"Is Popular Culture Making us Smarter?"

From the video and the reading Johnson says that popular culture is making us smarter. He says there's a lot of cognitive engagement in today's popular culture that we thoroughly get a cognitive workout. He uses the example of 7 year old watching him play Sims City and then knowing and fully understanding what industrial taxes are just by watching, because he was learning without realizing. He never would've learned about that in school because it would have just been boring and wouldn't have kept his attention. In a lot of games there are many quests that you have to fulfill but there aren't any clear cut specific rules on how to complete these. So you have to figure it out for yourself by poking around and trial and error. The complexity, time, effort, and commitment/mind commitment that a person puts into popular culture these days has increased.

His purpose is to show how the internet is more interactive and that it impacts the way people experience television. To strengthen his argument he shows how interactive is doing something between two things, two-sided and you have to think on your feet. He also says that since the internet has become more complicated, TV has as well. But we want complicated shows and in order to understand people will really engage with TV shows and they go to the internet to catch up/understand. His argument is less strong when he talks about "probing" because at first I didn't really understand it until we talked about it in class. Also when in the video he talked about camp 1 thought and camp 2 thought, because he didn't really go into much detail about it and it was kind of confusing.

Critiquing The News- Truthful or Meaningless?

The news segments that we viewed in class can be taken in different ways. Some say that all news has meaning while others say that the news is just a waste of time. So where do you draw the line like Chuck did in determining what's truthful and has meaning and what's meaningless and is just there to fill space? Well to me, you look at what the content is.
So take the videos that we viewed in class:

• The first video was about a 91 year old DC socialite being murdered. This segment was mostly talking about how the husband was a suspect basically, so I see this as news that's important but not that meaningful to many people because a lot of people aren't really concerned about socialites or even know what they are/do. So it may be important news to some people but not very many.
• The second video was about the son with autism being mistreated in class and as a result becoming violent. I feel like this is a very important meaningful story because there are more families out there with children that have autism that should be aware of how their kids could be being treated. It's also important because it shows the public how these teachers are allowed to get away with this sort of thing. It's a really sad and frustrating story to hear about because the kid can't help that he has autism and he's basically being bullied for it and by a teacher no less. The father is purposefully trying to put this story out there to show just what can go on. 
• The third video was about strong winds making planes shake. This video was completely used just to fill space, there was no meaning what so ever. The video may have been cool the first time seen but for them to just go on and on about it and how landing a plane here vs. America is different, the guy even said "it's fun to watch." No it's a stupid video just to fill up space.
• The fourth video was about teens drinking hand sanitizer to get drunk. I feel that this video was also very important and meaningful because hand sanitizer has really become so readily available that anyone can get it. I feel like it's just like drugs, one person does it and tells a friend and then it spreads and it's really nice to hear about the problem before it gets to big because it could always be your kid that's next. This issue I feel like should be more widely known about because it is a new dangerous thing so it's important to parents so that they are aware.
• The fifth video was Russell Brand gets (mostly) serious. This video to me didn't really make any sense but then again I'm not a big follower of Russell Brand so I guess that's why I didn't care all that much. So to me, anyway, this video wasn't very meaningful I feel like it was just there to fill space.
• The last video we watched was Partying with the President. To me this was kind of a cool story but I feel like it, in some way, ties into what Chuck says about "Celebrity Journalism is a New Kind of Meaningless." I feel like it connects to this because the girl didn't even talk to Obama and she said that she's always know that he was a nice charismatic guy, a wonderful dude and he just reinforced that by shaking people's hands, autographs, etc. But again she had no conversation with him so how can she really know this? So I feel like while the story may seem interesting at first, there's no real meaningful information to be gained and it's only being made a big deal from a picture that she posted online. So I feel it was her 15 minutes of fame just to fill up space.