How Today's Popular Culture Is Good For You By Steven Johnson

Steven Johnson writes about science and culture and he is the author of several books, including Interface Culture: How New Technology Transforms the Way We Create and Communicate (1997), Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software (2001) and his best-selling book Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today’s Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter (2005) for which he became more widely known. In this book, Steven Johnson tries to convince the readers that video games, television and the Internet are good for people, despite critics who talk about "Vast Wastelands" and "Infantilized societies". Critics have long accused the mass media of "dumbing down" people’s cultural lives, but Steven Johnson argued exactly

He claims that the complexity of problem solving and exploration involved in current video games help players learn critical thinking skills as visual intelligence and manual dexterity. He points out that Games force you to decide, to choose, to prioritize. All the intelectual benefits of gaming derive from this fundamental virtue, because learning how to think is ultimately about learning to make the right decisions: weighing evidence, analyzing situations, consulting your long-term goals, and then deciding. No other pop cultural form directly engages the brain’s decision-making apparatus in the same way. Nevertheless, people should put in the first place reading of books, because books represent a gateway to people’s personal development. Reading provides mental stimulation, stress reduction, knowledge, vocabulary expansion, memory improvement and stronger analytical thinking skills. Steven Johnson argues that Reading requiers effort, concentration, attention. In exchange, it offers the stimulus to and the fruit of thought and feeling. Unlike most amusements, reading is an activity requiring active participation. We must do the reading ourselves – actively scan letter, make sense of the words, and follow the thread of the story. Most tributes to the mental benefits of reading also invoke the power of imagination; reading books forces you to concoct entire worlds in your head, rather than simply ingest a series of prepackaged images, meaning that people should have an equilibrated life, doing both these activities, playing games and reading, for their important