Call me crazy, but I believe it.

Shannon Mills

Mr. Boczskowski

English 110C01

8 June 2009

English Final

Steven Johnson, author of Everything Bad is Good for You, believes that today’s mediums such as; television, movies, internet, and video games are actually making us smarter. Johnson gives a theory he calls The Sleeper Curve, and talks about how each medium’s way of making us smarter. After reading Johnson’s book, I have come to the conclusion that I believe The Sleeper Curve is real but is something we actually don’t know is happening unless told so, like Johnson has.

Johnson talks about each mediums way of making us smarter. Video games are more complex then they have ever been. Coming up from a classic game like Pac-Man to a game like Call of Duty, you will realize the complexity of games today. Johnson metions two things that are making us smarter while playing video games, probing is when you first play a game and you are learning what each button does and what happens when you do certain things. Another thing he mentions is telescoping, telescoping is your goal as a whole, finding the rewards that give you the motivation to go and complete a hard level. “One of the best ways to grasp the congitive virtures of gameplaying is to ask committed players to descrive what’s going on in their heads halfway through a long virtual adventure like Zelda or Half Life” (Johnson, 47) People who are committed to playing games more often than none, have the experience and knowledge of video games, thus giving the player skills that he may not know he/she even has.

Television and movies have come a long way in today’s era. We now have more complex shows on television with shows like House. Johnson mentions multithreading, which is how many things are going on at once between different characters. If you watch a show from a later episode and then watch if from there on out, you could find yourself lost. Social networking is another example of television making us smarter. Social networking is relationships between characters. You need to know certain things to understand what is going on. Shows like House can have plenty of different relationships to understand.

Internet has become today’s biggest resource. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t use the internet. You can find anything and do anyything on the internet. If you miss an episode of House, you can find your self on the internet looking up certain episodes and reviewing what happen or even watching it online. This keeps us caught up and gives us a chance to see our if we missed it.

I believe all of these mediums are actually making us smarter in one way or another. Johnson makes great points and are very believble. I think one reason I believe this theory of The Sleeper Curve is because I am growing up in an era of great technology, I don’t want to think that today’s mediums are making us dumb.