Recently, Arlo loaned me his copy of Everything Bad Is Good For You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter and I tore right through it. The basic argument of the book is that popular culture is doing the exact opposite of what most assume it is aiming for. Instead of appealing to a lowest common denominator with the simplest / dumbest programming - pacifying audiences everywhere - it's actually getting much much more complex and engaging our brains in a way that it rarely gets credit for. He focuses mainly on videogames, television shows and touches on Internet interactions as well. The book is from 2005 so it is entirely possible that this is nothing but old news to all of you reading this but if you haven't happened to have read this one yet.. please go out and pick it up this weekend, you'll tear right through it. I may not agree 110% with everything in the book but it's hard to argue against the idea that some forms of popular media really have gained a level of complexity over the past thirty years that must be engaging our brains moreso than lulling them into disinterest.