Dumbing down is not the natural state of popular culture, quite the opposite.

The last book I read was Everything Bad Is Good For You by Steven Johnson.

It is official, watching TV, playing video games and surfing the net make you smarter.

Violence and sex you're worried about?  Afraid it will warp the minds of your children?  Ah, worry not, the content doesn't even matter!  These things aren't out with a moral agenda!  They teach you to think, which has nothing to do with morals at all.  And don't forget, the most popular video game titles are the ones with almost no sex or violence.

It's just different kinds of smart.  Even reality television, supposedly the lowest-of-the-low, can teach us important lessons and allows us to flex out social/emotional intelligence muscles.  Video games teach us creative ways to make decisions and prioritize, and how to explore new environments, to push boundaries of system.  Complicated television shows and movies, with more plot lines and characters than ever before tax our brains by making us memorize more complex social structures and sets of relationships.

Somehow he does an amazing job of factoring out everything else and makes an insanely plausible case.  According to his studies, IQ scores have risen, on average, 13.8 points over the last 30 years, due almost entirely upon more complicated and interactive media forms.

So remember that television, movies, video games, and the internet make you smarter.  Which means the next time one of those anti-TV people get in your face about the evils of television, you can kick them in the teeth.