Advancement in Technology

Media consumption has become a problem in America.

As people embrace and combine technology that advances at an ever-rapid pace with their predisposition of an egocentric nature, you have in affect created an army of mindless media consuming automatons.

This problem permeates every aspect of modern media. At the inception of visual medium, there was printed paper which contained a limited number of articles, primarily used to communicate the news. As technology advanced it facilitated the creation of other print related media such as magazines, news papers, books, journals, etc. As it evolved, it allowed personalization at every level. There are news papers for financers, magazines for fashion designers and journals for lawyers. When computer age dawned, so did the internet. The Internet allows for pinpoint customization of everything: it allows people to read anything they want whenever they want and how they want it. If the font is too small, one can make it bigger. If the pictures are loading to slow, one can get high speed internet. If you don’t like what read, one can not only go to another website, but you can go out and now Blog about it and make your voice heard.

As print was evolving, the television era was well on its way. When Television first came out, they were black and white as well as small and had at most 5 channels. The quality, as compared today, was poor. Today, we have large 60 inch plasma screens to delivery crystal clear picture as well as 7.1 surround sound systems that engulf end users in a “media entertainment” centers experience. To feed this “media” center machine people have satellite TV and cable in addition to their healthy library of DVD’s. If that were not enough, with the advent of TiVo and On Demand, people can watch whatever they want, when ever they want and fast forward through all the advertisements that support the content in the first place. Again, complete control over what you watch, when you watch it, and all with a few clicks.

The story is the same in audio. The Audio medium has come a long way since Charles Herrold began regular radio broadcasting in San Jose 1912. As first, much like other mediums, radio was used to transmit relevant information such as news. As the medium evolved, so did the quantity and quality of material. Soon came news radio, talk shows, and of course music. And just as with other mediums, people wanted customization which brought the onslaught of LP’s cassettes, CD’s and now personal media players such as IPODs. With each step, the quality increased and so did customization. Today one can have almost a limitless amount of digital quality music in their pockets.

So what is the point of all of this? I feel while all these advancements are an excellent step forward for technology, it really has become a step backwards for society.

We have come to a point in the world where society requires, nay, demands instant gratification because people perceive it as more of right than a privilege. Why? Because technology allows us. We want things now rather than later. We want things our way, rather than a way that displeases us. We want to be in control with no uncertainly. And why not? It is so simple these days. We get what we want, when we want it, and if it disappoints us in the slightest way, we can tune it out with a flick of a wrist. All these underlying ideologies have grossly manifested themselves in the way we consume media of all form. Don’t like what you’re watching on TV? Fast forward. Don’t like what some one is saying on Instant messager? Block him/her. Don’t like what you’re listening to on the radio? Put on your iPOD.

I ride subway, I see people with iPODs listening to their music. Go over to a friends place, TiVO and DVD galore. Annoy someone online, get blocked. One might be able to argue that all these advancements provides for a delusional misconception of control in their life. The fact of the matter is life was, is, and always will be random and not controllable.

I think it’s come to the point where it’s ridiculous. I went to a club a few weeks ago to see that someone had brought their IPOD so they can listen to their music rather than the DJ’s. What would your reaction be? I went over to a friends place with a tivo, and he fast forward through a whole show just to see what happened at the end. What happen to patience? It is one thing to have things your way, but where is the line where it becomes absurd? I think we are closer to that line than most people would like to admit.

The second problem I see is that we are now in a world were large corporations are tailoring media to what we believe our desires and preferences are which have been conditioned already by these same large corporations. With our guard down because of our perceived control over media, it is only a matter of time before we don’t even know what we want. To typify this point, I was talking to an acquaintance of mine who works at a movie marketing group. She was telling me how their organization already knows what kind of demographics are going to like what kind of movie. Granted this is for movies, but it goes far beyond that as well all know. We can all be broken into demographics: Perhaps your Caucasian, 25, male and have professional jobs, or perhaps your 23, Asian & female and love to salsa. Whatever your demographic may be, there is an organization that knows what your demographic likes and dislikes. Now the real question is, is this correlation or causation? I contend it really is just because of conditioning. At a conscious or subconscious level, people are thinking and acting because they some how believe that this is what is acceptable within their social demographic: “I have seen so many people wear pink dress shirts to work, so maybe I should get on as well”

Where does all this start? No one can really tell you. In the mean time, people will continue to keep consuming the media they think they want, and try to fit into this mean reverting process of social demographics. Perhaps the real question we need to ask is where does this all end?