Non-Reality

We watch TV.

We play video games.

We email each other.

We watch movies.

We dink around on the internet.

We can virtually live our lives in apparent realities, which really are no realities at all.

What does this do to a person? What does this do to a collective society, where social norms are quickly and grossly eroded away? (Snippets of Dateline's "To Catch a Predator" quickly come to mind. Where do these grown men get the idea that having an illicit relationship with a teenager is ok?)

The other day at lunch we were talking about the impact that video games, TV, cell phones, and the internet have on young people today. We are the teachers; we are the ones that work with these kids day in and day out, hour after hour. And to be honest, when you think about it, it's quite scary what these non-realities can do to these kids.

Sure, we were talking about having to do the "song and dance" day after day just to keep these kids' attention. In the non-reality of TV, images change every few seconds, so the mind never has the chance to dwell (it never has the chance to think and reflect); it simply has to keep moving from stimulus to stimulus, processing a new image all the time. What does this do to the attention span of a student? It destroys it. In an entertainment-driven society, what does that do to schooling? It causes the student to view school as boring and a waste of time. The simple statement that this class or that class is boring implies that the student expects to be entertained.

However, what is more scary is the notion that these young people are actually incapable of discerning what is real and what is not; what is decent and appropriate and what is not; what is respectful and what is disrespectful. The stories started to come...'I heard about these kids that went out and killed these homeless people...and they didn't even realize how grossly wrong it is to take life like that.' And of course we remember Columbine and the various other school shootings that have taken place in this country.

Can it be that these non-realities can actually cause kids on a large scale to become socially retarded and morally bankrupt? Personally I would say yes....

BS