http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0, ... 03,00.html

May 01, 2005

Couch potatoes sprout bigger brains watching TV
Sarah Baxter

TODAY’S screen culture is boosting the intelligence of children and teenagers, according to a controversial new book.
Far from being brain-rotting rubbish, the book argues that popular culture may be partly responsible for raising IQ levels in western nations.

Video games, phone cameras, iPods and television shows are teaching a generation how to engage in systems analysis, probability theory, pattern recognition and spatial geometry.

They also improve attention span, memory and the ability to follow a narrative. Steven Johnson, author of Everything Bad Is Good for You, published in America next week, writes: “For decades we’ve assumed that mass culture follows a steadily declining path towards lowest-common-denominator standards, presumably because the ‘masses’ want dumb, simple pleasures.

“In fact, the exact opposite is happening: the culture is getting more intellectually demanding, not less.”

Shows such as The Sopranos, the multilayered story of a New Jersey mafia family, make far greater demands on their audience than past prime-time series such as the 1970s drama Starsky and Hutch.

IQ scores in developed nations have been steadily rising since 1943 at an annual rate of 0.31 points. In the 1990s, scores accelerated at a rate of 0.36 points.

Johnson argues exposure to new media may be responsible. “Over the last 50 years, we’ve had to cope with an explosion of media, technologies and interfaces from the TV clicker to the worldwide web.”

The skills developed are the very ones measured in IQ tests, in which “you survey a field of visual icons and look for unusual patterns”.

George Erdos, a psychology lecturer at Newcastle University, said: “Since most standard intelligence tests depend on speed of information processing and decision-making, if your brain is used to processing information fast from early childhood then you will probably do better in these tests.”

man, youd think id be a genius by now

I think it really depends on what you see and for how long.

All right, I didn't waste the last four hours of my life after all!

I'd also think intelligence has more to do with how the information is processed rather than how quickly it's processed as the article suggests.

Also, IQ tests are biased in a number of ways so I don't think of them as a good way to determine 'intelligence", matter of fact, I'm not sure most people can even agree exactly what intelligence is let alone who has it.

Well put.

exactly

Huh?

I can tell who doesn't have it.

in an applicable way? Seriously, I'm not dumb, but in school I was always slower at picking up certain subjects, and due to the financial stresses (etc) placed on the school curriculum, the teachers couldn't really afford to spend 'quality time' with me in order to get me up to speed with the rest of the class. Does that make them smarter than me? Or does it just mean I processed the information I was given differently from other people in the class?
I have a sister who's very smart about things like facts and dates, or the ability to rattle off how laws are supposed to be interpreted (she's a judge), yet she's never had much 'common sense' in day to day life. Does that make her smarter or dumber than me?

I guess what I'm saying is everything is relative so it's not so easy to say in any given circumstance that a person is smart or dumb. It has to be looked at in relation to all other things within that environment.
Is a person who agrees with my opinions smart and one who disagrees dumb? It often seems that's used as an indicator, people place a lot of significance on their own opinions and often will dismiss someone else as stupid when they don't understand a situation in the same way.

I guess my joke wasn't funny.

That one was.

Sure it was, it was also a good enough remark to address in a serious manner.
This kind of article pisses me off somewhat. I don't think 'kids' today are any more or less intelligent than kids 50 years ago, what they are, is better conditioned to work with the technology currently being pushed on the open market. I wonder how well they'd do using the technology of 50 years ago without growing up with it? How about 100 years ago? 200?
They may be well suited to handling the societal requirements in place right now, and even excel in it, but could they accomplish whatever people had to accomplish in other generations?
I think of my parents at the age of say 25, which was in the early 1950s, and find it very hard to compare them to people in their 20s right now. The differences are tremendous with the advantage being on their generation rather than this one.

Meh! Churning butter isn't that hard.

how about building a log cabin and providing your own source of food? You ever watch that PBS show with the group of people who tried it? Have any idea how long it took them to figure shit out and how many things they didn't think of until it was too late?
Sorry, that kind of commentary doesn't do anything for me, I still contend that you'd have just as much difficulty at acquiring those skills as they did.

I built a log cabin. I could do it w/ my eyes closed.

how intelligent of you.

Man, why is everyone taking the goofy news stories so seriously today?

dude, if it's a subject open for discussion and I have something to discuss, that' what I'm going to do, how you choose to respond to it is up to you, but it won't stop me from discussing it.