This short piece focuses on Johnson's earlier (and very popular) work on how pop culture--and especially those elements which critics say is making us dumber--is making us smarter. He points to a re-definition of literacy (his own) and points of an increase in IQ in the last several years, an increase that he attributes to video games and the like, which--he argues--make us smarter.
OK, sure. Johnson is a provocateur. But what he says here also has a lot to do with democracy and innovation. Traditionally, in our print-based society, some have access to public conversations (which usually go on in print--newspapers, magazines, etc.) while many do not. So perhaps the decline in traditional literacy--I mean, the rise in non-traditional literacy--brings us to an historical moment when many more can participate in public discourse.
I wonder, though: who, really, is still participating in public discourse? I'll bet it's the same group of professors, think tank-ers, and the like who have always dominated this space.
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