David McCandless created an amazing graphic recently [1], contrasting the amount of time Americans spend watching television each year with the cumulative amount of time it has taken to create Wikipedia. Check this out:
[1]
The graphic illustrates what author Clay Shirkey calls “cognitive surplus”, or spare brainpower that exists, simply waiting to be engaged. How much of that brainpower is being wasted watching television?
This got me thinking, and I remembered a recent Newsweek article which pointed out that creativity is declining in America [2]. Even as intelligence (measured by IQ) is rising, creativity (measured by CQ) is declining:
Like intelligence tests, Torrance’s test—a 90-minute series of discrete tasks, administered by a psychologist—has been taken by millions worldwide in 50 languages. Yet there is one crucial difference between IQ and CQ scores. With intelligence, there is a phenomenon called the Flynn effect—each generation, scores go up about 10 points. Enriched environments are making kids smarter. With creativity, a reverse trend has just been identified and is being reported for the first time here: American creativity scores are falling.
What’s at fault for this phenomenon? Television and video games share at least part of the blame:
It’s too early to determine conclusively why U.S. creativity scores are declining. One likely culprit is the number of hours kids now spend in front of the TV and playing videogames rather than engaging in creative activities. Another is the lack of creativity development in our schools. In effect, it’s left to the luck of the draw who becomes creative: there’s no concerted effort to nurture the creativity of all children.
So, how much time is spent watching television, and how do people feel about the use of their time? Check out these statistics (source [3]):
- 99% of American households own at least one television.
- A television is on in the average home 6 hours and 47 minutes per day.
- Assuming a wage of $5 per hour, the value of the time spent watching TV by Americans would equal $1.25 trillion dollars.
- 49% of Americans say they watch too much TV.
- Number of minutes/week that parents spend in meaningful conversation with their children: 3.5
- Number of minutes children spend watching television during the week: 1,680
- 54% of 4-6 year-olds would prefer to watch TV than spend time with their fathers.
- The average American kid spends 900 hours per year in school, but 1500 hours per year watching TV.
This reminded me of a new word I’d learned lately (advance apologies to the easily offended)– “tittytainment [4]“. Apparently, it’s a portmanteau [5] created by Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Advisor, to suggest a type of social control to keep the masses pacified while the world’s leadership govern as they see fit. Wikipedia describes it perfectly [4]:
Tittytainment is a term describing the propaganda designed to protect the capitalist and neo-liberal principles that govern globalization.
It is a form of censorship, propaganda and disinformation with the fundamental objective of minimizing, in the eyes of democratic countries populations, the toxic effects that the current globalization is starting to create on a big part of the world population, according to anti-globalization groups.
I thought that seemed a little bit conspiratorial. I mean, the idea of the world elite minimizing the harmful (to them) consequences of globalization by encouraging passivity and entertainment? Then I remembered a few other things that made it seem not so conspiratorial anymore. The ongoing breakdown of the world economy has meant that hundreds of thousands of American families [6] were added to the ranks of the homeless last year. Total bailout of the US corporate system stands at a staggering $3.7 TRILLION dollars [7]. Wages have fallen for workers [8] across the board, although as productivity has steadily increased [9]. Even in the middle of the Great Recession, worker’s productivity is gaining faster than forecast [10]. And don’t forget Vice-President Biden’s comment [11] that “there’s no possibility to restore 8 million jobs lost in the Great Recession.” Check out the 22 statistics presented here [12] which point out the continuing collapse of the middle class, including these:
• 83 percent of all U.S. stocks are in the hands of 1 percent of the people.
• 66 percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.
• Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.
• For the first time in U.S. history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together.
• The bottom 50 percent of income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.
Senator Bernie Sanders published a piece at The Nation [13]this week which addressed many of the same themes:
And while the Great Wall Street Recession has devastated the middle class, the truth is that working families have been experiencing a decline for decades. During the Bush years alone, from 2000-2008, median family income dropped by nearly $2,200 and millions lost their health insurance. Today, because of stagnating wages and higher costs for basic necessities, the average two-wage-earner family has less disposable income than a one-wage-earner family did a generation ago. The average American today is underpaid, overworked and stressed out as to what the future will bring for his or her children. For many, the American dream has become a nightmare.
But, not everybody is hurting. While the middle class disappears and poverty increases the wealthiest people in our country are not only doing extremely well, they are using their wealth and political power to protect and expand their very privileged status at the expense of everyone else. This upper-crust of extremely wealthy families are hell-bent on destroying the democratic vision of a strong middle-class which has made the United States the envy of the world. In its place they are determined to create an oligarchy in which a small number of families control the economic and political life of our country.
The 400 richest families in America, who saw their wealth increase by some $400 billion during the Bush years, have now accumulated $1.27 trillion in wealth. Four hundred families! During the last fifteen years, while these enormously rich people became much richer their effective tax rates were slashed almost in half. While the highest-paid 400 Americans had an average income of $345 million in 2007, as a result of Bush tax policy they now pay an effective tax rate of 16.6 percent, the lowest on record.
Last year, the top twenty-five hedge fund managers made a combined $25 billion but because of tax policy their lobbyists helped write, they pay a lower effective tax rate than many teachers, nurses and police officers. As a result of tax havens in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and elsewhere, the wealthy and large corporations are evading some $100 billion a year in U.S. taxes. Warren Buffett, one of the richest people on earth, has often commented that he pays a lower effective tax rate than his secretary.
Yes, the rich keep getting richer [14].
Yet somehow, these articles require some digging to find. Meanwhile, Lindsey Lohan’s jail soap-opera and various Mel Gibson trivia have been on the front page of every news site for the past two weeks. The more I think about it, the more “tittytainment” seems like a especially apt explanation for the passivity of the American populace. And then I remembered the Romans had their own expression for tittytainment: “bread and circuses [15]“.
“Bread and circuses” (or bread and games) (from Latin: panem et circenses) is a metaphor for a simplistic means of appeasement. In the case of politics, the phrase is used to describe the creation of public approval, not through exemplary or excellent public service or public policy, but through the mere satisfaction of the immediate, shallow requirements of a populace. The phrase also implies the erosion or ignorance of civic duty amongst the concerns of the common man (l’homme moyen sensuel).
In modern usage, the phrase has become an adjective to deride a populace that no longer values civic virtues and the public life. To many across the political spectrum, left and right, it connotes the triviality and frivolity that defined the Roman Empire prior to its decline.
Throughout this post, I have linked extensively to Wikipedia, as an example of the worthwhile alternatives to television. Please consider using some of your cognitive surplus for something other than bread, circuses, and tittytainment.
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