In This Edition:
1. Groundhogs and Such
2. Does TV Have our Culture in Choke Hold?
3. It's OK Not To Keep Up, Really!
4. A Ten-Step Plan For OverComing Electronic Addiction
5. Some Parting Humor...
Groundhogs and Such
A month in to the new year and we've got raging controversy:
Superbowls ads and half time presentations over the top; which presidential
candidate served in what military capacity... 30 years ago; and what will
happen to the foul ball that apparently unglued the Chicago Cubs in the
National League playoffs of 2003! Never a dull monent...
Does TV Have our Culture in Choke Hold?
Despite your denial, chances are you're watching more television
than last year at this time. Or your combined TV and Web surfing time
easily exceeds last year and the year before. More than four out of five
television households own VCRs or DVD palyers, while the number of movie
tickets sold and videos rented in the U.S. each year exceeded one billion
annually starting in 1988. The average person now spends more than eight
solid years watching electronically how other people supposedly live.
Twenty years ago three major television networks dominated television --
ABC, NBC and CBS. Today there are more than 500 full-power independent
television stations.
Electronic Compression -- You may not have realized that the average
TV scene change in a situation comedy or drama is 3.5 seconds -- take out
your stopwatch some evening. The media moguls discovered that at that rate,
you have to pay attention or you can't keep up.
TV commercials followed suit and added rock music backdrops, more
skits, less straight pitch, and more image creation. In fact, television
commercials of five, ten, and fifteen-second lengths have largely replaced
30 and 60 second commercials.
Studies show that short commercials can be equally as effective as
long ones. So, we are exposed to more penetrating messages in the same
interval, if of course, we don't use the channel changer to flip around and
pick-up 10 or 20 other non-related images and information tidbits such as
lurid Superbowl half time shows.
The impact of the messages is subtle but powerful. Increasingly,
individual preferences and standards yield to media imposed values -- a kind
of mass "keeping up with the Joneses." When you want what others have, you
work harder and believe you need to earn more money before feeling you have
"made it."
What's Next? -- A growing world population, electronically linked
by an increasingly strong media in dustry, ensures that a news and
information explosion will continue to spread. As more population-related
issues, information items, and media reports compete for your attention,
invariably you will be unable to keep pace.
If the amount of time you devote to radio, television, and the
Internet remains about the same each day for the rest of your life, you will
be informed of an increasing number of compelling new issues, social
injustices, worthy causes, and late-breaking events, all of which will
compete for your attention. Though your quest to ingest such reports may be
worthy, you likely will not be able to actually sort or apply more than a
few scraps of what you take in, and you will never be able to "keep up."
Now and then I think that if I pay close attention to the mass
media shower, some kind of grand order will emerge that puts everything in
context. Then I read about Albert Einstein, who toiled to derive a unified
theory of the universe towards the end of his career, but did not.
Likewise, to conclude his brilliant trilogy, Alvin Toffler attempted to
develop a social model in Powershift to predict where we're all heading, but
did not.
With the affairs of humankind, there may or may not be some larger
order. If there is, it's unlikely you will grasp it by ingesting the mass
media barrage. What's dangerous is that with its sensationalized trivia,
the mass media overglut ultimately obscures fundamental issues that domerit
the concern of individuals globally, such as preserving the environment.
Meanwhile, broadcasts themselves regularly imply that it is uncivil or
immoral not to tune into the daily news -- "all the news you need to know,"
and "we won't keep you waiting for the latest . . ."
It's OK Not To Keep Up, Really!
It is not immoral to not "keep up" with the news that is offered.
However, to "tune out" and turn your back on the world is not appropriate
either. Being more selective in what you give your attention to, and to how
long you give it, makes more sense.
There is little utility in intellectually resonating with the
world's challenges and problems. Pick one cause or one issue, and take some
kind of action outside your home. Action is customarily invigorating. Your
ability to make a real, if minute, difference will immediately lessen your
concerns about the state of the world.
A Ten-Step Plan For OverComing Electronic Addiction
If you'd like to wean yourself of too much media, here's a plan the
pays great benefits:
[ ] Go one weekend without turning on a radio or television. (You can
do it!)
[ ] Call your friends both locally and out of town one evening per week
instead of watching any television.
[ ] Spend time on hobbies such as coin or stamp collecting, gardening,
or word games one other weeknight, rather than watching TV.
[ ] Allow yourself to selectively watch two hours of programming each
Saturday and Sunday for one month.
[ ] Permit yourself one high quality video per weekend during another
month. The video must inspire, inform, reflect history, be biographical, or
be otherwise socially redeeming. Stop watching "shoot-em-ups," chase
scenes, and films that titillate but add little to your life.
[ ] If you walk or jog with a Walkman or cell phone, undertake these
exercises three times in a row without such devices.
[ ] Recognize that rightly or wrongly, you've been programmed since
birth to tune in to electronic media for news and information,
entertainment, and diversion. This is far from your only option.
[ ] Look for others seeking to wean themselves from electronics. Is
there a book discussion group? How about a bowling league, outing club, or
biking group?
[ ] Attend sporting events rather than viewing the same type of event on
television. Watching a good high school baseball team or women's collegiate
tennis can be as rewarding as watching major league baseball or Wimbledon,
respectively. And you actually support the athletes in a visible way--being
there.
[ ] Recognize that the number of videos, CDs, DVDs, computer games, and
other electronic items competing for your attention exceeds the time you
have in life to pay attention to them.
Some Parting Humor...
Here are ten oxymorons for our times:
1. Microsoft Works
2. advanced basic
3. good grief
4. sanitary landfill
5. legally drunk
6. small crowd
7. soft rock
8. tight slacks
9. working vacation
10. Qualified expert
