TV makes us smarter?!

Now there's a twist! According to this New York Times Magazine article by Steven Johnson, author of the soon-to-be-released "Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter," the human mind "likes to be challenged; there's real pleasure to be found in solving puzzles, detecting patterns or unpacking a complex narrative system." And, Johnson says, TV's producers are meeting that demand because it's good business. He explains how. But, parents, if you read nothing else in the article, read the last two paragraphs. In the first he suggests that we reconsider "the criteria we use to determine what really is cognitive junk food and what is genuinely nourishing." But his most interesting suggestion of all is that we see today's programming (maybe media in general) as an opportunity instead of a crisis: "The kids are forced to think like grown-ups: analyzing complex social networks, managing resources, tracking subtle narrative intertwinings, recognizing long-term patterns. The grown-ups, in turn, get to learn from the kids: decoding each new technological wave, parsing the interfaces and discovering the intellectual rewards of play." I think, too, it's an opportunity for more, very rewarding, parent-child communication.