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Everything bad is good for you : how popular culture is making us smarter
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Everything bad is good for you : how popular culture is making us smarter

by Steven Johnson

This study examines the cognitive impact of modern popular culture, arguing that complex video games and television programmes enhance rather than diminish intelligence. It suggests that mass media consistently demands more of the human brain, increasing cognitive engagement.

Accession 15337 ISBN 0713998024 Publisher Allen Lane
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Everything bad is good for you : how popular culture is making us smarter spine
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TAGS
Curated Derived
Culture Intelligence Media Popular Culture The Mind
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position_updated_at
2026-06-01 16:43
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Details

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Metadata

Book form
LOCATION HISTORY
M:N3:29 3 Current vertical
2 weeks ago
Book Location
Updated 1 week, 1 day ago
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Last synced 2026-05-21 01:09 (2 weeks, 6 days ago)

Identity

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Everything bad is good for you : how popular culture is making us smarter
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vernon_slug
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brief_description
Drawing from fields as diverse as neuroscience, economics, and media theory, Steven Johnson shows that the junk culture we're so eager to dismiss is actually making us more intelligent. A video game will never be a book, Johnson acknowledges, nor should it aspire to be - and, in fact, video games, from Tetris to The Sims to Grand Theft Auto, have been shown to raise IQ scores and develop cognitive abilities that can't be learned from books. Likewise, when examined closely and taken seriously, successful television - the hit shows of every genre: The Simpsons, 24, The Apprentice - reveals surprising narrative sophistication and intellectual demands.". "Johnson calls this upward trend the Sleeper Curve, after the classic sequence from Woody Allen's mock sci-fi film, where a team of scientists from 2173 are astounded that twentieth-century society failed to grasp the nutritional merits of cream pies and hot fudge. In Everything Bad Is Good for You, Johnson argues that the Sleeper Curve is the single most important new force altering the mental development of young people today, and that it is largely a force for good: enhancing our cognitive faculties, not dumbing them down. --Dust jacket

Subjects & people

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Steven Johnson
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