my hd lullaby

I can’t fall asleep without the TV on.   I am twenty years old and I cannot fall asleep unless the TV is on.   I don’t watch what is going on, I close my eyes and listen.  It’s as if I need to television to sing me a digital lullaby before I can fall asleep.   It’s pathetic.  Last night I was up until 3:30 a.m. with my eyes shut tight trying to fall asleep, but I couldn’t.  I gave in at this point and turned on the TV, lowered the volume and put the sleep timer on.  I was asleep in a matter of minutes.   It is just noise, noise that helps block out the things I am actually thinking so I can have a clear enough mind to sleep.  Television has become a safety blanket for so many people in our society.  It has become a toxic life force that pollutes everyone who participates. 

The media, television in general, is addicting.  Its main purpose has shifted from to inform, to entertain and ultimately to distract.  When we watch television we are trying to distance ourselves from the real world for a bit and indulge in this fantasy world, where you can focus on others misfortunes to distract yourself from your own. 

Television is so dominant in our culture, but what kind of effect is it having on society?  Even television that is meant to inform the public is full of frivolous information told to us by beautiful people to grab our attention.  What the media strives to take from us is more valuable than money, our attention.  Our attention is priceless, and limited, so media is in competition with itself to obtain this precious entity.

How do we choose what to waste our attention on?  Sometimes things we are genuinely interested in, but usually it is the most outrageous and shocking thing we come across.     Information has become pre-packaged into “infotainment.”    This information overload has made our society brainless and inattentiveness is a major result.  How do we make more constructive use of our time and attentions?  Skip the television, read a book, but it’s not that easy.  Television is everywhere, when I pump my gas, buy groceries, go on an airplane, my attention is redirected towards a television.  Television has invaded and majorly altered our culture.  This blog is going to talk about the many ways in which the media, but television in particular, has changed our society and how our attention has become our most valuable commodity.    Stay tuned!