We're constantly being told that popular culture is just mindless entertainment - but, as Steven Johnson shows inEverything Bad is Good for You, it's actually making us more intelligent.

Steven Johnson puts forward a radical alternative to the endless complaints about reality TV, throwaway movies and violent video games. He shows that mass culture -The Simpsons,Desperate Housewives,The Apprentice,The Sopranos,Grand TheftAuto- is actually more sophisticated and challenging than ever before.

When we focus on what our minds have to do to process its complex, multilayered messages, it becomes clear that it's not dumbing us down - but smartening us up.

'As witty asSeinfeldand as wise asER'
  New Statesman

'Wonderfully entertaining'
  Malcolm Gladwell

'A vital, lucid exploration of the contemporary mediascape'
  Time Out

'A guru for Generation Xbox'
  Financial Times

'A must-read'
  Mark Thompson, former Director-General of the BBC

Steven Johnsonis the bestselling author ofMind Wide Open,Where Good Ideas Come From, andEmergence: The Connected Lives Of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software, named as one of the best books of 2001 byEsquire,The Village Voice, Amazon.com, andDiscover Magazine, and a finalist for the Helen Bernstein Award for Excellence in Journalism.