POP-Q

This blog entry by Juan Gutierrez
The story: "Brain Candy: Is pop culture dumbing us down or smartening us up?"

The analysis:

It has become apparent that individuals have been getting smarter as every year passes. This might be a contradiction to many people's feelings that individuals are getting dumber because of the infestation of popular culture in our society. According to an article written by Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker it is apparent that there is an increase in I.Q. testing scores amongst people that had a privileged education and those that might have gone though a deteriorating public school system. This article seemed eye catching because of the increasing spread of word that today's music, television, videogames, and movies are taking people away from more productive activities.

The article explains that twenty years ago the political philosopher James Flynn noticed that the I.Q. scores where increasing by three points every decade. Apparently modern media is way more complex than it was 30 years ago. It involves more analytical material that we have to put together in contrast to shows that used to give us a direct storyline that follows a simple structure. Steven Johnson the former editor of Feed (online magazine) states that modern television makes the audience "fill in". This means that in order to really attain the message that is trying to be sent out we have to know historical pop culture in order create a link and therefore understand. I see this all the time in shows such as family guy, in witch I have to link pop culture or a previous episode in order to understand the joke. Lots of money is spent on these TV shows to develop ways that the audience is forced to view many episodes in order to truly understand what is going on.

Same is said about videogames because of their modern complexity and use of logic. I agree with this because I have seen the skills and abilities that modern kids have attained through playing video games. I often see 7 to 10 year olds playing videogames almost instinctively. They show great skills that people my age would have a hard time to accomplishing.

Ultimately today's modern entertainment in some ways help develop cognitive abilities to the next level. The fact that we are using our minds to create logic in television shows and video games is a great exercise for our minds and therefore it does not sound illogical that we are learning through pop culture.