The Love That I Was Giving You Was Never in Doubt
Well, judging from the appearance of the video icon in yesterday's post, perhaps Daily Motion is not the panacea that I thought it might become. If any of the more tech-savvy readers out there have a suggestion on where I can find reliable video footage that is not subject to numerous claims of copyright infringement, I would appreciate your guidance. Enough of that drudgery, on to what I really want to write about today.
I just finished reading Steven Johnson's Everything Bad is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter, and I thought I would share some of my thoughts on the book before they become stale. The basic premise of Johnson's argument is that a phenomenon that Johnson calls "The Sleeper Curve" (taken from a scene in a Woody Allen film) exists that contradicts what you might have once thought about the interaction between our gray matter and the popular culture that surrounds us.Drawing from fields as diverse as neuroscience, economics, and media theory, Johnson argues that the pop, or some might say junk, culture that everyone is so eager to dismiss as mindless is actually making us smarter. I can hear your scoffing and snickering, but stick with me here. Johnson acknowledges that a video game will never be a book, but that video games, from Tetris to The Sims to Grand Theft Auto, have been shown to raise IQ scores and develop cognitive abilities that cannot necessarily be learned from books.
Also, Johnson argues that when taken seriously, successful television series-the hit shows of every genre: The Simpsons, 24, Lost, The Sopranos, even The Apprentice-reveal surprising narrative depth and sophistication that make serious intellectual demands of the viewer that we simply did not have from many of the more "sophisticated" series in the past.If you enjoy the writing of Malcolm Gladwell, and his ability to draw on a variety of different sources in order to craft an argument, I think you will enjoy the writing of Steven Johnson. This is the only book of his that I have read, so I really have no idea if it is representative of his body of work, but I think it's worth a read.
Current Reading
The Last Lion, Winston Spencer Churchill: Alone 1932-1940 by William ManchesterLabels: current reading
posted by Justin @ 9/03/2007 08:42:00 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
"Johnson acknowledges that a video game will never be a book...."
While many of the games of Johnson's generation were simple point, shoot, find object games, I think many games nowadays a trying to implement meaningful storylines in their games. It certainly began in the RPGs of the mid nineties like Final Fantasy 6 & Chrono Trigger. These games typically took more than 20-30 hours to complete with more storytelling dialog than the typical novel. With the advancement of graphics into 3D, game-makers were able to bring a movie-like storytelling experience to video games. Probably the first of these was Final Fantasy VII for the playstation in 1997 which itself has spawned a movie and several other videogames based on its storyarch. In the last 5 years, video game revenue has surpassed the movie industry. Steven King once wrote along the lines of 'when a video game can make you cry, it will then be a valid storytelling avenue.'
Although the RPG will certainly remain the stable to videogame storytelling, many others videogame staples now introduce a more complex story in order to provide more depth to their characters and gameplay. No longer is it the typical kill monsters/nazis/aliens/zombies of the early 90's. It is very neat to see the fusion of 2 (3 if you count the internet) mediums and to wonder how this change will affect future generations and their forms of media.
babylon by david gray. tuegel
Of course Vid Games make you smarter. Why do you think I keep playing!!
Alas, even though you post for english soccer have been pulling more and more to the sport, I think that those on the other side of the pond wish it not to happen. Therefore they are going to yank the vids.
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