I really enjoyed this one. Steven Johnson is one of the more articulate writers I’ve flipped through recently, outside of my readings in more academic circles. One thing I noticed in the first 30 or so pages is that this is a very organized book. There never seems to be a stray turn or backtrack or overextended digression. Over several hundred pages, it still reads like a tight essay–a rare balance of structure and flow, clarity and conversation.
The crux of Everything Bad is Good for You is this: contrary to received opinion, our pop culture is not diminishing our society, but augmenting and improving it in tangible ways. In contrast to mass entertainment of yesteryear, the media we see today–Johnson focuses on television and videogames, in particular–is more complex and more richly textured.
On television for example: compare the set-and-spike gags of ‘I Love Lucy’ to the dense allusions of ‘The Simpsons’. Compare a cookie-cutter season of ‘Dragnet’ to a season of ’24’. ‘The Price is Right’ to ‘Survivor’. Modern entertainment has progressed so that requires and rewards long-term, attentive participation on the audience’s part. Johnson makes a strong case that our entertainment is more demanding today than ever before, no longer just short-term stimulation, but often even more satisfying in repetition. It’s entertainment with effort.
For the most part, I think he makes a solid argument. I would have liked to see him consider more facets of pop culture in depth–do we see comparable advances in mass literature? music? I’m not so sure, one way or another, but I wouldn’t mind being convinced. Definitely recommended–I’d read it again if I didn’t have other books waiting in line.
Mark Larson 
[…] Like some other consilient books I’ve dabbled in, Surowiecki draws from a bunch of academic and popular work, and uses it to neatly package his ideas for human consumption. In his favor, I really like that he doesn’t stretch his research too far. The main idea seems more richly documented and better sculpted than in books like Blink and The Tipping Point. As an added bonus, his writing is more free from chummy background stories–i.e. not all research needs multi-paragraph introductions. Instead, we get a nice solid edifice of ideas–thank you, James. […]
[…] After the history, there’s an extended analysis of form and style and structural elements. It’s interesting to see McCloud use an argument that is revived in Steven Johnson’s Everything Good is Bad for You (my review). Namely, that comics are more demanding of the reader. The storyline isn’t completely spelled out for you. The selected elements of the story are presented together, but you have to fill in the gaps between frozen moments in time, to give them life. As McCloud says, the comics reader becomes a participant. […]
[…] Compared with the other two Steven Johnson books I read, this one was my least favorite. I originally gave it a 3–but I’ve grown to like it more and more as I’ve thought about the ideas inside. […]