I don’t think you’re talking about entertainment, you’re talking about the effects of religion on society. Yes, religion can ruin society, so many wars have been fought over religion.

The religious worship channel on TV may have some impact on society, convincing them to donate their money to a certain church. The church might gain supporters through television, but the people themselves, get the idea that they are supposed to got out and go crazy killing people.

I think, from what you wrote in those last two paragraphs, that religion sparks more hate and conflict than entertainment does.

Yeah, people who watch TV all day are lazy, they aren’t lazy because they watch TV.
But about the video games: Video games do have a lasting affect on most people. Books do too. You see people lining up for the 12 a.m. opening for sales for both items, like GTA or the Twilight series.
They’re “addicted” to the games in a way that they consciously think about it. You can’t do something and forget it. Forgive and forget doesn’t exist, neither does playing a violent game and forgetting it.
Same thing with horror movies- Ever been scared to sleep after watching a scary movie? Yeah, it got into your head and it’ll stay there for a while. Eventually, with time, the idea of the zombies killing everyone will go away from your short term memory, but it’ll definitely be stuck there for years to come and you’ll always be reminded of it whenever the topic is brought up.

We watch people get beat up for fun also- UFC, fake wrestling, etc. that doesn’t mean we’re not advanced, it’s just a form of entertainment. But if you actually look at the audiences in the stadium, they’re not your average Joe. Maybe we haven’t been affected as much as they have.

Even USC/UCLA games spark hate between people. Just a football game makes people go on riots and people actually get hurt, you can’t say that doesn’t ruin society the least bit.

On the other hand, there’s always the extremes of every situation. For religion, a common ideal for most people, there’s the fanatics that go and kill people.
Just because some people go crazy about something doesn’t mean it ruins society, it just ruins that group of people. If they have a lasting effect on society, then yeah, entertainment ruins society.

You can’t expect a child to have the same understanding and comprehension of an adult or even a teenager. The characters in the games or movies never seem to completely die, after all. While I do agree with your views, I feel you’re isolating the problem too much. As for the parent’s responsibility, you are right, but you must admit the game companies are partly at fault for acting like they strict with game ratings yet continuing to market them to children.

As for the Romans, you are right, but they were smart enough to contain and regulate the entertainment; they didn’t just go around having killing sprees in the streets. The problem with our entertainment is that it is gradually but steadily decreasing in regulation. People are being exposed to more and at an earlier age, and things are being shown that you would never have found 40 years ago– just look at “Zack and Miri” or any of the “Saw” movies. Obviously, entertainment is going to display this evolution over time, but if the lack of regulation continues the difference between reality and entertainment will be much harder to discern.

Anyways, everyone have a good 5-day break. WOOO!

And that’s not to mention all the benefits of entertainment. It’s culturally and enriching and almost always (yes I do mean almost always, even things you would expect would be dumbing us down) mentally stimulating. I don’t think I need to go much further into that, I think we are all aware of it’s benefits.

Entertainment has been around since the beginning of humanity, and we’ve thrived with it. And to say that today’s entertainment is much worse than in the past is just stupid. The Romans used to watch people literally slaughter each other for fun, and they were the most advanced civilization of the era. So yeah, I could go on and on, but I wouldn’t want to rant. That’s just my opinion

I mean i can kinda see where he’s comin from in “Brain Candy”…The teanage girl population I think has rose sense the “starsky and hutch” days. I mean come on, it takes a lot to remember every character and every love triangle The Hills has thrown at us for the past few years. It was emotionally painful for us all to watch each week as Lauren and Heidi’s relationship flushed down the toilet.

And even though Brittney Spears’ top singles are filled with suggestive yet ingenious lyrics, America has all seen when her new hit “Womanizer” music video was vailable to the public that Brittney has got her hot body back, her catchy, dacne-friendly vocals are better than “Hit Me Baby 1 More Time” and she’s going to make big comeback! YOU GO GLEN CO-CO!

xoxoxoxo

Anyways, I did read both of the articles. The first one was about humans getting smarter over time, IQ wise and just smarter wise over time. Video games fortify the mind with the thousands of things that people have to learn.
Did you know that the professional Korean Starcraft players make 300 actions per minute. Seriously, that’s so much micromanagement with hotkeys, the mouse, and vision. I’d say that takes a LOT more skill than the old-time professional horseshoe throwers.
And yeah, GTA isn’t a society-ruining game because it teaches kids about the physics as to how to fly a plane properly, but the mature content stands there for a reason, it shouldn’t be in the hands of toddlers.
Anecdote: I remember playing one of my first online games (Runescape, yeah I was a loser) at the age of ~9-10 years old. It taught me that to make bronze, you had to smelt tin and copper and I remember I was so thrilled when my 2nd grade teacher asked how to make bronze. But it also had me addicted for hours on end every day, so I couldn’t really apply my smarts to anything else but the game until I just grew bored. In total, moderation>everything else.

And the second one was basically about the laziness of humans growing over time starting with the remote->the iPod, how people nowadays can’t live without their “necessities” or “needs.”

But without a computer, yeah, you’re pretty much screwed. We are becoming smarter as a species, but we have to have outputs for our knowledge to flourish. Without a computer or calculator, we’d never get math homework done, but with them, as an aid to knowledge, we can accomplish more and more everyday. Without TiVo or an iPod, we’d be stuck in the CD era, or God forbid, the tape era. TiVo and the iPod might not be the “best” form of entertainment for us, but the technology behind them just shows how much we as human beings have advanced. We basically have the power to store anything we want and to control time for our entertainment, so yeah, having 5000 hours of TV on your TiVo is a great accomplishment, technically, but if someone actually sits to watch it, there’s something wrong.

I’m surprised so few people decided to challenge it though. That seemed like the obvious route to me.