Tomorrow Elephant

Last weekend’s bedtime read was Steven Berlin Johnson’s Everything Bad is Good for You, an interesting study of a trend that seems to be diametrically opposite to what you usually hear in media: that popular culture is in fact getting more complex instead of being dumbed down, and children can actually learn lots of valuable skills by playing computer games. It’s a fascinating read, and Johnson presents his argument in a very persuasive manner. I particularily liked his idea of “telescoping”, the ability to maintain a complicated set of interlocking goals in your mind: this is, of course, very important in science and, say, programming — and looks like the best way to learn it as a child is by playing complex adventure games such as the latest incarnation of Zelda!

As a fan of some recent American TV shows (such as Lost, 24 and pretty much everything involving that Joss Whedon), I also agree with Johnson’s argument that TV drama has gotten overwhelmingly more complex over the years in terms of the complexity of the social networks that the viewer has to parse to make sense of the story (compare Dallas with The Sopranos). This is not because Hollywood has gotten any smarter — it’s the fact that the business model has changed. What actually generates most of the income associated to a given TV show are DVD sales and syndication. A show with enough depth to allow multiple viewings and interpretations will be more successful in the long run than more disposable entertainment. (Which, of course, makes it all the more puzzling why Firefly was murdered in its crib, waah.) Johnson even manages to fit reality TV into this model, suggesting that Big Brother and its ilk should not be compared to sophisticated TV drama but past shows such as The Price is Right: compared to them, The Apprentice suddenly seems like the work of intellectual giants.

Finally, I liked the fact that Johnson keeps in mind that although parents should perhaps adjust their attitudes towards games such as Grand Theft Auto (see also Johnson’s hilarious letter to Hillary Clinton), reading books remains an essential skill, and the reason he chooses to present his argument in the form of a book is that no matter how much games and virtual worlds evolve and provide us with new tools for learning through explanation, for a sheer dive into an another person’s mind, an old-fashioned book is pretty hard to beat. In fact, the only major complaint I have about Johnson’s effort in this front is that it’s a pretty short book: the arguments therein could have benefited from a more in-depth analysis, although Johnson does provide extensive pointers to further reading. Definitely a book to give your old aunt complaining about the demons that inhabit the Playstation, though.