Part 2 of my review of recently read books covers Steven Johnson’s Everything Bad is Good For You - How Today’s Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter. I picked this up when I was in Portland last summer and figured I might need some reading material for the rest of my trip. The book looked intriguing and the subtitle really hooked me.
Unfortunately, the first several pages were boring enough that the book ended up collecting dust for a year until I picked up again recently.
Also, unfortunately, the book woefully over-promises and under-delivers. Johnson spends 60% of the book arguing that today’s pop-culture (video-games, TV, the internet, and to some extent movies) requires more brain activity than did pop-culture of 30 or 40 years ago and that, contrary to many claims, it doesn’t cater to the lowest-common-denominator. The 2nd part of the book begins with the citation of a study which shows that Americans have been getting smarter for the last 100 years or so. He spends about 2 pages explaining why other hypothesis for intelligence increase are wrong, then spends 70 more pages repeating arguments from the first half of the book and explaining why his hypothesis is right by throwing shit against the wall to see if anything sticks.
Overall the book is far longer than it needed to be. It looks like Johnson’s editors demanded a full book from what should have been an essay and then tried to sell it off as something that it really wasn’t. I don’t recommend going out of your way to get a copy of it. If you find yourself with access to it, it can help kill a few hours and it won’t be the worst thing you’ve ever read. You might even enjoy it. [note to self: I need to start a list of the worst books I've ever read.]
