Steven Johnson - Everything Bad is Good for You: How Todays Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter

The author Newsweek called one of the most influential people in cyberspaceis back. The beauty of Johnsons latest workbeyond its engaging, accessible proseis that anyone with even a glancing familiarity with pop culture will come to the book ready to challenge his premise. Everything Bad Is Good for You anticipates and refutes nearly every likely claim, building a convincing case that media have become more complex and thus make our minds work harder.

Cleveland Plain Dealer

Through a string of airtight, academic, and very entertaining essays, Johnson maintains that prime-time TV is more intellectually engaging than ever. Time Out New York

Sophisticatednimblestrangely satisfying.

Newsday

Johnsons challenge to the oft-repeated lament that mass culture is dumbing down is as enlightening as it is necessary.

BookForum

Persuasive. The old dogs may grump about cultural illiteracy and the erosion of traditional values, but the new dogs have talents, aptitudes, and skills that we can only dream of.

Walter Kirn, The New York Times Book Review

Johnson may be the first mainstream writer to bring neuroscientific inquiry to The Apprentice Its scientific and literary rigor, couch-potato style.

Chicago Tribune

Johnson paints a convincing and literate portrait, and he shows himself to be a master of many disciplines, which deepensens the well of his credibility.

San Francisco Chronicle

EngagingIntriguingBreezy and funnyJohnson is a forceful writer, and he makes a good case; his book is an elegant work of argumentation.

Salon.com

A brisk, witty read, well versed in the history of literature and bolstered with researchJohnson, it turns out, still knows the value of reading a book. And this one is indispensable.

Time

Smart and stimulatinga deliberate nana-nana-boo-boo to the Books Are Better crowd.

The Washington Post

[A] compellingand yes, convincingdefense of video games, TV, the Internet, and Hollywood movies. Itsexciting to hear from such an articulate optimist.

Forbes

This punchy, thought-provoking book is a welcome antidote to the pessimism and handwringing of those who see only decadence and doom in popular culture.

The Economist

Convincing Everything Bad Is Good for You is a lucid tour of the pop-culture landscape. [It] provokes smarter thinking.

The Boston Globe

[Johnson is] a revolutionary thinker. Its [his] hope that we take our freshly challenged brains out of the virtual world and into the real world, far away from recliners, to a place where we can apply the education that crept up on us when we thought we were only relaxing.

Fort Worth Star Telegram

In a fascinating, factoid-studded, wide-ranging essay, Johnson compares todays pop-culture texts with those of the past and concludes theyre getting more complex. Johnson is a clever and original pop-culture defender. [He] does something that most pop-culture pundits seldom do: He makes you think.

Seattle Weekly

[An] essential and rather brilliant little book Everything Bad Is Good for You is as witty as Seinfeld and as wise as ER .

New Statesman

A fascinatingly counterintuitive argumentfilled with a hundred great philosophical arguments, starting points for parents, educators, publishers, media consumers, and sellers.

Orlando Sentinel

ProvocativePacked with contrarian insights backed by the authors deep understanding of high tech and low cultureJohnson excels in describing how television has grown increasingly sophisticated.

Business Week

Makes a convincing case that many of our assumptions about mass entertainment are dead wrong.

The Week (New York)

I found Johnsons argument intriguingWe can find some consolation in the fact that the best way for Johnson to broadcast [them] is still that old-fashioned thing: a book.

San Jose Mercury News

Counterintuitive, engaging, smart, accessibleThis book ought to be required reading. Everything Bad is an important key to understanding where the culture is headed.

The Toronto Star

Steven Johnson is the Quentin Tarantino of media critics. He appreciates our cultural pastloves it, in factbut believes it has been invigorated with richer characters and multilayered story structures. In Everything Bad Is Good for You , Johnson slices at war critics who believe three renovated entertainments are crippling to our collective mental focus. In the end, like Kill Bill s one-woman hit squad, Johnson is left standing without a bruise showing.

Northeast News Gleaner

ProvocativeJohnson argues that the complexity of modern culture provides a rigorous cognitive workout and develops skills that are useful in personal and professional settings.

Sunday Advocate

Brilliantthe first volley in a spirited argument that the decline of reading may not mean the end of intellect. While Johnson is not an apologist for pop cultures excesses, hes a necessary counterbalance to those who are blind to its charms, and, perhaps, its virtues.

Mother Jones

Exemplifying from such hits as Sims, Grand Theft Auto, Seinfeld, Survivor , and ; never disparaging high culture, especially literature; and writing with maximum clarity, Johnson broadcasts good news, indeed.

Booklist

FascinatingJohnson convincingly argues that, on the contrary, much contemporary popular culture is intellectually demanding. Highly recommended.

Library Journal

With the same winning combination of personal revelation and friendly scientific explanation he displayed in last years Mind Wide Open , Johnson shatters conventional wisdom about pop culture as pabulum.

Publishers Weekly