Game Gallery Amusements

Steven Johnson wants to do for popular culture what the Atkins diet did for red meat: make it OK to enjoy something that’s supposed to be bad for you.
It’s the “Don’t eat your vegetables” approach to life: Watch “The Sopranos” and “24” on TV, play video games such as “Grand Theft Auto,” go see the new “Star Wars” movie and surf the Internet. Then watch your IQ rise!
Johnson is dead serious. His new book, Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today’s Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter, boasts not only a long title but also a provocative premise. Johnson argues that the complexity of modern culture provides a rigorous cognitive workout and develops skills that are useful in personal and professional settings.
“The most debased forms of mass diversion — video games and violent television dramas and juvenile sitcoms — turn out to be nutritional after all,” Johnson writes. “For decades we’ve worked under the assumption that mass culture follows a steadily declining path toward lowest-common-denominator standards. But in fact, the exact opposite is happening: The culture is getting more intellectually demanding, not less.”
Something, apparently, is making us smarter. From 1947 to 2001, the average IQ in the United States increased by 17 points, Johnson says.
The leap has puzzled researchers. Is it because of better schools or a better diet, or is a test-crazed nation simply getting better at taking tests?
It might be all of those things, but Johnson says TV and video games have made a significant contribution. He says several studies have found that frequent video gamers do better on visual recognition and memory tests than nongamers, but he says that not enough work has been done in the field.
“The story of the 20th century is ever more new forms of media and interfaces that we have to master,” Johnson said recently. “Anyone who’s under 30 — a majority of them have grown up with video games as a core component of their entertainment life, and what they like in those games is they’re challenging. You have to solve problems and figure things out on the fly.”
What makes video games worthwhile, Johnson said, is that they’re difficult. Some take months to master, and are filled with tasks to complete and clues to discover. The games force players to analyze situations, make good decisions and use a trial-and-error process to discover hidden patterns.
Video games make you smart at figuring out systems — how things work, Johnson said, although even he admits they can stunt other kinds of growth. Johnson meets lots of avid video-gamers at conferences and said, “Some of these folks don’t have the greatest social skills, and it may well be true that some side effect of what I’m celebrating is that people’s emotional IQ is not as enhanced or may be dumbed-down by the technology.”
But emotional intelligence could be developed by watching television, Johnson suggests in the book. A recent episode of the Fox action drama “24” had nine narrative threads and 21 distinct characters — a lot for a viewer to keep straight. But mastering the social network on the show could help viewers master the social networks in their own lives, Johnson said.
And in “24,” as with “The Sopranos,” “The West Wing,” “ER” and “Alias,” the plot isn’t laid out in a simple fashion. Key information is withheld or obscured, and the viewer must work to figure out what’s happening. Even some comedies today have complex jokes and layered plots that reward viewers who pay close attention.
Some critics, however, say constructive TV lessons can be overshadowed by the gratuitous sex and violence that are staples of many shows. The Parents Television Council, which offers parents guidance on TV and lobbies the industry to be more responsible, was skeptical of Johnson’s claims.
“Any positive benefits from watching TV, as this author suggests, would be sort of undone by the high levels of sex and violence that bombard the viewer,” said Melissa Caldwell, director of research and publications for the council.
She said shows such as “Leave It to Beaver,” even if they were criticized for their simplicity, had a moral with each episode.
That’s different today, Caldwell said.
“A kid who watches prime-time TV today is more likely to take away ideas that I need to be sexually active at a young age to fit in or wear a certain kind of clothing or belong to a certain social or peer group,’ ” she said. “TV is a great educator, but that works both ways.”
Johnson, a father of two who lives in New York, insisted that he is not advocating that anyone watch TV all the time. He said that if your kids are watching TV all day, you should tell them to do something else, and he accepts the critique that TV and video games do little to develop a child’s physical health.
“If your kid is addicted to video games, think of it as if your child was addicted to chess,” he said. “You’d be like, ‘Go outside and play with your friends.’ But you wouldn’t be freaked out.”