For example, thanks to ever increasing technological advances, there are TOO many entertainment options.
What we can view, listen to, communicate on, and even read, are constantly expanding. Now we even carry our books around in thin little electronic conveyors of copy. No more lugging that tiresome thick paper volume around. All of this has no effect on quality. You can just as easily electronically access trash as classic literature.
We are so spoiled. My sister has a subscription to the New York Times and doesn't even have to step out on the front porch to get it, let alone drive into town to buy it at the local bookstore like she used to. All she has to do is start the coffee and turn on her Kindle; no need to even don her slippers.
My Dad has a satellite dish with millions of channels plus Netflix, Xfinity, and I don't know what else. He has so much to watch, he barely has time to be a productive member of society. If he doesn't want to watch anything (say his eyes get tired), he can always listen to Pandora over his satellite system.
At the gym I can listen to my iPod or watch one of a dozen TV monitors tuned to the 24 hour news channels or ESPN. Some of the workout machines are affixed with their own private TV so I can watch the channel of my choice while working out.
Bars and restaurants all have multiple TVs playing around the joint.
I have almost as much entertechnology (new word I just coined for entertainment-technology) at my house. Now that I can watch favorite old TV shows on Hulu, I don't need to leave home for any reason. When I do go out, I have around 200 podcasts to listen to on my iPod (yes, I only have an iPod - it's soooo last decade). If I run out of those, I have hours and hours of music on the same little device. I am considering a long road trip just to listen to it all.
In the olden days, people sometimes left their homes to be entertained. You might actually go to a public place to be in the same room as the performers. Sometimes they played music. Sometimes they wore costumes and talked to each other, pretending to be someone else. The people watching would rapidly tap their hands together multiple times. It was called clapping. How quaint. Imagine having to leave your home to hear music or be otherwise entertained.
Now multiple individuals can be in the same room at home engaged in separate entertainments. During a quality visit with my dad recently, we both in the same room, simultaneously, headphones in ears, watched different movies on our separate computers.
Kids watch movies in the back of their minivans. Not poor kids though. They have to look out the window at the boring real world.
When I was a kid, a movie in the car was unthinkable. My sibs and I took turns choosing the radio station on long road trips. On late night family drives in the 70s, it was a treat to find an awesome AM rock radio station from Oklahoma City. That's right. KOMA out of OKC. I haven't checked but I'm sure that station is now a right wing sports talk mouthpiece.
Anyway, now each kid has their own iPod or whatever. Do they have some other way of practicing negotiation skills when they don't have to disagree over the radio station?
All this entertechnology is not perfect. I still have to get off the couch to switch my television from DVR to Roku. I can't use my wireless surround sound and my internet router at the same time because I guess they are on the same frequency and cancel each other out.
And on the subject of technology, my microwave is slower than the stovetop. My cell phone is not an i-anything and if it has applications, I sure don't know it and probably wouldn’t know what to do with it. My printer leaves inky blotches on what it prints, and does not double as a fax or a scanner. I have a digital camera, but no charger for it. And I HATE it when my phone beeps while I'm standing at the urinal.
How I long for the good old days when there were just three TV stations and an AM radio. Of course those days weren’t as simple as we remember: you had to get off the couch to change the station. How did we ever put up with that?
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