everything bad is good for you

the new yorker reviews steven johnson's book: everything bad is good for you.

johnson proposes something pulled together that i've been posting and reading about lately - that counterintuitively, popular culture is the thing which is actually making us think better. television and video games are getting more nuanced, and iq is steadily rising. this says nothing of knowledge increasing, but if video games and tv are actually giving our brains a sort of workout, perhaps they shouldn't be bombed afterall.