Amusement

So I just saw a thought-provoking movie that I think has to do with the digital age. It's called In Time and in this movie, time is literally money. It made me think about how we use our time in the modern world. In the ancient days, most of the time in a day was spent working to survive. Today, with cars, washing machines, and microwaves, we hardly have to spend much time carrying out the tasks to live. This gives us more time for other pursuits: learning-yes, progress-yes, but also amusement.

My husband and I visited Disneyland shortly after we were married and while I was eager to get there, my husband admitted he didn't really like amusement parks. Now this may be because he had his share of Disney World when he was young, but it gave me cause to pause and think about how interesting the world is. We spend two hundred dollars to "amuse" ourselves for a day when people in other parts of the world are starving. The world does seem topsy-turvy.

I also think about the hours and hours people spend playing video and computer games, for the sake of amusement. I wonder what good could be accomplished if that time was put elsewhere...


As a last thought, I was looking at some of the MormonMessages on YouTube today and I came across one that I thought was really cool about Joy Monahan, a surfer who won the 2008 Women's Long Board World Championship. What surprised me was how many "dislikes" there were compared to the number of likes. One person had commented, "There is no reason to dislike this video." I completely agree, but apparently there are people out there who have nothing better to do with their time than to dislike this video. I guess this is a form of amusement for these people.

I think the digital age has enabled those who are willing to work a more level playing field, as Thomas Friedman has claimed. It has saved time in many ways. However, ask a professor how much time they could spend checking emails each day, and you would see that digitalization has filled the place of the time it has saved, and then some. We can do more than any other generation before us, but only if we choose to. The temptation to waste time is much more gripping.