In his new book, Steven Berlin Johnson has argued that TV and video games can raise IQ. So should you ditch Project Gutenberg books and the like to focus on vid of various kinds? Not so fast.
BusinessWeek’s review of Everything Bad Is Good for You persuasively adds to the existing case against the Johnson book:
To prove that pop culture is making us smarter, Johnson notes that IQs in most developed countries have been rising by three points per decade over the past century. Dismissing improvements in nutrition and education as possible causes, he asserts the change is due to the increasing complexity of culture. This seems too convenient. Some research has shown that declining birth rates, leading to more parental attention, and rising education levels help boost people’s IQ scores. In 1910 only 13.5% of the adult U.S. population had completed high school; by 2002 the number hit 84%.
And what about the downside of gorging on techno-culture? There’s less time for reading, playing outside, or socializing. Some teachers say kids are suffering from overstimulation, which stifles the imagination. Clearly, there are trade-offs from pop-culture gluttony, and Johnson downplays them to a fault. While pop culture may nourish aspects of our intelligence, it can degrade our senses of wonder and community and our ability to process information. Some bad things really are bad for you.
In his career, Steven Johnson has written many clueful things, but if Bizweek is right, his new book, although provocative, isn’t quite one of them.
Related: Johnson’s review of the reviewers, complete with a helpful link to a less-than-glowing New York Times review. Also see Eleven steps to a better brain in Boing Boing. Yes, there’s a reference to video games. But I can think of more important factors, such as diet and exercise.
