The popular belief that computer games, the internet, blogging, television all lead to a dumbing down of society (that popular culture caters to the lowest common denominator) is pretty thoroughly debunked in his book.
He makes the point that the IQ of the average person has increased by 13.8 points over the last 48 years. You can read about it in the book or online by googling for the Flynn Effect, named after James Flynn the philosopher and civil rights activist who made this discovery in the 1980's.
Steven Johnson makes the point that our brains are designed to solve complex problems, which flies in the face of the idea that what we really want is stupid games, TV and blogs that don't challenge our minds at all.
It's fairly obvious if you consider the complexity of popular games, that most people are not drawn to simple - easy to solve and finish games. People naturally are drawn to complexity (of course things that are generally true are never specifically true when it comes to people...there are probably some people who love playing Pong or PacMan, out there).
He makes a good case for how culture has been influenced by technology in good ways (ways that make us smarter, more creative, more adaptable, better problem solvers, able to recognize patterns and sift through data to find meaning). He shows how TV plotlines have grown increasing complex in order to satisfy viewers and qualify the show for syndication (where the money is). Video recorders, TIVO and internet fan sites all play a role in this transition.
He gives an example from the gaming world of a fan named Aaron Baker who wrote a 50,000 plus word (164 page) guide to the game "Grand Theft Auto III", then compares this to a single page it would take to walk a player through PacMan.
The one downside to what Marshal McCluhan referred to as the electric speed of technology, according to Steven Johnson, is the potential to lose the ability to focus on long narratives (ie. books). That would be a shame of course and he cautions the need to balance our activities.
Some time spent with fast moving technology which provides us data in short pieces...sometimes information...sometimes noise...(the ability to filter the information from the noise is a form of intelligence in itself) as well as devoting time to focus and concentrate on a narrative thread found in a book.
It's a very interesting book, easy to read and quick going.
