{"id":11564,"date":"2023-01-31T12:23:25","date_gmt":"2023-01-31T12:23:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/?p=11564"},"modified":"2023-01-31T12:23:25","modified_gmt":"2023-01-31T12:23:25","slug":"tv-shows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/?p=11564","title":{"rendered":"Are You Entertained Or Addicted? By Amodu Temitope"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"adn ads\" data-message-id=\"#msg-f:1756125863665628598\" data-legacy-message-id=\"185f032b2caa75b6\">\n<div class=\"gs\">\n<div class=\"\">\n<div id=\":2w9\" class=\"ii gt\">\n<div id=\":2qf\" class=\"a3s aiL \">\n<div dir=\"auto\">\n<div dir=\"auto\">There\u2019s some psychological function deep in our brains that tells us, \u201cWell, I just spent six hours watching this show, I must like it a lot.\u201d When, no, its script is actually a mediocre piece of hot trash and you\u2019re being manipulated by cliffhangers and bad writing for hours on end to keep watching. The same way you get hijacked into scrolling through social media way more than you\u2019d actually like to, your brain gets hijacked to watch \u201cjust one more episode\u201d to find out if so-and-so really died or not.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">Recently , there was a movie that is so entertaining that anyone who views even a small portion of it will give up all desire to do anything else in life in order to keep watching.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">&#8220;Alchemy Of Soul&#8221; got its viewers on top of their feet. Viewers were always waiting patiently to find out what happened to their favorite character &#8220;Naksu&#8221;, who happens to shift souls using the &#8220;Alchemy Of Soul&#8221;. Episodes was dropped weekly on Netflix and viewers will long for more.\u00a0 It pains me to say that we mistake this addictive media for entertainment.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">A similar problem is the YouTube, where the biggest creators to rack up millions of views doing insane things like opening a thousand Amazon boxes or giving away cars to their friends, over and over and over again. On the one hand, it\u2019s not that interesting. On the other, you find yourself mindlessly clicking on the next video, and the next, and the next, and the next.\u00a0 It pains me to say that we mistake this addictive media for entertainment.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">When everything is measured in terms of engagement, content will be optimized for addictiveness. Not entertainment or artistic merit. Not intellectual substance or creativity. Pure, plain addictiveness. That means we, the consumers, get a higher quantity of more predictable, less innovative, less interesting art in our lives.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">Ultimately, nobody can manage our attention by ourselves. We can get mad at Netflix or Spotify. But these systems are loose reflections of our own attention habits shining back at us. Change our attention, change the systems. There\u2019s an old saying that people \u201cvote with their feet.\u201d Well, today you need to vote with your eyeballs.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">Don\u2019t watch the next episode of that poorly written piece of garbage that keeps teasing you with characters almost dying. Don\u2019t listen to the next half-assed album with 27 different two-minute tracks. Don\u2019t click on clickbait. Don\u2019t mindlessly scroll through TikTok and YouTube, rewarding people for attention-grabbing stunts. And don\u2019t watch or respond to politicians and pundits who try to blather on and on about pet issues but never actually get anything done.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">by Amodu Temitope<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">Lagos State University.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"yj6qo\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"adL\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"hi\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ajx\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"gA gt acV\">\n<div class=\"gB xu\">\n<div class=\"ip iq\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There\u2019s some psychological function deep in our brains that tells us, \u201cWell, I just spent six hours watching this show, I must like it a lot.\u201d When, no, its script is actually a mediocre piece of hot trash and you\u2019re being manipulated by cliffhangers and bad writing for hours on end to keep watching. The same way you get hijacked into scrolling through social media way more than you\u2019d actually like to, your brain gets hijacked to watch \u201cjust one more episode\u201d to find out if so-and-so really died or not<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11565,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[6311],"class_list":["post-11564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-tv-shows"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11564"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11564"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11566,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11564\/revisions\/11566"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}