{"id":290,"date":"2010-11-28T16:11:43","date_gmt":"2010-11-29T00:11:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.joshlee.com\/blog\/?p=290"},"modified":"2020-02-20T14:08:10","modified_gmt":"2020-02-20T22:08:10","slug":"everything-bad-is-good-for-you-2006-steven-johnson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.joshlee.com\/blog\/everything-bad-is-good-for-you-2006-steven-johnson\/","title":{"rendered":"<i>Everything Bad is Good for You<\/i> (2006), Steven Johnson"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/1594481946\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"\/images\/amazon\/51tNAKQjXqL._SL160_.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"97\" height=\"160\" border=\"0\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><b>Notes<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Unlike media-created perception, <b>Computer Games<\/b> are complicated, and exhibit delayed gratification. So why would anyone want to play them?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Because they have a reward system (either clear, or intrinsic), and we are wired to <i>seek<\/i> reward.<\/li>\n<li>They force you to make decisions, as you have to do in real life.<\/li>\n<li>They force you to learn how to <i>probe<\/i> the game, so you understand how it works, in order to win. Isn\u2019t this just another way of describing the scientific method? Create a hypothesis, test, feedback.<\/li>\n<li>They force you to <i>telescope<\/i> \u2013 plan your tasks, and sequence them logically so you can correctly progress through the game.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The value of games is not their content (often childish, banal, or morally suspect), but their cognitive skill development.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><b>Television<\/b> has become more complex over time, demanding greater cognitive ability from its audience:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In dramas \u2013 multi-threaded plots, not talking down to the user, and not hiding the complexity of reality (life, professional jargon), and withholding information (planned ambiguity).<\/li>\n<li>In comedies, increasingly self-referential (with punch lines set up many episodes ago), and to other cultural events.<\/li>\n<li>In reality TV, watching contestants probe and navigate the complex high stakes environments, with an ever-changing rule book, and where success is most often predicated by social and emotional intelligence. Experiencing the thrill of seeing real, naked emotion.<\/li>\n<li>Even talk shows do this, exercising the social muscle.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>All this flows into real life, through coffee and water cooler talk, and through the explosion of online forums discussing these shows. Like games, the content may be lowbrow, but it is the collateral learning which matters.<\/p>\n<p>The <b>Internet<\/b> is creating participatory, new interfaces, and new channels for social interaction.<\/p>\n<p><b>Films<\/b> follow the increasing complexity of TV. To fairly compare the TV and movies of yesteryear with today\u2019s, means comparing like with like \u2013 i.e. comparing crap with crap. For example, <i>Fear Factor<\/i> and <i>The Love Boat<\/i> \u2013 make no mistake, there will always be crap, but today\u2019s crap is magnitudes better than yesteryear\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p><i><b>Key lesson<\/b> \u2013 don\u2019t worry too much about the changing social and entertainment fabric of today\u2019s information age \u2013 we are becoming smarter, and our cognitive abilities are increasing. Much of this is due to the increasing cognitive demands from the environment we are now in, and the collateral learning which is a consequence of this.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Notes Unlike media-created perception, Computer Games are complicated, and exhibit delayed gratification. So why would anyone want to play them? Because they have a reward system (either clear, or intrinsic), and we are wired to seek reward. They force you to make decisions, as you have to do in real life. They force you to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[24,25],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joshlee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joshlee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joshlee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joshlee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joshlee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.joshlee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":527,"href":"https:\/\/www.joshlee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290\/revisions\/527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joshlee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joshlee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joshlee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}