We are overly amused

A good friend of mine recently gave me my own copy of Neil Postman's life changer of a tome, "Amusing Ourselves To Death" in which the author decries the slide of American culture, the result of a society in which being entertained and amused is way more important than thinking deeply and acting consciously.

Coincidentally, I just finished reading an article in Home School Enrichment magazine about how to quell boredom in young people during the summer months. The gist of the piece is that for many homeschoolers boredom isn't much of an issue because the summer is no different than other times of the year so there's no letdown or lack of friends with whom to visit. Business as usual, in other words.

But the author of the magazine article offers up an interesting opinion that I want to share here. Hopefully by giving full credit I won't get nailed for copyright infringement.

Writer and homeschooling mother Cindy Puhek says, "Children need to understand that God views time as precious and as a commodity that should be wisely invested. We must shelter our kids from the amusement park, thrill-a-minute mentality of our society that is destroying people's capability to enjoy simplicity."

Puhek goes on to say, "Our culture uses thrills like a drug, and the stakes keep going higher and higher. Amusement park rides are becoming progressively more dangerous as people demand a faster, higher, scarier experience. Many movies have given up on telling a real story and instead hurl their audience from one tense situation to the next for two hours. Children are hurried from activity to activity lest they miss out on experiencing something in their childhood."

Ms. Puhek links this insatiable desire for thrill to a lack of spirituality, in effect reasoning that by putting material, sensational needs first we are shoving God and all things related to spiritual progress to the back burner. She writes, "This thirst for thrills is a symptom of our society's rejection of God. . . Because the physical is all that is left, people demand that their senses be tantalized constantly."

Could this be true? Could it explain the ever increasing rates of ADD and other learning disabilities in children, a generation raised on technology that leaves those of us born just 40 years ago scratching our heads (just what does a Blackberry do that makes it worthwhile anyway)?

Moreover, could this separation of the physical from the divine account for the sense of despair and restlessness that so many people, especially younger adults, seem to be grappling with these days?

I have never used television or a computer as a babysitter for my children and have no plans to alter this arrangement. We don't take our kids to flashy, noisy, high-energy places mainly because we don't want to spend our money or our time that way but also because they've never asked.

Instead, we hang out at area parks, go to delis, make sandy wet messes in the backyard, visit with friends, read lots of books, write, color, cut and paste. We sing, play dress-up, paint, and talk about the mundane and the deep. We learn and live and worship and think and it's often hard to distinguish one of these from another because it's all so intertwined.

Come to think of it, in the eight years I've been a mother I've never once heard a child of mine utter those famous words, "Mom, I'm bored."

With any luck at all, I never will.