Everything bad is good for you

I picked up Steven Johnson’s Everthing bad is good for you on Thursday from the library and finished it over the weekend.

It certainly presented an interesting argument that I now see running as a thread through several blogs that I’ve been reading for a while now. And it also led me back to Deluze’s work which I’ve been vacilating between engaging with, because it’s so interesting, and putting aside, because it’s so damn hard and I have work to do.

The basic argument of Everthing bad is good for you is that pop culture has gotten more complex as a result of several factors, not the least of which is the tendency for television shows to be replayed more than once. Where earlier TV was almost a one-shot medium, TV now rewards repeated viewing. Johnson’s examples of modern TV are dramas like The Sopranos and The West Wing and comedies like Seinfeld and The Simpsons. He’s even upbeat on “reality” TV, though he prefers complex relationship style shows like The Apprentice over schlock and gore like Fear Factor (and I’d include Jackass in that category). These style of TV are more complex than in the past because they make use of byzantine plots and many more characters than in previous eras. The argument extends to computer games as well as film and the internet.

In short: watching Big Brother is exercising parts of your brain that watching “quality” television probably isn’t.

And in yet more connected coindicence, this interview with Steven Johnson and this article about the the making of Grand Theft Auto (a game that Johnson thinks is good for you) appeared on my radar this morning.