HW 14 - Everything Bad Is Good For You

Everything Bad Is Good For You by Steven Johnson discussed how today’s popular culture is actually making us smarter through the aspects of video games, television, and the internet.

Video games are good because they are not fun. Throughout the excerpt about the benefits of video games, Steven Johnson argues that video games are not necessary bad for us, and they could possibly benefit us on making decisions, prioritizing, and probing. He uses books as the target to compare with video games, saying how “the intellectual nourishment of reading books is so deeply ingrained in our assumptions that it’s hard to contemplate a different point of view”. With that being said, he reversed the order of existence between books and video games. It did not seem that he is intended to argue which one is better, but how they both could possibly play the same role in our lives. He thinks that while people often think playing video games are isolating from the others, books prevents us from socially interactive also. They both supply the space for kids to escape from the reality. Additionally, both provided characters for us to evaluate and judge in terms of characterization although video games supply more flexibility on plots and characters compared to books. Furthermore, he argues that “playing today’s games does in fact improve your visual intelligence and your manual dexterity, but the virtues of gaming run far deeper than hand-eye coordination”. He thinks that “nonliterary popular culture” has grown more challenging over the past 30 years, and by playing video games we actually have to go through the process of probing and telescoping that benefits our brain intelligence as he said, “it’s not what you’re thinking about when you’re playing game, it’s the way you’re thinking matters”.

Main quote summarize the argument : What you actually do in playing a game – the way your mind has to work – is radically different; it’s about finding order and meaning in the world, and making decisions that help create the order.

Television makes you smart. Similar ideas as the video games, Steven Johnson argues that watching television will improve our intelligence in different ways. Such as watching the game shows, it allows us to “evaluate and reward our knowledge of trivia”; the professional sport, it “reward our physical intelligence”; and reality shows, “challenge our emotional intelligence and our AQ”. Throughout the long excerpt about television, he compared many shows, soap operas, sitcoms, movies…etc., to prove that we actually goes through the process of thinking and filling the gaps of what’s happening on the television. Many challenge our minds in order to understand what the show is actually about. He also mentioned how by watching the shows that have to do with relationships could actually help us on social skills. “Any profession that involves regular interaction with other people will place a high premium on mind reading and emotional IQ. Of all the media available to us today, television is uniquely suited for conveying the fine gradients of these social skills.” He considers the television is actually a guide that helps us understand the others, so we can interact better. Furthermore, he defined smart as “being smart is sometimes about doing complicated math in our heads, or making difficult logical decisions, but an equally important measure of practical intelligence is our ability to assess – and respond appropriately – to other people’s emotional signals.”

Main quote summarize the argument : You have to focus to follow the plot, and in focusing you’re exercising the part of your brain that maps social networks. The content of the show may be about revenge killings and terrorist attacks, but the collateral learning involves something altogether different, and more nourishing. It’s about relationships.

Bad = Stupid, Good = Smart. Before actually reading the excerpt, that is the equation that I jot down on the paper while pre reading the text. I thought Steven Johnson will be criticizing by comparing how the good are bad to suggest how bad is actually good for us. But it actually turn out that he is only providing the reader another perspective on how something that we think is bad has its own good. He did not seem to critique what is bad in his excerpt, but how everything is good. It almost seems as bad does not exist in the case of reading his excerpt. Especially when he is discussing the video games, I thought it is very well written that suggest his point of view. The part that he flips the order by reversing book and the video game really did make some sense and it is interesting to think about Does the order matter? But thinking it as a reality concept, I will consider that as a faulty because it is impossible. Using the word if for the past tense seems unarguable to me. However, I think he did suggest another perspective and serve his point of how people make assumptions. Overall, the excerpt about the video games did help me look into another perspective on digital representation devices as a whole, when he draw out the parallels between books and video games such as how they both have characters and plots, making the reader and the player passive,…etc. The most interesting point that I think he has on this part of the excerpt is when he mentioned how such torture in games is the way we define “play” and the point he said that “the dirty little secrets is how much time you spend not having fun”. Also when he questioned “why does a seven year old soak up the intricacies of industrial economics in game form, when the same subject would send him screaming for the exits in a classroom? ”, I think he suggest a good point as why working so hard when we get to pay the same, or why reading books when play video games can serve the criteria as reading. Lastly, when he stated his beliefs that “printed word remains the most powerful vehicle for conveying complicated information”, I think somehow it weakens his whole argument.

Smart is all we need. While reading the video and television excerpt, I think the way Steven Johnson enhances his idea is by focusing on the lens of smart and stupid, good and bad. He only considers what makes us smart is good, but he never seem to address what bad really is throughout the excerpt. If by thinking television, video games, Internet are bad for us, then how are they bad? Especially in the excerpt about the television while he discussed many TV shows, I think it is kind of meaningless to set out this much of examples but never seem to address what bad really is in his own definition, but only what it is beneficial to us. Although he tries to convince the reader how everything is good throughout the whole long excerpt by staying on neutral, his arguments seems to be very bias as I read on. When he talked about the advantages of what TV shows offer to the audience, I think he missed the point that TV shows are somehow lack of the reality and often bias. Many of them do not present the actuality of the real world and has been twisted for the purpose of audience viewing. Thus, his argument of how it could help us with social skills seems weak. Another weakness that I see in the excerpt about the television is that he never seems to address how emotional intelligence, physical intelligence can help us in real life other than it improves our intelligence. From reading that, I think it leads the reader to the question, where do I go from that? In other words, I did not see the significance of the intelligence that he presents in his book. Lastly, when he stated about the order of comparing "you have to avoid the tendency to sentimentalize the past.If you’re going to look at pop culture trends, you have to compare apples to apples, or in this case, lemons to lemons." I think he is contradicting with his own argument because the present is a transition of the past. Thus, at some levels, we are comparing the past and the present.

Feed vs. Everything Bad Is Good For You. By comparing Feed and Steven Johnson’s excerpt, it is obvious that they are the exact opposite. While M.T. Anderson is enhancing how the digital representation devices can make us stupid, Steven Johnson suggests that they are actually making us smart. Although both seem to contradict each other, I think the both author are very similar to each other in a way. They both define bad as stupid, and good as smart in their literature. The difference between them is just M.T. Anderson is depicting the idea of how bad it is, and Steven Johnson is defining the good part of it. M.T. Anderson seems to focus more on feed as referring to the stimulation of advertisement, commercials, and some part of the Internet(M-chat, searching) while Steven Johnson focused on television, video games, and Internet. They both focused on different types of digital representation devices and they both critique it in a different tone and style. One prefer to use his own voice talking about the current issue, and one prefer to write it in a futuristic form but reflect the current world. Although both seems to going to different directions (Bad<--->Good), they do meet each other.