Rant #10
Today’s youth spend nearly 8 hours a day in front of a television, playing video games, texting and listening to music, according to a recently released 10 year study.
Nearly a third of youths in the study between the ages of 8 and 18 were using more than one form media at a time, ie. web surfing while text messaging and watching television. The biggest users are black and Hispanic youth in their early teens.
For many beleaguered citizens sophisticated animation on the screen must appear more alive than everyday reality. This is enabling a beguiling triumph of appearance over substance as Republicans appear to be populists, financial manipulation appears to be production, cosmetic surgery appears to prolong youth, etc.
As our lives are increasingly shaped by the power of disembodied images to elect, sell, enrich and deceive, we lose the coherence that unifies life and gives life meaning.
Martin Luther King Jr. said, the success of any social movement depends on its ability to show a world where people will want to go. That world is one we can touch and taste, not manipulate with a mouse.
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