Entertain this thought for now
The United States has become an entertainment-based society.
Our world revolves around our need to be continuously entertained. Think about it – how much of your waking hours are spent with at least some kind of entertainment? I bet at least 95 percent of the time you are not asleep that something is happening to entertain you. I bet a sizable portion of your income goes into entertainment – much more than you are consciously aware of.
As you read this column, stop and listen. Is there a radio playing in the background? Maybe you have the earbuds to an MP3 player stuck in your ear. Perhaps the television set is on. Is your cell phone ringing or playing music? Is there a video game on somewhere nearby? Or maybe you’re reading this online from your computer or some portable device.
If you’re like me, the first thing you hear in the morning is not the annoying buzz of an alarm, but music from the radio that the alarm turns on. I’m not even out of bed and I’m being entertained awake. While I’m in the bathroom shaving and brushing my teeth, I listen to the radio.
When we wake the kids for school in the morning we flip on the lights and turn on the radio. My teenager will invariably emerge from his room with earbuds firmly in place. In many homes – not mine – the television is on with kids watching morning programs while they eat their breakfast cereal or else it’s tuned into a morning news program. The TV might even be competing with the stereo in the same room.
As part of my morning routine, I will fire up my computer, check my e-mail and visit Facebook to see what’s going on in the lives of my friends and family. On occasion, I will have a text message on my cell phone.
When we get in the car, at the very least the radio is on. Many cars now have DVD players so the passengers can watch movies and/or listen to music. And how many folks have a GPS device? I submit to you that – helpful as they may be – they are there for entertainment.
When I get in the car, I almost never listen to the radio unless I have passengers. When I’m alone, which is most of the time, I listen to books on CD. I listen to them for entertainment. Very few of the books would classify as educational material.
When the kids get to school, how much of their learning comes from computers or other audio/visual media? Most classrooms today are equipped with a television set.
At the office, chances are there is some kind of background music playing or else you have music streaming from your computer or iPod. At work, how many of us spend time visiting Websites that have nothing to do with work? When you have conversations with your co-workers, how much of your chit-chat has to do with last night’s television programs or a hot, new movie in the theaters?
Could you even start a conversation that didn’t involve TV, movies, music or sports?
When I get home in the evening, most of the time the TV is on – normally to the Cartoon Network – and the kids are watching it while playing with their Gameboys. In the kitchen, my wife will be preparing dinner with her laptop nearby playing music or with some news or weather site pulled up on the screen. I will go back, fire up my computer and go right back at it with e-mail and Facebook. Almost every day will end with us sitting on the couch watching a program or a movie on DVD.
Whenever we go out to eat, most of the time my kids want McDonalds. They get toys with their meals and there is usually a play area for them to goof off in. All of it is entertainment. Even the luxury of dining out is for our pleasure. It’s certainly not a necessity.
If you look at the highest-paying careers in this country, they’re all entertainers. Actors, singers and athletes make more money than the farmers, factory workers and teachers who actually do something of value for a living. This country’s most profitable export is entertainment. The most common foreign imports include means for enjoying entertainment (TVs, computers, game consoles, etc.).
Even our attire – T-shirts in particular – are geared toward entertainment. Most of what we read in books and magazines is for entertainment. If you go to church, chances are that part of the service will involve some form of multimedia entertainment. If you go on vacation, you will most likely go to a theme park or someplace where you are entertained.
As I look around my office, I have pictures and paraphernalia from sports teams and movies. When I look at my finances, a much bigger chunk of my paycheck goes to pay for computers, phones, movies and cable TV than ever before.
It makes me wonder just how healthy this constant bombardment of entertainment is for us. And what are we being entertained with? What messages are we constantly receiving? It’s pretty frightening sometimes to stop and think about who has control of our minds and what they are doing with that control.
What scares me even more is there is little, if anything, that we can – or want – to do to take back control of our lives.
Our world revolves around our need to be continuously entertained. Think about it – how much of your waking hours are spent with at least some kind of entertainment? I bet at least 95 percent of the time you are not asleep that something is happening to entertain you. I bet a sizable portion of your income goes into entertainment – much more than you are consciously aware of.
As you read this column, stop and listen. Is there a radio playing in the background? Maybe you have the earbuds to an MP3 player stuck in your ear. Perhaps the television set is on. Is your cell phone ringing or playing music? Is there a video game on somewhere nearby? Or maybe you’re reading this online from your computer or some portable device.
If you’re like me, the first thing you hear in the morning is not the annoying buzz of an alarm, but music from the radio that the alarm turns on. I’m not even out of bed and I’m being entertained awake. While I’m in the bathroom shaving and brushing my teeth, I listen to the radio.
When we wake the kids for school in the morning we flip on the lights and turn on the radio. My teenager will invariably emerge from his room with earbuds firmly in place. In many homes – not mine – the television is on with kids watching morning programs while they eat their breakfast cereal or else it’s tuned into a morning news program. The TV might even be competing with the stereo in the same room.
As part of my morning routine, I will fire up my computer, check my e-mail and visit Facebook to see what’s going on in the lives of my friends and family. On occasion, I will have a text message on my cell phone.
When we get in the car, at the very least the radio is on. Many cars now have DVD players so the passengers can watch movies and/or listen to music. And how many folks have a GPS device? I submit to you that – helpful as they may be – they are there for entertainment.
When I get in the car, I almost never listen to the radio unless I have passengers. When I’m alone, which is most of the time, I listen to books on CD. I listen to them for entertainment. Very few of the books would classify as educational material.
When the kids get to school, how much of their learning comes from computers or other audio/visual media? Most classrooms today are equipped with a television set.
At the office, chances are there is some kind of background music playing or else you have music streaming from your computer or iPod. At work, how many of us spend time visiting Websites that have nothing to do with work? When you have conversations with your co-workers, how much of your chit-chat has to do with last night’s television programs or a hot, new movie in the theaters?
Could you even start a conversation that didn’t involve TV, movies, music or sports?
When I get home in the evening, most of the time the TV is on – normally to the Cartoon Network – and the kids are watching it while playing with their Gameboys. In the kitchen, my wife will be preparing dinner with her laptop nearby playing music or with some news or weather site pulled up on the screen. I will go back, fire up my computer and go right back at it with e-mail and Facebook. Almost every day will end with us sitting on the couch watching a program or a movie on DVD.
Whenever we go out to eat, most of the time my kids want McDonalds. They get toys with their meals and there is usually a play area for them to goof off in. All of it is entertainment. Even the luxury of dining out is for our pleasure. It’s certainly not a necessity.
If you look at the highest-paying careers in this country, they’re all entertainers. Actors, singers and athletes make more money than the farmers, factory workers and teachers who actually do something of value for a living. This country’s most profitable export is entertainment. The most common foreign imports include means for enjoying entertainment (TVs, computers, game consoles, etc.).
Even our attire – T-shirts in particular – are geared toward entertainment. Most of what we read in books and magazines is for entertainment. If you go to church, chances are that part of the service will involve some form of multimedia entertainment. If you go on vacation, you will most likely go to a theme park or someplace where you are entertained.
As I look around my office, I have pictures and paraphernalia from sports teams and movies. When I look at my finances, a much bigger chunk of my paycheck goes to pay for computers, phones, movies and cable TV than ever before.
It makes me wonder just how healthy this constant bombardment of entertainment is for us. And what are we being entertained with? What messages are we constantly receiving? It’s pretty frightening sometimes to stop and think about who has control of our minds and what they are doing with that control.
What scares me even more is there is little, if anything, that we can – or want – to do to take back control of our lives.
posted by Joe Southern | 3:13 PM
1 Comments:
It's like never leaving our lives as teenagers. Every moment of our time that we could manage was for entertainment - driving down the back roads with the music as loud as possible and us singing to it or just hanging out with our friends............so is our nation now being run by eternal teenagers? ;)
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