Media Addiction: A Real Problem with a Real Price to Pay -- Jeff Einstein

I quote below from the Introduction to my latest book The Media Addictamp8217s Handbook available now on amazoncom in paperback and Kindle editions We live in a time when amp8211 like the citizens of Aldous Huxleyamp8217s Brave New World amp8211 we are mostly undone not by the things we hate but by the things we love We are undone not by the things denied to us but by our insatiable appetites for more of what we already have in excess We live in a critical and pivotal time fraught with peril a time when an indisputable superaddiction to all things media and all things digital is now the default condition of American life the rule rather than the exception Itamp8217s a time when our addiction to all things media and all things digital amp8211 like any other addiction to any other narcotic amp8211 steals our time and money and freedom and sits imperiously as moderator and potentate over all of our most important individual and collective debates We live in what I call the Great Age of Mediation We are born like crack babies in the Great Age of Mediation addicted to all things media and all things digital from birth and we remain addicted from cradle to grave by design We may be students or professionals unemployed or none of the above but make no mistake in the Great Age of Mediation we are media addicts first and foremost and we behave amp8211 predictably and reliably amp8211 like addicts addicted to any other drug We just donamp8217t notice it as much as we notice other less prevalent addictions to other less prevalent drugs perhaps because everyone around us is a media addict also and behaves the same way we do In the Great Age of Mediation addiction is the new normal More ominously however our superaddiction to all things media and all things digital invites and all but guarantees proamp173found social consequences almost all unintended The early years of the Great Age of Mediation have already witnessed epidemic levels of stress and lifestylerelated illness several ruinamp173ous market bubbles and crashes chronic unemployment and economic malaise the rapid consoliamp173dation of immense power in huge institutions both private and public and the inexorable peramp173haps irreversible erosion of civil liberties instituamp173tional accountability public trust and the genamp173eral quality of life In the Great Age of Mediation we watch the quality of our lives erode before our eyes and euphemize whatever remains as the new normal We are amp8211 to quote the late great media ecologist Neal Postman amp8211 Amusing Ourselves to Death and thereamp8217s no turning back the clock no stuffing the hightech genie back into a somewhat lowertech bottle Pulling the plug and abstinence are fasttrack solutions to failure in the Great Age of Mediation The best we can do is hope and work to moderate our own behaviors and find a betamp173ter and more livable way to coexist with our superaddiction to all things media and all things digital before it consumes us entirely We need to restore the quality of life stolen from us over the past generation and we need to protect the quality of life for future generations And we need to begin right now The Media Addictamp8217s Handbook is my commitment to the deliberate search for a viable way to moderate our behavior and help restore the quality and promise of American life in the Great Age of Mediation Below youamp8217ll find an excerpt from the chapter A Brief History of Digitalamp8230 Popular culture by definition cannot tolerate critical selfexamination It simply cannot pause to turn the spotlight inward nor can it spare the requisite time to fashion any meaningful historical narrative Like a shark in the water popular culture must always keep moving forward or die Thus is history in the Great Age of Mediation rendered essentially stillborn and inert amp8211 at best a quiet and reflective respite from the clamor of the present That said I feel a personal obligation to set the record straight and to provide an explanation for how we suddenly woke up one day to find ourselves so firmly ensconced in the Great Age of Mediation As is often the case however the truth bears little resemblance to popular myth and legend Though brief what follows below is wholly unabridged and completely factualamp8230 The 1980s It may seem hard to believe these days amp8211 especially when our personal lives are so crammed with so many digital devices amp8211 but the digital revolution didnamp8217t begin at home It didnamp8217t begin at home simply because there was no functional or otherwise compelling reason for consumers to buy personal computers in the late 1970s and early 1980s so the home market fizzled out soon enough and didnamp8217t reemerge in strength until the mid1990s with the rise of the Internet Instead the digital revolution began in the office where applications for PCs were patently obvious and it came of age not with the introduction of the personal computer as a consumer product in the late 1970s and early 80s but with the adoption maturation and utter ubiquity of the electronic spreadsheet as the dominant corporate tool just a few years later The sudden ability to project and manipulate corporate numbers with a facility and scale previously impossible and unamp173imamp173agined delivered immense power to the captains of industry and finance and gave rise to a hightech Wall Street culture whose influence and dominance conamp173tinues to grow virtually unabated in direct relationship to the power and ubiquity of the chips and devices that power it amp8220We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape usamp8221amp8211 Marshall McLuhan The sudden flurry of MampampA activity the Black Monday stock market crash of October 1987 and the collapse of the savings and loan industry later in the same decade were all early manifestations of an overly enthusiastic corporate rush to adopt and deploy a digital tool whose inherent power and sudden ability to project immense scale far surpassed our limited ability to mitigate and moderate any associated risk Meanwhile the introduction of cable TV in the early 1980s fragmented urban audiences and forever changed the commercial media landscape In lieu of the ability to reach mass audiences like their established broadcast counteramp173parts the fledgling cable networks sold the ability to target their audiences much more efficiently instead Suddenly agency media planners and buyers were besieged by armies of cable network sales reps all of whom extolled the virtues of effective targeting based on extensive datadriven audience research The working vernacular of advertising and marketamp173ing began to change accordingly as the primary industry focus infrastructure and billing mechanisms shifted away from creative execution and moved towards media a tooldriven migration made possible and powered by the wholesale adoption and application of the electronic spreadsheet The sheer numbercrunching power appeal and corporate ubiquity of the electronic spreadsheet all but guaranteed the correspondamp173ing migration of agency resources from the message to the medium and amp8211 true to the sage observation of pioneer media ecologist Marshall McLuhan amp8211 the medium indeed became the message Still someone had to sell the surging Wall Street and hightech cultures not to mention all the digital hardware and software that rode shotgun with them to Main Street America Enter the productionline template for the postmodern MBA a thoroughly digital technocrat formally trained in both marketing and financial disciplines Itamp8217s no mistake that the equally rapid ascents of the Wall Street and digital media cultures coincided as both were driven by graduates of the same MBA programs of the same schools and both were favored stepchildren of the exact same tool the electronic spreadsheet amp8211 without a doubt the most powerful persuasive and thoroughly abused technology of all time The 1990s The explosive evangelism of the World Wide Web as a commercial medium and the financial promiscuity of the brief dot com era that rode shotgun with it were entirely consistent with the characteristics of a mediadriven youth movement not unlike the one that spread rock and roll and free love around the world via commercial radio and TV in the 1960s During the six years between 1995 and 2000 legions of youthful MBAs amp8211 most with little or no actual handson experience in marketing and advertising amp8211 assumed complete control over what would soon become historyamp8217s most potent and powerful mediumamp8230 The Media Addict39s Handbook not only explains how our superaddiction to all things media and all things digital again like any other addiction to any other narcotic adversely affects us in all possible ways but also offers a proven program to help reclaim and restore the quality of our lives as a reflection of how and where and with whom we invest our time and faith Hope youamp8217ll check it out on amazoncom or on mediaaddictshandbookcomRead all the Einstein Brothers39 MediaBizBloggers commentaries at the Brothers EinsteinCheck us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates MediaBizBloggerThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaBizBloggerscom management or associated bloggers MediaBizBloggers is an open thought leadership platform and readers may share their comments and opinions in response to all commentaries

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