The Age of Distraction

I have grown up in a unique age in the history of the world. It has been called many things but today I will call it: The Age of Distraction. Wherever you go, there is something going on visually and audibly to attract and distract your attention. I do mean everywhere you go! From your living room to the grocery store to the dentist's office to the gas station, you are literally never alone with your thoughts because someone is out to get them all the time.

Driving down the freeway you would have to look at your lap in order to avoid the constant barrage of media being aimed at you. The intensive, high-tech mish-mosh of visuals can actually make you sick with some of the images and ideas they portray. On a more intense level, if you go to the theater to watch a new movie, you have to sit through at least ten minutes of advertising for upcoming movies for which you may or may not have an interest. But you are a captive audience, so they take advantage of you. They grab you, twist you around, shoot you in the gut and throw you back on your seat in a cold sweat and then say, “Enjoy the show!”

Some of the most annoying and distracting advertisements are the new electronic signs with video capabilities. They flash lights and images faster than you can actually read or process them, practically blinding you, and making it impossible to drive, leaving you with the feeling that you have just had a high-powered x-ray from the death star!

But of all the distractions on the planet, video games get the lowest marks in my book. I mean, ads can annoy, obnoxious music in the stores can offend and movie ads can be in-your-face and dreadful, but video games...well, that's another story. Video games do not play fair. They hit under the table, where you can't see it. Without a doubt, video games are potentially addictive. Alright, so you like to play video games. Big deal. You like to eat Twinkies too and no one makes a fuss. But according to some researchers, the average young American will spend 10,000 hours playing video games before the age of 21. That's ten thousand hours that might have been spent doing something useful. When I was a child, the big thing was that kids were watching too much television. The world reaped a harvest of dumbed-down children who are now having children of their own. These children are video game savvy youth who will spend more time playing those games than almost anything else in their lives. The result? According to an article by Sandy Hingston: “Sociologists cite five “markers” or “milestones” that have traditionally defined our notion of adulthood: finishing school, moving away from the parental home, becoming financially independent, getting married, and having a child. In 1960, 65 percent of men had ticked off all five by age 30; by 2000, only a third had.” [ quoted from: “22 Stats That Prove That There Is Something Seriously Wrong With Young Men In America” on theeconomiccollapseblog.com]

Some have attacked video games citing teen violence as a leading outcome. However, according to others, there is no real link between the two. But apparently it isn't what they are doing as a result of the games but what they are NOT doing. The most devastating effects of spending so much time doing other things besides living, have to do with home, family and life itself. According to the research I found, right now, approximately 53 percent of all Americans in the 18 to 24 year old age bracket are living at home with their parents and according to another survey, 29 percent of all Americans in the 25 to 34 year old age bracket are still living with their parents. Young men and women should be taught to face the challenges of life with something like courage and fortitude. Instead, they are staying home, avoiding marriage and family, living off their parents, and essentially checking-out of life, by the millions. We are losing an entire generation of young people to a seemingly harmless distraction. It reminds me of the old commercials about literacy that said: “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.” Then I would add, a generation is an infinitely more terrible thing to waste.