Virtual Culture
One of my online class assignments: Does virtual culture erode or enhance? I wonder how many people I’m going to hear about this from.
I very strongly think that virtual culture erodes our culture. To me there is nothing enhanced about Spongebob or characters similar to that. I am just as guilty as the next person allowing my son to be distracted by tv and shows that grab his interest. However I strongly believe that it is more enriching for him to go on a walk with me in the park, or hit some balls at the tennis courts. It would be one thing if he were 13 and using the internet for artistic outlets to express himself via blogs, but instead he and so many children watch tv. Tv is easy to do. It’s more realistic for a young single mother who has to decide whether staying up until midnight doing homework or popping in a movie to make things a little bit less busy and stressful in her life. It’s easier to do this than enroll your children in a pottery class, painting or any weekly lesson where the main concern is, how am I going to get him there? Can I even afford this? Or, how am I going to be able to get laundry done? Contemporary culture makers know this and it works in their favor. If the virtual culture industry turned around and put their funds towards non-virtual activities and programs designed to help kids in this aspect imaging the impact that this would make. A strong step in the right way towards eliminating obesity that is becoming a much bigger problem with each generation.
Virtual culture most definitely erodes our culture. Except for Call of Duty 4 because I love that video game. Point and case.
