Do Video Games Make You Smarter?

I read a book this past weekend with an interesting premise: modern pop culture is making us smarter. The book is Everything Bad is Good for You by Steven Johnson, and it makes a compelling argument.

Johnson’s premise is that modern television and video games (and to a lesser extent films) require a level of interaction that actually improves the consumer’s problem-solving skills, social networking skills, and raw intellegence (as measured by IQ). He’s not arguing that TV or video games should replace other methods of learning, just that they are not intellectual junk food.

The book’s arguments are well constructed, well written, and very persuasive. At least they were to me. But I wanted to believe them the moment I read the subtitle of the book, so I’m a little biased.

One of the examples in the book is how the game Tetris helps build visual pattern recognition skills. I played a lot of Tetris as a child, and I really hope it helped me in some way. Because if it didn’t I wasted a lot of my precious childhood. Also, I recently bought a game for my PSP called Lumines, which is essentially a combination of Tetris and crystal meth. I’ll let you read the description of the game for yourself, but I will say that it’s the most addictive game I’ve played in a long, long time. One thing that the game’s description doesn’t mention, but I think is very cool, is that your gameplay actually affects the music. Instead of silly sound effects when you move or rotate a block you get musical samples which enhance the soundtrack. To a music geek like me that’s just freakin’ sweet.