When we leave the house in the morning for work, we leave behind any control of our environment as well. And, more and more, the world seems to be noisier than ever before. Horns, traffic, road rage, loud people, and endless sometimes unwanted stimuli. And, there is very little that we can do to change behavior or the noise levels, so we adapt. But, we need some peace and quiet, relative to the general state of events.
So, we consider our homes to be an area where we can control the level of activity and have some relief from the cacophony of sounds. Of course, those with young children would argue that the worlds do not really change much, but we still have control and some semblance of peace. So, for relaxation, we turn on the TV for some meaningless and useless entertainment. What do we get? More people yelling for us to buy, buy, buy! A good example of bad advertising is the JC Penney ad where the women are screaming because they missed the sale date, or the coupon has expired. If you are like me at all, you want to throw something at the TV. And the infomercials with the spokes-person shouting "BUT WAIT" there's more. And, although we can record everything on DVR and skip the ads, it is not always convenient to do so. And the beat goes on.
The human animal has the distinct advantage of being capable of adapting to environmental change and it has assisted in our survival. But, we are adapting to unnecessary and distracting video and audio stimuli, and that is not good for our survival. The brain needs some downtime and some quiet "timeout". So, I think that I will turn on the TV and relax...
So, we consider our homes to be an area where we can control the level of activity and have some relief from the cacophony of sounds. Of course, those with young children would argue that the worlds do not really change much, but we still have control and some semblance of peace. So, for relaxation, we turn on the TV for some meaningless and useless entertainment. What do we get? More people yelling for us to buy, buy, buy! A good example of bad advertising is the JC Penney ad where the women are screaming because they missed the sale date, or the coupon has expired. If you are like me at all, you want to throw something at the TV. And the infomercials with the spokes-person shouting "BUT WAIT" there's more. And, although we can record everything on DVR and skip the ads, it is not always convenient to do so. And the beat goes on.
The human animal has the distinct advantage of being capable of adapting to environmental change and it has assisted in our survival. But, we are adapting to unnecessary and distracting video and audio stimuli, and that is not good for our survival. The brain needs some downtime and some quiet "timeout". So, I think that I will turn on the TV and relax...
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