On modern entertainment

Let's examine for a moment our cultural fascination with capital-”E”-Entertainment – thank you, David Foster Wallace. In his novel, Infinite Jest, Wallace conceives of a form of entertainment so potent and affixing that its viewer is rendered incapable of movement, eventually dying, presumably of some combination of malnutrition, dehydration, and sleep deprivation. I don't think we're there quite yet, but I do think that some of our favorite forms of keeping ourselves amused are also means of sedation and placation. Think about it – the television is front and center in most any American home; the more recent designs are rather evocative of altars. As a delivery mechanism for information as much as for entertainment, electronic media have no rival. The challenge we face societally, though, is similar to that of what many religious communities face – we place more value on (worship) the message and our means of obtaining it in place of looking to see what lies behind that message and examining it to hear whether or not it rings of truth.

I worry, though, that we may have gone beyond merely forgoing our critical reasoning skills in favor of having our heads and hearts filled with pre-manufactured contentment – we seek to emulate that which we observe. How else to account for the ubiquity of “social-networking” sites subsequent to the rise in popularity of reality television? Such sites allow one to imagine his largely dysfunctional and drama-ridden reality as a reality drama. The user of any such site is enough removed from his life by being forced to describe his relationship status, likes and dislikes, etc. in nearly binary terms. Single, or not. If it's not a “favorite” song or movie, don't talk about it. In being so removed, we become mere observers in the lives of our friends and loved ones, and, perhaps even more urgently, in our own lives, too.

Maybe that is the real danger of this Entertainment, and where its poison lies – we die of loneliness, wrapped in imagined activity and companionship. And maybe that's why I'm scaling back on the Internet this month, in addition to the practical and financial benefits.