Addiction

To my surprise this unit took a drastic turn form feminism to drugs (which was justified by the fact that the unit was called “The Body” and technically drugs are something that alters the body) to television (which I believe has nothing really to do with the topic, but apparently this turn was justified by the fact that TV is considered a drug and drugs are considered things to intake into a body). The reason that TV is considered a drug is because people become really addicted to it, and that TVs are now considered a necessity rather than a want. Though TV addiction is still probably a problem today, but 30-40 years of development has pulled in even more dangerous addictions, while the influence of television becomes watered down and even less dangerous.
The TV addiction in the modern age has been replaced with internet and videogame addiction. Perhaps the easiest way to explain this transition is that the internet and videogames allows for the users to be more interactive with the virtual and/ or other people. These devices functionally create a whole new universe that the user is engulfed in. Internet addiction could also be explained by how the world now depends on it economically so even the most sophisticated and virtuous organization/ people are all dependent on it to carry about business, maintain long distance communications, and/ or gain more publicity. Though in this sense the internet is a good addiction, the internet is also a medium for, some may argue, all the sins of the world. That assertion could be justified by the fact that everything bad about TV could be applied to the internet (for it could also stream media). On top of that the internet could be a medium for pretty bad stuff (and let’s leave it at that) that anyone could access. If TV violence is enough to turn kids into killers, then the internet could turn kids into a lot more things (and let’s leave it at that).
The videogames and other games have become much worse than television in promoting violence (as people say). Though television might glorify violent movie stars, videogames provide a way that kids could, in a sense, partake in such violence. The interactive nature of videogames makes it so. The fact that the fate and the action of the characters in videogames are controlled by the kids themselves, it makes it so that the connection between the violence is more imminent than that of a TV show (where the characters are external). Many games are filled with goals (or quests) to kills someone (or something), which, it may be argued, could indirectly send a message that killing is okay. Nowadays, “anti-media”ists target less and less on television and more and more on videogames for that reason.
I really liked this week’s readings. Not only did they deviated from the horrible topic of sexism, they also told something that is actually happening within our society.