Steven Johnson has something important to say. Part of it is in what he says. Part of it is that he says something that goes against our grain – the sound of metal scraping that raises our hackles. I think that’s good for us.

What he says is, “Everything Bad Is Good for You.” His argument is that “Watching TV Makes You Smarter,” and that video games are good for kids. It’s an important thesis, and I’ll come back to it in a ripstick. What’s a “ripstick,” you say? It’s Esther Helmstetter’s wonderful word for a brief, but indeterminate time.)

But before we get to that: It’s that part about going against the grain that intrigues me.

When a new idea comes along that raises our hackles, how do we evaluate it? Are his titles merely a marketing ploy? Are they at least a public-spirited marketing ploy to help us notice that in the daily and plethoric avalanche of information, there’s something here we should attend to? I like that perspective, because I think this is one of those ideas that has to screech its way into our consciousness.

By way of example, here’s a fondly remembered dialog with an early adolescent boy and his mom:

Me: So, are you a gamer?

Boy: Yeah (Mom rolls her eyes upward to say “Woe betide us.")

Me: So, what do you play?

Boy: Starcraft, mostly. (Mom rolls her eyes upward to say “Pointless violence.")

Me: So, what do you learn from playing it? (Mom rolls her eyes upward to say “How to avoid his homework.")

Boy: Oh, nothing really: Allocation of resources…. (and he goes off into a list that would impress a cognitive psychologist.)

Mom: I’ve been missing something here.

Now that’s an impressive mom! She had her opinions. But when her son said “Allocation of resources…,” she got it – he was learning important stuff from Starcraft. She had seen aliens melting into vaguely bloody pools. He had seen the cognitive demands of an engaging task. She got it, and, in spite of the sound of metal grating on metal, she started to shift gears about games.

If we’ll listen, I think that’s what Johnson can do for us. As his titles make crystalline, he’s being deliberately outrageous. But he has to do that to get through our preconceptions. He catches our attention. Once we listen, he makes sense, with ideas like these:

• TV plots are enormously more complex than they were two decades ago. We have to use more brain power to watch them. That makes us smarter.

• While shows used to be black and white, cut and dried, now they are shaded and open ended. Reality TV ("Survivor") forces us to look for subtle nonverbal cues about motives and intentions. It asks us to read real emotions, on real human faces. We become detectives instead of “the audience.” (I hate this idea – I can hear the screech in my brain!)

• Video games beat the heck out of homework when it comes to engagement and learning. (That idea causes no screeching at all!)

You get the gist. Here’s his argument that TV Makes You Smarter.

Here’s a slightly tongue-in-cheek interview and review by Bob Thompson in the Washington Post, with the double-entendre title The ‘Bad’ Guy .

Here’s Malcolm Gladwell, with his usual flare, writing about Brain Candy.
(I want to come back to this article again in another post – or maybe two.)

Finally, here’s Steven Johnson’s book:
Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today’s Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter
Riverhead, 2005
ISBN: 1573223077

You can order his book from my sister, Kathleen, at The Erie Book Store.

Are you into board games? Really into board games? I mean,really, really, really into board games? Yes? Have we got a site for you!

BoardGameGeek is a fine example of what can happen when people with a passion take full advantage of the Internet’s astonishing capacity to build communities without regard to geography. The site categorizes, describes, reviews, rates, and discusses more board games than I dreamed existed. Their data base merits words like “incredible.”

Here’s an example of the helpfulness of the site.

If you believe in the educational value of board games, as I do, here’s a way to locate one that suits any imaginable interest of your child, or gives just the learning opportunity you’re looking for. (And did I fail to say “fun” just then?)

The site feels noncommercial, but does allow you to purchase and trade games. Most of the site is accessible without signing in, but you can also create a (free) account and become a member of the BoardGameGeek community.

Please note: Depending on your child’s developmental maturity, you may prefer to use the site as your own resource, for two reasons: First, most of the games are for adults, and you may feel some aren’t ones you want your child to play; and second, there are online forums for people to discuss games, and we obviously can’t vouch for the content of those forums.

Check this out! Pass it on to your kids! Bzzzpeek is more fun than a barrel of highly vocal, multilingual monkeys.

My son, Paul, put enough money in the bank to spend a year composing and performing music, and playing with some computer projects of interest to him. (Check out his music blog and podcast) He also agreed to build IntelligenceRiver.net, the web site that is to support the community of Grow With the Flow readers.

As I explained a while back, just about the time Grow With the Flow arrived from the printer, friends of Paul’s at Minnesota Public Radio asked if he would help with some software for their pledge drives. He was happy to, and the short-term consulting job also allowed him to stay “gainfully unemployed” a while longer. But of course that meant work on IntelligenceRiver.net went on the shelf.

But we’re back in business! Paul sent me a draft this week of the web site home page. It looks great! It hasn’t been checked out on different operating systems yet, so we aren’t “public,” but we are getting soooo close!