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Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today�s Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter

reviewed by Anthony Cocciolo � 2006

Title: Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today�s Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter
Author(s): Steven Johnson
Publisher: Riverhead Books, New York
ISBN: 1573223077, Pages: 238, Year: 2005
Search for book at Amazon.com

I was piping WNYC public radio into my office on an early morning in May, funneling down my Starbucks coffee and situating myself for the long day ahead. In the background, Brian Lehrer--the comforting radio voice synonymous with my daily ritual--was conversing with a brisk sounding gentleman. This chatty gentleman had written a book with an intriguing but troubling premise: today’s popular culture is actually making us smarter! Realizing the book’s author was Steven Johnson, who had written, Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software, I was compelled to pick up a copy. Although no stranger to modern media (I have admittedly spent more than one evening watching The Apprentice.), I have remained skeptical of its influences. Perhaps the horrors of flipping through channels and accidentally landing on Fear Factor predisposed me to hesitation. Or conceivably the ghosts of Adorno and Marcuse were unduly influencing me, lightly... (preview truncated at 150 words.)

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Cite This Article as: Teachers College Record Volume 108 Number 1, 2006, p. 187-190
http://www.tcrecord.org ID Number: 12076, Date Accessed: 9/2/2010 9:57:32 PM

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About the Author
Anthony Cocciolo Teachers College, Columbia University E-mail Author ANTHONY COCCIOLO is a technologist and doctoral student in the Communication and Education program at Teachers College, Columbia University. His research interests basically revolve around the possibilities for subjective, educative development within digitally fabricated environments. Currently, he is working to design and develop social approaches to digital environments and looking at the cognitive, affective and educational implications. For more information on Anthony�s work, please refer to his webpage at http://anthony.thinkingprojects.org.

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