting smarter. Johnson proves his arguments by comparing and explaining the benefits of the complexity of modern video games, television shows, and moviesRead MoreThe Devistating Story of the London Cholera Epidemic Captured in Johnsons The Ghost Map881 Words   |  4 PagesSteven Johnsons intriguing yet stimulating historical story, The Ghost Map, recaptures the London cholera epidemic of 1854. He concludes an accurate and engaging story of this outbreak in the history of epidemiology. Johnson who is known for his blunt and hone st opinions about intersection of science and technology writes a wonderful narrative attacking the flawed proposals of the scientific community (Pogrebin, 2006). Ghost Map demonstrates the tragic events that caused devastating destructionRead MoreVideo Games Have A Negative Influence On Young People1600 Words   |  7 Pagesand more often than most they are educational. Gee, James Paul. What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. This book looks at the educational level of what video games have to teach us. Gee analyze what a good video game are, which possessive the characteristics of being hard, long, and complex. Furthermore, the game develops complex challenges, a learning potential, and steady struggles in the game leading to be motivative and entertaining to the playerRead MoreThe Impact Of Internet On Our Lives985 Words   |  4 Pagesthe author is saying through their eyes. When reading a book the reader has 200 pages or more to connect with the author and â€Å"†¦enter the author’s mind, and peer out at the world through their eyes† as was said by the author of Everything Bad is Good for You Steven Johnson (276). By reading online the some of the important cognitive abilities are lost, and once they are lost, it is hard to get them back again. By having easy access to research or just articles in general on the internet has alsoRead MoreAre Todays Tv Shows Making Us Smarter?2025 Words   |  9 PagesShows Making Us Smarter? I recently read an essay written by American author Steven Johnson entitled Watching TV Makes You Smarter. Millions of Americans who are engrossed in today’s TV programming might be surprised at the concept. You see, for years, sitting down to watch TV was thought of as a lazy way to turn off your brain and veg out (to spend time idly or passively). (Britannica) While this may still be true, Johnson argues that the increased complexity in today’s TV shows forces us to becomeRead MoreThe Case Of Johnson Johnson1692 Words   |  7 Pageslaced with cyanide. Tylenol became one of Johnson Johnson’s most successful products, accounting for 17 percent of the company’s profits. Extra-Strength Tylenol constituted 70 percent of all Tylenol sales (Lazare). Johnson Johnson also enjoyed an incredible amount of trust and goodwill from the public, nurtured in part by its allegiance to the company credo of responsibility to employees, consumers, stockholders, and the community. Johnson Johnson took full accountability for the crisis even