Does pop culture make us smarter?

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goldenboy

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I keep dropping these vague, overly broad threads in here. Oh well, here's another one. Noticed an intriguing book description:


Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter, by Steven Johnson

From Publishers Weekly
Worried about how much time your children spend playing video games? Don't be, advises Johnson"”not only are they learning valuable problem-solving skills, they'd probably do better on an IQ test than you or your parents could at their age. Go ahead and let them watch more television, too, since even reality shows can function as "elaborately staged group psychology experiments" to stimulate rather than pacify the brain. With the same winning combination of personal revelation and friendly scientific explanation he displayed in last year's Mind Wide Open, Johnson shatters the conventional wisdom about pop culture as pabulum, showing how video games, television shows and movies have become increasingly complex. Furthermore, he says, consumers are drawn specifically to those products that require the most mental engagement, from small children who can't get enough of their favorite Disney DVDs to adults who find new layers of meaning with each repeated viewing of Seinfeld. Johnson lays out a strong case that what we do for fun is just as educational in its way as what we study in the classroom (although it's still worthwhile to encourage good reading habits, too)...."

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...utint-20/104-1731473-4408737?v=glance&s=books


"”I definitely feel that TV shows have become much more complex, with competing themes, subtext, symbolism, multiple storylines...starting from maybe the late 80's. Just go back, watch and marvel at how truly idiotic shows like Starsky and Hutch, Charlie's Angels and the Dukes of Hazzard were.

Twin Peaks is the first show I can recall having a cult-like addiction to. Just had to keep watching"”even as I struggled to figure out what the hell was going on. I think Lost owes a debt to Twin Peaks. Things really got interesting with shows like Seinfeld, Simpsons, X-Files, Buffy...increasing complexity. We can pick apart Buffy forever"”Joss designed the show that way on purpose.

And the theory that video games increase strategizing ability, visual dexterity is not new. Has anyone seen the movie The Last Starfighter from the early 80's?

I just wonder: OK, so, our raw IQ's are rising, but what do we apply these smarts to? An ever advancing, growing pop-fantasy world? Less exercise, less face time with our fellow humans. There's good and bad to everything I guess...

I do notice I'm reading more books since hopping on web boards.
 
We need to tickle our minds. Pop-culture is based on "real" culture. Watching telly and movies are for me just another way of getting things into my mind so it's got something to do. And everything is based on things that's come before. Hell even Shakespeare did some pop-culture referencing of his own and I jsut love to understand what's behind it all. So I think pop-culture is making me smarter because it in a way opens my mind to things that I perhaps hadn't known about if not some smart writer had dropped some kinda reference or clue to it.
 
Pop culture is culture, yes. It seems to me that in the modern era, Pop Art, intentionally or not, helped to merge high and low art in the culture and in people's minds. Fine art, literature can seem so esoteric, elitist, remote to Joe Sixpack, you know? TV, movies can unify people in a common cultural experience. Thing is, there are so many choices now...millions of little niches.

I just want pop culture that increases people's interest in history, literature, art, science rather than decreasing it. It's depressing to hear about (American) kids breathtaking ignorance about history, geography. It's partly problems of emphasis in schools, and partly the distractions of pop culture (I fear). Want that trend to reverse itself.
 
goldenboy said:
I just want pop culture that increases people's interest in history, literature, art, science rather than decreasing it. It's depressing to hear about (American) kids breathtaking ignorance about history, geography. It's partly problems of emphasis in schools, and partly the distractions of pop culture (I fear). Want that trend to reverse itself.
Click to expand...


But I think it does. Just like you said in your first post things are changing and tv is becoming a lot more intelligent than it have been. Of course we have shows like Simple Life and Biggest Loser, but there are also a great deal of shows that are really smart without taking away the fun.

Besides tv is moving away from just lawyer and doctor shows and shows the public new fields of interests. Like Alias with all its Rambaldi bull is making people more interested in history and people like Da Vinci. People see Lost on tv and all the youngsters want to going the scouts. Tv is also starting to treat people as if they're not complete idots. They actually make us think and not just when we watch Jeopardy.
 
I hope you're right JollyApe. I agree that pop culture is becoming much more sophisticated. And I hope the "ignorant American" trend has started to reverse itself. I want to believe, as Mulder would say. I want kids to be psyched about understanding Western Civilization, its ideals, after all the guilt-tripping about dead evil white men, colonialism, etc. I don't mean to sound like a xenophobic reactionary or something...just think it's critically important for people to understand their own culture, history as well as others.



OK, here's some optimism. Looks like math and science scores are now improving with American kids.

http://www.voanews.com/english/AmericanLife/Only-In-America-ScienceKids.cfm

"”Hope this trend will apply to history, art and culture as well.
 
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