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Everything Bad Is Good For You
Stephen Johnson
Basic thesis that the video games and tv of today's world are intellectually challenging to our minds, and so are actually good for our brains.
Standard objections to video games almost a cliche. But, imagine if video games had been around for centuries, and books had just popped up in the last generation. Imagine the criticism of kids passively sitting around following the linear pattern of a novel.
In fact a thriving subsidiary industry in cheat sheets/walk thrus of popular games. We don't need anything like this for movies or novels. We accept Great Notes accompanying Great Books because we accept that the books are complex with many nuances that neophytes won't pick up. So a 200 page explanation of the intricacies of games like Ultima.
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Author asks why his 7 year old nephew can soak up Sim City ("I think we need to lower our industrial taxes") yet be bored rigid by the same subject in class.
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Large part of games is actually figuring out underlying rules - very little is explained at start - have to set up hypothesis about how things work; test the hypothesis, revise if necessary
All the media comment about TV tends to be fretting about sex and violence, or worrying about wardrobe malfunctions. But there is a more interesting trend - the increasing cognitive demands that modern TV narratives place on the viewer. This works in two ways. Part of the cognitive work comes from having to follow multiple threads, and part of it comes from 'filling in' - making sense of information that has been deliberately withheld
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Layering of references and jokes in shows like Seinfeld and The Simpsons - allusions to movies and current events - you can still enjoy the show without picking up all the riffs, but its a richer and more rewarding experience if you do.
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