TV makes us smarter
: Steven Johnson is working on a book I can’t wait to read (and will soon) because it echoes a screed I’ve been shouting for years: TV and popular culture are the best proof of our taste and intelligence. For the first time, he writes about what he’s writing here.
It’s just me trying to marshal all the evidence I can to persuade the reader of a single long-term trend: that popular culture on average has been steadily growing more complex and cognitively challenging over the past thirty years. The dumbing-down, instant gratification society assumption has it completely wrong. Popular entertainment is making us smarter and more engaged, not catering to our base instincts.
