From the comments: I watched the movie Idiocracy with you and it hit me in the face as to one potential out come for the human race. But talking about the fact

From the comments: I watched the movie Idiocracy with you and it hit me in the face as to one potential out come for the human race. But talking about the fact that we don't do physical chores that were done a hundred years ago, doesn't make a lot of sense. After all, things have changed. Those chores are no longer an issue. I just saw Idiocracy yesterday (ironically, I decided it wasn't worth paying attention to so I played it on the top of the screen and coded on the bottom of the screen), and I think that assuming it's a plausible outcome is kind of silly. I doubt Mike Judge, the director, would disagree. Idiocracy is much more a critique of the present than it is of the future. This was a terrific article, but there're a few fallacies in your argument. The one that most stands out to me is how you talk about music switching from being active to passive, and therefore taking less effort from the listener. You then bring up rock music as an instance of something that provides a big hit rather than focusing on intricacy. The fallacy is that in the past, most people didn't listen to concerts. There is a long history of minstrel songs: music played in the street, catchy stuff for the public. The average person wouldn't listen to any concert in their lifetime. This is not a new thing. Furthermore, if you look at how many people travel to concert halls to listen to music, I would bet that more people proportionally listen to great pieces of work like Tchaikovsky or Mozart than ever have in the past. If anything, the trend is that once you have access to things easily, you are more willing to put effort into a viewing than you would be if you'd never been before. (I'm going to the Met to see a Tchaikovsky opera two weeks from now; I never would have wanted to if I hadn't torrented 2GB worth of his pieces earlier in the year.) "Don't turn that dial!" has become cliche: whatever you do, keep your eyes peeled on this station. That ignores the rise in TV that's actively challenging to watch. To bring up the two shows I always bring up, The Wire on HBO and BBC's The Office. Neither one is easy and clear-cut. They both attract watchers who are there to be challenged. I've watched the entire Office straight through three times in the way that I reread good books. It's not addictive per se, it's enriching. Your argument about video games make me wonder how avid a gamer you are. I'm not a huge gamer, but the games that I do like are almost always pretty rich in environment. Portal's the cliche in gaming, and that's a game that's clever, well-written, and encourages lateral thinking. My 13-year-old brother, who dislikes most books and isn't a big math kid, got hooked in Portal's advanced challenges, which really are difficult pieces. Then there're RPGs, the best of which are superb storytellers, there are real-time strategy games, there are all sorts of games that encourage you to actively think. You can't play a game and shut off. You need to focus incredibly. My friends that play Counterstrike are the best proof of this: you need to be a special sort of brilliant to play that game well. It's addictive, but only in the way, again, that challenging books or pieces of music are. It's not a "pop" game. Of course, I would also argue that VG composers are writing the most sophisticated orchestral music of the day. Listen to Roar of the Earth by Ko Otani if you can find sample pieces. It's rich and complex in the way good classical music is. Plus, it's attached to a video game that's pretty stimulating in and of itself - ever played Shadow of the Colossus? It's one of the few video games I will call an exceptional piece of art rather than merely a game. (Sidebar: World of Warcraft is an exception in that yes, it's focused on addiction rather than active focus. But what a piece of art it is in and of itself! I've never played, I don't want to get hooked, but they made an entire world! This is like Tolkien realized. One of my future plans is to make an MMORPG in a much more literary sense, and to create an enormous world that really feels like fantasy - World of Warcraft opened that door for me. It's an incredible achievement in and of itself.) The Internet is addictive, yes - but in what way is it addictive? My friend and I both competed to parody the 25 Things notes on Facebook yesterday - that requires some thinking and creative prowess. Meanwhile, while I spend hours a day in front of a computer, I'm constantly reading articles like this one, and writing answer pieces. I participate in debates. And I've found that as a result, in debate-focused classes I'm leagues ahead of classmates. It's entirely because the Internet gets my mind going. The Internet is not passive. It's not like rock music or TV shows or heroin. It's active. You consciously focus on what you're doing. People are less fit because less tasks require physical labor than ever have before. That's why society is so focused on being thin. Now, staying fit requires conscious effort. It is no longer a passive task. It doesn't happen during the day unless you choose it to. So in a way, it's a reversal of the ideas that you're stating here. (I keep a 30-pound weight on my desk, and I exercise and have my computer read long posts out loud. It's such a wonderful system.) Finally: things have always devoted people's lives like this. If I wasn't constantly on the Internet, I would be writing in a notebook, or practicing an instrument. That's not heroin, is it? That's an exercise in creativity. Think of it like that: anything worth doing is worth devoting time to. And most of society will always ignore those opportunities for wasted time. That's nothing new. It's a part of human nature.