BigShinyThing

In his book ‘Everything Bad is Good for You’ Steven Johnson suggests that pop culture is actually making us smarter instead of dumbing us down

His theory is based on the discovery, twenty years ago, by a political philospher called James Flynn that Americans -measured by IQ tests - were getting smarter. Flynn found that IQ scores showed a steady upward trajectory, rising by about three points per decade, meaning that a person whose IQ placed him or her in the top ten percent of the American population in 1920 would today fall in the bottom third. Some of this rise can be attributed, of course, to economic progress meaning that people were better fed, better educated etc. But test scores have continued to rise, not just in America but all over the developed, and media saturated world. It has also happened across demographics

Johnson argues that, as forms of pop culture such as television programmes have become more sophisticated, our IQs have developed to keep pace. For example, an episode of ‘Starsky and Hutch’ from the 1970s depicts two main protagonists, engaged in a single story line, move towards a decisive conclusion. By contrast, a single episode of a modern day rating hits, The Sopranos, might follow five narrative threads, involving a dozen characters who weave in and out of the plot. Modern television also requires the viewer to do a lot of what Johnson calls ‘filling in’: for example, an episode of The Simpsons that parodies Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. The dependence of the broadcasting industry on the television aftermarket - DVDs and sydnication - also means that programmes have to sustain (and even encourage) more than one viewing

Johnson uses video games as another example of popular culture becoming more and more involving. Baiting critics who suggest that reading a book is much more educating that playing a computer game, Johnson imagines that video games had instead been invented hundreds of years ago whilst books were the new arrival being marketed aggressively to children:

“Reading books chronically understimulates the senses. Unlike the longstanding tradition of gameplaying - which engages the child in a vivid, three-dimensional world filled with moving images and musical sound-scapes, navigated and controlled with complex muscular movements - books are simply a barren string of words on the page … Books are also tragically isolating. while games have for many years engaged the young in complex social relationships with their peers, buiding and exploring worlds together, books force the child to
sequester him or herself in a quiet space, shut off from interaction with other children … But perhaps the most dangerous property of these books is the fact that they follow a linear path. you can’t control their narratives in any fashion - you simply sit back and have the story dictated to you … this risks instilling a general passivity in our children, making them feel as though they’re powerless to change their circumstances. reading is not an active, participatory process; it’s a submissive”

Whilst Johnson is being deliberately provocative here, his suggestion is an interesting one. It would figure that increasingly sophisticated forms of media and entertainment would create a more sophisticated audience. But is it, in fact, the other way around? Has the media ’smartened-up’ to keep up with its audience?

Everything Bad is Good for You is published in the UK 26th May. Read Malcolm Gladwell’s review of it in The New Yorker here (subscription required)