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Everything Bad Is Good For You
How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter
by Steven Johnson


6.3

based on 17 reviews
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based on 6 votes
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The bestselling author (Mind Wide Open) challenges the popular assertion that video games, reality television, and other aspects of pop culture are dumbing down the populis--populase--populace. (Guess we better go back to our PS2.)

Riverhead, 256 pages
05/05/2005
$23.95

ISBN: 1573223077

Nonfiction
Social Sciences

All reviews are classified as one of five grades: Outstanding (4 points), Favorable (3), Mixed (2), Unfavorable (1) and Terrible (0). To calculate the Metascore, we divide total points achieved by the total points possible (i.e., 4 x the number of reviews), with the resulting percentage (multiplied by 100) being the Metascore. Learn more...

Boston Globe Joseph Rosenbloom

Iconoclastic and captivating.

Chicago Tribune Steven Zeitchik

Johnson is so busy gleefully puncturing balloons that you'll find yourself with him regardless of his rhetorical goals. [8 May 2005]

Library Journal Suzanne W. Wood

[A] fascinating book. [15 Apr 2005, p.107]

Publishers Weekly

With the same winning combination of personal revelation and friendly scientific explanation he displayed in last year's Mind Wide Open, Johnson shatters the conventional wisdom about pop culture as pabulum. [4 Apr 2005, p.54]

Salon Farhad Manjoo

Johnson is a forceful writer, and he makes a good case; his book is an elegant work of argumentation, the kind in which the author anticipates your silent challenges to his ideas and hospitably tucks you in, quickly bringing you around to his side.

The New Yorker Malcolm Gladwell

Wonderfully entertaining.

The Onion A.V. Club Andy Battaglia

The book lacks the theoretical and scientific gravitas Johnson offered in his probing studies Emergence and Mind Wide Open, though. It's essentially a treatment of an argument that goes without saying.

The Economist

Despite its occasionally pretentious tone, and its unfortunate narrow focus on America, this punchy, thought-provoking book is a welcome antidote to the pessimism and hand-wringing of those who see only decadence and doom in popular culture.

The New York Times Book Review Walter Kirn

Johnson's argument isn't strictly scientific, relying on hypotheses and tests, but more observational and impressionistic. It's persuasive anyhow.

San Francisco Chronicle Peter Hyman

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

Bookslut Liz Miller

A fun, accessible read that examines what we really gain from guilty pleasures.

The New York Times Janet Maslin

If games are, as he says, repetitive and often frustrating, and if they make up for monotony by offering infrequent but exciting rewards, the same can be said for his book.

Washington Post Bob Ivry

He seems blind to anything but the rosiest consequences of parking our butts in dark rooms.

The Spectator Zoe Williams

Ultimately, though, it is only because the book has so much of interest in it, probes (as well as reprobing and rethinking, naturally) so interestingly into the components of modern culture that one feels moved to argue with it so closely.

Wall Street Journal John Leo

By accentuating the positive, Mr. Johnson glides lightly past issues of content.

The Independent Pat Kane

Undoubtely one of the better commuter reads at the moment.

The Observer Steven Poole

The book affects an air of empirical, science-based analysis, but unfortunately Johnson wants it on the cheap.

The average user rating for this book is 6.3 (out of 10) based on 6 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Jacques B gave it a10:
As an educator who deals in pop culutre with students, I find that this book provides some needed counterweight against the arguments that pop culture is not worth participating in, much less studying. And as a long-time game player and TV watcher, I simply enjoyed having someone stand up for the pastimes that I know have kept my mind a little bit sharper over the years.

Irvin S gave it an8:
The book's argument is a well-thought out rebuttal to years of not so well-thought out criticism of pop culture.

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Everything Bad Is Good For You How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter by Steven Johnson

Everything Bad Is Good For You
How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter
by Steven Johnson