News Release

IWV Campus

Best-selling author to appear at Cerro Coso College September 1

Ridgecrest, CA – August 18, 2005

Steven Johnson, one of "Newsweek" magazine's "Fifty People Who Matter Most on the Internet," will appear at Cerro Coso Community College Sept. 1 at 7 p.m. in the Lecture Center. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Be a couch potato and up your I.Q.

Steven Johnson, a national best selling author who was also named one of "Newsweek's Fifty People Who Matter Most on the Internet," will be making an appearance at Cerro Coso Community College on Thursday, Sept. 1 at 7 p.m. in the College Lecture Center. During his presentation, he will discuss his new book entitled, "Everything Bad Is Good For You: Why Pop Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter."

The following quote is from Johnson's website where he speaks about his book and the lecture:

"Unlike my first three books, which were all to varying degrees intellectual travelogues with me as a kind of tour guide ("let me travel with you through the world of emergence, or neuroscience, and show you the interesting landmarks"), Everything Bad is a pure work of persuasion, an old-fashioned polemic. It's shorter than the others, and barely has any chapters, and I'm not really introducing the reader to outside experts as the last two have. It's just me trying to marshal all the evidence I can to persuade the reader of a single long-term trend: that popular culture on average has been steadily growing more complex and cognitively challenging over the past thirty years. The dumbing-down, instant gratification society assumption has it completely wrong. Popular entertainment is making us smarter and more engaged, not catering to our base instincts.

I call this long-term trend the Sleeper Curve, after that famous Woody Allen joke from his mock sci-fi film where a team of scientists from 2029 are astounded that 20th-century society failed to grasp the nutritional merits of cream pies and hot fudge. (In conversation, I sometimes describe this book as the Atkins diet for pop culture.) Over the course of the book, I look at everything from Grand Theft Auto to "24," from Finding Nemo to "Dallas," from "Hill Street Blues" to "The Sopranos," from "Oprah" to "The Apprentice." There's some material about the internet, too, though less than you might suspect. (And I'm pretty sure the word "blog" never appears -- imagine that!) The critical method I've concocted for making the argument is one of my favorite things about the book -- it draws a little on narratology, a little on brain science, a little economics and media criticism, a dash of social network theory. But it tries to yoke all those disciplines together in a consistent and unified way. Or at least I think it does.

So there you go. Obviously I've got much more to say about it, and a few questions to ask. But in the meantime, if you are in the LA (Ridgecrest) area, come out and hear this talk and let me know how the argument sounds in person."

Learn more about Johnson at his website:
http://www.stevenberlinjohnson.com/

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AVAILABLE NOW AT THE BOOKSTORE MIND WIDE OPEN By Stephen Johnson Fascinating and rewarding reading, Mind Wide Open speaks to brain buffs, self-obsessed neurotics, barstool psychologists, mystified parents, grumpy spouses, exasperated managers, and anyone who enjoys speculating and gossiping about the motivations and behaviors of other human beings. Steven Johnson makes neuroscience fun and entertaining. Get a head start on his upcoming lecture by his books and read them today! The bookstore has all four of his books in stock. Hurry while supplies last.

 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Joann Handeland, Director of Facilities Development and Services (760) 384-6230