World Wide Waste
Talking to a friend tonight we realized that we live in an age where there is access to and enormous volume of information and yet many prefer to watch a group of strangers imprisoned in a house for ten weeks.
I don't think, though, that people are getting stupider. To use some news-speak, we have become media savvy. We are aware of how much of the information we are exposed has has been created to express an idea and with a desire for us to accept these ideas. Obvious examples are advertising and propaganda (which are essentially the same thing aside from different focus).
The problem may be that we are exposed to so much information we filter out we manage to filter out all but which directly interests us. Are interests innate? I don't think so.
Interests take time to develop. To quote an article I read recently:
It must be disheartening to study interested in a complex topic as the more complex it is the more hoos you need before it can be appreciated. So we become interested in the simpler things.
Most television shows are half an hour with ads, songs have to be short enough to play on the radio and news articles condense the important information into the first paragraph. We have remote controls so we can flick channel if a show is moving too quickly. If it isn't sharp and edgy it won't last a season.
Children will happily sit through a three hour screening of Harry Potter and Robert Jordan's series The Wheel of Time is up to it's tenth volume. These examples and others like them point to the past-times in which we invest a lot of our time. The details of The Wheel of Time are much analyzed and discussed on webgroups and among peers.
We find the things that hold our attention are the ones where we can easily see the hooks. Film and literature is a perfect medium for this as the stories can be interpreted in many different ways. This is different to television which provides more of a linear story that is easily interpreted.
We like fiction more than most things, though at the moment infotainment is becoming a larger market with filmmakers such as Michael Moore.
Should we be studying more relevant subjects? And what would they be?
I don't think, though, that people are getting stupider. To use some news-speak, we have become media savvy. We are aware of how much of the information we are exposed has has been created to express an idea and with a desire for us to accept these ideas. Obvious examples are advertising and propaganda (which are essentially the same thing aside from different focus).
The problem may be that we are exposed to so much information we filter out we manage to filter out all but which directly interests us. Are interests innate? I don't think so.
Interests take time to develop. To quote an article I read recently:
When you first read history, it's just a whirl of names and dates. Nothing seems to stick. But the more you learn, the more hooks you have for new facts to stick onto-- which means you accumulate knowledge at what's colloquially called an exponential rate.
It must be disheartening to study interested in a complex topic as the more complex it is the more hoos you need before it can be appreciated. So we become interested in the simpler things.
Most television shows are half an hour with ads, songs have to be short enough to play on the radio and news articles condense the important information into the first paragraph. We have remote controls so we can flick channel if a show is moving too quickly. If it isn't sharp and edgy it won't last a season.
Children will happily sit through a three hour screening of Harry Potter and Robert Jordan's series The Wheel of Time is up to it's tenth volume. These examples and others like them point to the past-times in which we invest a lot of our time. The details of The Wheel of Time are much analyzed and discussed on webgroups and among peers.
We find the things that hold our attention are the ones where we can easily see the hooks. Film and literature is a perfect medium for this as the stories can be interpreted in many different ways. This is different to television which provides more of a linear story that is easily interpreted.
We like fiction more than most things, though at the moment infotainment is becoming a larger market with filmmakers such as Michael Moore.
Should we be studying more relevant subjects? And what would they be?
posted by Wax at 10:10 PM
1 Comments:
Noce post. and thanks for dropping by. Yes, i agree, actually things are getting worse for the next generation. Too many kids now are stuck to the TV or videogames -- national and world opinions are formed by TV stations. No more of the days spent in idle chatter discussing matters of the world late into the night over beer. Some hope emerging from bloggers -- see enough intelligent discussion here though also a lot of inanne stuff.
Cheers
Post a Comment
<< Home