Godstud wrote:I don't think boredom enters into it, however. TV/movies often fill the gaps between work and sleep quite effectively, and when all you have to talk about is work and TV, then you tend to focus on those things. Bored is not something you can be when, you have so little time on your hands.
Boredom is the result of too much entertainment.
Cellphones are currently destroying the ability of people to be good company because of the same tendency to render the "over-entertained" person boring and bored.
In a normal human being, time spent alone and in quiet settings is essential in creating a contemplative and thoughtful human being. This is where we acquire the skills that actually make us good company for other people.
By eliminating this "down time" from our lives, entertainment media (and now cellphones) destroy our ability to think about life on a grand scale, or to reconsider the various aspects of our lives from a fresh, zen perspective.
This is good for the psychopaathic elite who want everyone focused on working and shopping all the time. But it's a disaster for the working class who, besides losing their free time to useless pursuits of superficial data (entertainment), also lose the richness of having a circle of interesting friends/associates to talk to.
Media-fed man is a chore to talk to. He has nothing to say because he never spends time alone in reflection.
"Their economy produces things cheaper than ours, so we need to send them some manufactured viruses to level the playing field." - Freedom and Democracy Inc.