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Is Pop Culture Making Us Smarter?It's a common perception that pop culture - particularly in the form of television, video games, and the Internet - has had a negative impact on society. Some researchers contend that increasing amounts of screen time have "dumbed down" future generations by diminishing skills such as handwriting, social interaction, and the ability to focus on single-task projects like reading a book. Others feel that the violence and sexual content commonly portrayed in these media are having adverse effects on behavior as well. However there is evidence to the contrary. Social critic and technologist Steven Berlin Johnson argues that whenever a new technology is introduced, an implicit cost-benefit analysis must be made in order to truly understand the debate. In other words, while some skills such as handwriting may fall by the wayside, other skills are being sharpened. In his recent book, Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter, Johnson holds that - as a result of increasingly complex plot lines and larger casts involving dozens of characters - some modern television shows and video games are actually making kids smarter in terms of fluid intelligence. "The skills [kids are] developing are not trivial," he said in a recent column in Time magazine. "They're learning to analyze complex systems with many interacting variables, to master new interfaces, to find and validate information in vast databases, to build and maintain extensive social networks crossing both virtual and real-world environments, to adapt existing technology to new uses. And they're learning all this in their spare time - for fun!" Johnson feels it is this skill set - the ability to search for information, master interfaces, and multitask - that will be more valuable in the offices of the future. "Today's kids see the screen as an environment to be explored, inhabited, shared and shaped," said Johnson. "They're blogging. They're building their MySpace pages. They're constructing elaborate fan sites for their favorite artists or TV shows. They're playing immensely complicated computer games...in which players re-create the entire course of human economic and technological history." So while he doesn't propose that Calculus be replaced with Blogging 101, Johnson suggests that a balanced media diet of surfing, gaming, and instant messaging alongside old-fashioned reading would be beneficial to the members of what has become known as "Generation M" (for multitasking). In a school setting, this translates into instructional materials that are technologically challenging, utilize a multi-media approach, and cater to students' needs for interaction - the type of curricula that educational technology advocates have been calling for for years, but are just beginning to see make it into classrooms. Last year, the nonprofit Educational Testing Service introduced the Information and Communication Technology Literacy assessment, the first assessment to measure technology proficiency. Last month, Michigan became the first state to make participation in online learning a graduation requirement. To hear more about Generation M and their learning habits, don't miss Johnson's keynote address at the 2006 AEP Educational Publishing Summit, June 6 at the J.W. Marriott in Washington, D.C.
Questions, ideas, or in need of more information? Please contact Stacey Pusey at 302-295-8349. |
Click here for more information on the Summit.
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