Para pensar: Can democracy survive our media-saturated society? young people are spending many of their waking hours absorbed in media of one type or another, primarily television and other forms of visual stimulation. Bedrooms for youngsters ages 8 to 18 have increasingly become media centers, with televisions, CD players, radios, DVD players, video-game consoles and computers with Internet access.
Because there are only so many hours in the day, youngsters are simply packing more media into each hour ? multitasking. Outside school, they spend about 6.2 hours a day with media, but much of this usage overlaps ? for example, a youngster watching television and surfing the Internet simultaneously ? so they are using a combined total of 8.3 hours of media every day, an increase of an hour in the past five years. [...]
They are obsessed with media ? but seldom the news media or serious reading. [...]
In today's intense, media-dominated society, young people have no spare time to reflect, to think deep or long-range thoughts. They are never away from instant visual stimulation, often a mélange of media at the same time.
In the media-saturated world, the importance of image over substance dominates politics, and big money to purchase media time decides elections.
More ain't better, and our democracy is already feeling the effects.
