Entertained to death

[fullyveiled muslimah]

Hey I was just thinking about this. Are we entertaining ourselves too much? When we think about all the attention paid to and money spent on amusing ourselves, versus the money spent and attention paid to let's say education and ending poverty, are our priorities straight? An actor gets paid millions for creating a fantasy we can buy into for a moment, and the better they are at creating this illusion the more they're worth. A good teacher can't hope for that kind of money. Are we too wrapped up as a society in amusment and play?

 

[Radio Frequency X]

Hey I was just thinking about this. Are we entertaining ourselves too much? When we think about all the attention paid to and money spent on amusing ourselves, versus the money spent and attention paid to let's say education and ending poverty, are our priorities straight? An actor gets paid millions for creating a fantasy we can buy into for a moment, and the better they are at creating this illusion the more they're worth. A good teacher can't hope for that kind of money. Are we too wrapped up as a society in amusment and play?

I don't think so. While I think that the way we entertain ourselves is often petty and immature, I still find our instinct toward amusment to be natural and healthy.

 

[Faint]

Hey I was just thinking about this. Are we entertaining ourselves too much? When we think about all the attention paid to and money spent on amusing ourselves, versus the money spent and attention paid to let's say education and ending poverty, are our priorities straight? An actor gets paid millions for creating a fantasy we can buy into for a moment, and the better they are at creating this illusion the more they're worth. A good teacher can't hope for that kind of money. Are we too wrapped up as a society in amusment and play?

A very interesting thread.

I think that the only time anyone entertains him/herself to much is when that entertainment comes at the cost of something that may provide a way for them to gain MORE happiness (entertainment). For small scale example, think of the guy who plays Playstation 3 everyday instead of having a social life. Sure, he's having fun, but he's also missing out on what could be much more fun. The same could be said of a man who wastes his time downloading porn instead of actually trying to refine himself and meet real women.

As for society, we definitely are overlooking a great deal of important issues because we are so entranced by watching other people live and die on screen. Neil Gaiman made a brilliant point in his book American Gods that media might as well be considered a deity since people not only sacrifice their time before the altar of television, but sometimes they sacrifice each other (like a married couple who no longer talks as much as they watch sitcoms instead).

There should be a balance. Entertainment is great...but not in excess.

 

[Sunstone]

I think for many people nowadays the standard for truth is what entertains them. If something entertains them, it's true. If it doesn't it's false. Conspiracy theories, for instance, are immensely entertaining to many people and hence, believed to be true. Again, for a religion to be boring is practically a refutation of it.

 

[Sonic247]

In response to the opening post; I think too much entertainment can be decietfull. People say that what they watch and listen doesn't have an effect on them, or "well if you can't tell the diffrence between fantasy and reality." But I don't think people realize how vunrable they are. Do people really think that life isn't like an episode of friends. They don't act like it, the only diffrence is the consequences are worse. And I think it does turn our mind away from more important thing. I think some entertainment is okay, but it can be excessive.

 

[fullyveiled muslimah]

I also think we rely too much on electronic gadgets. I like technology as it is very helpful and useful, but I think some of the long term subtle effects is dangerous and negative. Like we have become very desensitized to violence and to each other. We see so much of it on tv and movies and its very realistic. If we see someone get shot or stabbed or hit by a car, it doesn't have the same reaction from bystanders as maybe 50 years ago. A bystander will look at it like they're watching a movie.

We have become detached from one another and human contact. We move around one another rather than interact alot of times. Ok, like they got this toy out now for really little babies maybe about 6-8 months old. It is suppossed to be educational where the baby has these little buttons to press and it gets some animal or color or shape to pop up onscreen. Allegedly the baby is to learn something from this. My question is what happened to the mom and dad of this baby? What are they doing so busily that the tv is already babysitting and teaching the kid? It just teaches reliance on this electronic object from an early age rather than the human contact that babies need from thier parents especially. I just thought it was scary while everyone else thought it was cute. We are dependant on these items we have more than I think is healthy. When was the last time you talked to a complete stranger on the train? Look around next time and you might find that people are too engrossed in MP3 players, portable dvd, pda's, laptop's, cell phones, and psp systems to talk to anyone.