I just watched an hour of the Academy Awards tonight, and I was impressed with the snippets of movies that were shown (though I haven't seen any of the featured movies yet). I love movies. I've seen hundreds of movies in my life, I'd bet I've watched two or three movies per month over my 54 years of life. Many of them have inspired me. I'm glad we have the opportunity to watch well-crafted movies. I should add that I watch almost no live television. I'm increasingly disturbed about the great number of Americans who know far more about the movies and television they watch than they know about the real world. They know more because they watch dozens of movies every month. They can talk for endless hours about movies, movie stars and even the gossip regarding movie stars. Most people I know have a far greater grasp about movies than they do about any of the big issues facing this country. Movies are as real to them as the world they actually live in. The following statistics are from the Kaiser Foundation:

Today, 8-18 year-olds devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes (7:38) to using entertainment media across a typical day (more than 53 hours a week). And because they spend so much of that time ‘media multitasking’ (using more than one medium at a time), they actually manage to pack a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes (10:45) worth of media content into those 7½ hours.