Modern society is obsessed by media-driven entertainment, would you agree?

its the way the modern technology is changing the way of the mass change is awesome and some what awful even

I would disagree on this one because media-driven entertainment has none of the requisite components by which one might be obsessed, and thus is not the source or target of obsession. Obsession is the unintentional and uncontrollable reaction to a stimulus. Since Media-driven entertainment seeks to feed an audience on contrived stories and manipulated events to continue sales, the very objects to which one might be obsessed shift and change like newspaper headlines; The obsession to stay in front of the viewers is not directly correlated to the desire for the viewers to see the particular story. If Society was truly obsessed, for example, there would be constant 24 hour coverage of each and every celebrity at all times, and the news would be only a continuous stream of it. Instead, the networks scramble to decide what will capture the attention of Society, and what works today will most likely not work tomorrow. That continuous shifting of focus is more akin to Attention Deficit Disorder, not Obsession.

It's not really obsessed but rather they are just following the trend of it.. lol=D After all, televisions and radio has been available for a very long time, as well as phone.. SO, it just takes someone with ideas to bring those technology a step further.. hehe^_^ ANd now, we have got what we want.. PLus, it's also more to convenience and that's why most things are crammed into one.. lol=D

You do have a good point. We have become an "instant gratification" world. What, to me, is even worse, is the fact that so many people would rather not have a face to face discussion or a phone call, they would rather text each other, even when they are in the same room. Communication?

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It would be impossible to claim that modern society shuns media-driven entertainment, not when "Us Weekly" sells well over a million copies of each issue and "American Idol," a show that literally manufactures star power out of Midwesterners with kitschy hairdos and punny fan clans like the Claymates and Blaker Girls, has been the most-watched show on the air since 2004, netting more viewers in it's most recent finale (30.74 million) than the Apollo 13 splashdown did on April 17, 1970 (28.6 million).

Yes, we love our media. We love famous actors, singers, writers. We love people who are famous because they are related to someone rich. We love people who are famous because they're ill or insane. We especially love to hear about their hardships: failed rehab, crumbling marriage, family secrets, oh joy! It's indisputable, both quantitatively and intuitively: we obsess over celebrity. I would be lying if I said that modern society does not obsess over media-driven entertainment, just like I would be lying if I said that modern society is not pinned to the earth by the force of gravity.

My argument is this: Modern society didn't discover gravity. Modern society didn't invent gravity. Gravity pretty much established itself regardless of our awareness of it.

We have always loved media-driven entertainment. Anyone who says they remember a time when nobody thought about celebrities, politicians, or personalities, probably grew up in the lead-walled basement of an electrically blacked-out commune in the desert and never learned about gravity. This tendency towards media-driven entertainment is not unique to modern society, any more than it is unique to American society, Canadian society, European, Asian, or Middle Eastern society.

When has recorded western society not fixated on entertainment provided by the media? As long as man has walked upright he has produced entertainment in various media: Paintings of fecund bulls and carvings of buxom women date back as early as 20-30,000 BC. What is the Venus of Willendorf but Pam Anderson and Paris Hilton's matriarch? What are the paintings and carvings on the walls of Lascaux cave if not by virtue of its medium, written communication, the great-grandparents of the National Enquirer?

We have not become obsessed; we have always been obsessed. It is not the fervor of man's fixation on himself, but rather his ability to fixate more efficiently, more vividly that has evolved over time. Human communication progressed from physical to verbal, then developed from spoken into written words, and that act of making language tangible set our intellectual evolution in motion. We invented printing presses, harnessed radio waves, masterminded television sets and satellite dishes, pioneered information sharing on innumerable wireless devices around the world, and the result is the largest microphone held up to the loudest voice in recorded history.

Now we can hear the descendants of the thoughts that CroMagnon carved in rock because he did not yet have words to speak. This obsession is humanity's birthright, our heritage, our basic nature, and we did not invent it on the day E! News was birthed. We have not become obsessed. We are not so very different from our great-grandparents and theirs, in turn. Society, in fact, has always been obsessed with media-driven entertainment.

in this regard, my friend, i have no choice but to agree with you.

even at my home, this is very evident. everyone of us, is very much into this thing, too.

evidently, stores which offer services and things akin to media-driven entertainment are all doing good business. and so much more are even mushrooming. it seems that everyone seeks their services from time to time.

I agree because we really like television. More than that, we like the Internet. Books and newspapers are no longer entertainment or sources of news to emerging generations. We come home from work and turn on the TV or computer for hours until we are ready for bed. In past times we would go to bed when the sun goes down. Now, we deprive ourselves of sleep to watch TV, surf the Internet, and play video games. During that time we also eat and then we caffeinated ourselves in the morning in order to overcome our fatigue. This could probably be described as an obsession.

There are millions of people starving in the world. Children die every day from disease and famine. And yet, we purchase large televisions, music, movie tickets, and faster computers. I don't say this to judge, because I am just as guilty of these practices. But it does say something about the obsession of our society. If we were to say that we weren't obsessed, we would have to argue that we could give it all up. I have doubts that we could let go of our favorite things.

It can be rather "doom and gloom" to talk about the media obsession in our society. Media has in many ways been a wonderful tool of communication for a variety of fields. However, it could accurately be described as an obsession because it would be difficult for us to give it up. Reading a book by a single light and going to bed at a reasonable hour seems unlikely in today's society.

This is a dumb question, and whoever wrote it should feel dumb. It's too vague and ambiguous to give any kind of proper answer to without inserting your own meanings into the words. What the hell is "media-driven entertainment"? Isn't just about all entertainment that isn't done in person "media-driven", that is, carried in a medium? Is this referring to the news media, or to book publishers? Digital media or Time Warner? For a word that gets tossed around so much, there really isn't must of an agreed upon definition for what people are talking about when they talk about the media. What they're usually talking about is some vague combination of the entertainment industry, the various sources of news, the internet, etc., some kind of shadow beast that thinks and lives on its own. No wonder it's so easy to blame whatever ill you passed by on the streets today on "the media" when it can be whatever you want it to be!

I think we're not just obsessed with it, we're addicted! For example, 'Big Brother' 'Idol' and 'Wife Swap' are perhaps more engrossing to the average mind than a real stimulating discussion or interaction about tangible issues. That is the result of having an entire generation engrossed with iPhones, iPods, Playstations, Cell Phones and TVs. As a society we have become consumed in the honey sweet lure of commercial-driven media hype that is channeled through our handheld obsessions and meda driven urges.

Just take a look at the top searches on Google today: 'Transformers', 'Hairspray', 'Rush Hour 3' 'Britney Spears' 'Big Brother 8' 'So You Think You Can Dance?' Should I go on? While 'pop' sensations and cultural 'hot hits' dominate our interests any true world of culture, literature, and art remains submerged below an oblivious apathy hidden under blankets of gloss-coated gossip stories.

Let's face it, we've given in to the media obsession. Raise your hands if you would rather go down to the park for a walk or if you'd prefer to play the latest release of Halo 3 instead? Meanwhile youngsters would rather spend weeks looking forward to attending the next big Shrek-like blockbuster than spending a day out with their family. Media delivers, fast-paced lifestyle with little intellectualizing and a lot of material ideals lurking below the surface. I am not arguing for whether this is a bad thing or a good thing, but I am stating that clearly our society has not just become obsessed with media-driven entertainment, our society IS a media-driven globalized society.