Us Americans of the 21st century are always getting persuaded by the news media and propaganda to buy all these new gadgets and what not. All these companies like Apple® are spending a lot of money in order to advertise their new phones, computers, or new downloadable apps. And they’re doing this in order to suck us into oblivion and brainwash us. Like in the movie Wall E the humans were oblivious to the things that was happening around them until the robot Wall E knocked them over or bumped into them by accident, and that’s when they came into their senses and realize what was really happening around them. Us Americans spend countless amounts of money on new gadgets, were addicted to this stuff, and lastly how we get brainwashed easily.
We Americans spend countless amounts of money on these new things that come out phones, computers, ipods, you name it. And we don’t even realize how much money we spend annually on these new things until we get a big huge bill in the mail stating that they owe the credit card companies money, and that’s when we owe even more money because of interest. In the end it doesn’t matter because we always lose. New York times claims, “What’s odd about all this is that according to new data from the NPD Group, people are actually spending more on cellphones than a year ago. Americans bought 38 million phones in the third quarter up only 4 percent from the third quarter of 2006. But they spent a total of $3.2 billion on those phones, up from $2.2 billion a year earlier. Doing the math, that means the average phone cost $82.81 this year, up 40 percent from $58.95 a year ago...” (Hansell). And if you come to think about it that’s an awful amount of money spent in just one year just for cellphones alone! Now imagine the total price of everything we buy including computers and everything else and total that up it would be even more money. But us Americans want to look cool and fit in so we do what ever is necessary in order to do just that. Think about what else we could do with that money if it wasn’t spent on cellphones. Possibly save a starving child in Africa but of course us Americans don’t think about nobody else but our damn selves.
Video games were the main source of fun for our parents while they were growing up besides hanging out with their friends, and watching a movie. Games our now like the new drug for us teens and us Americans as a whole. Games are just something for entertainment that takes us into a new dimensional world, we control the main protagonist and basically do whatever we want, as we get lost into this new kind of trance. Us teens are now playing more games than anything our grades are dropping, and were losing a social life with our family and friends. MSNBC states that, “The telltale signs are ominous: teens holing up in their rooms, ignoring friends, family, even food and a shower, while grades plummet and belligerence soars. The culprit isn’t alcohol or drugs. It’s video games which for certain kids can be as powerfully addictive as heroin, some doctors contend.” (Tanner). This goes to show that us teens have become so addicted to games and stuff that its like an actual drug just like heroin which may be scary to some people, but its true. Teens play on average like 4 to 5 hours which is a lot of time on a game when you can be outside exercising. Another statement from MSNBC claims, “In a February posting, a 13-year-old identified only as Ian told of playing video games for nearly 12 hours straight, said he felt suicidal and wondered if he was addicted.” (Tanner). Twelve hours straight on one game I bad enough, the worse part about it is that the 13 year old kid felt suicidal, this goes to show you how bad video game addiction can be; its pretty much mind blowing to see how much impact a game can do to one person, now imagine the whole United States.
We watch plenty of hours of TV on a daily basis it varies from person to person. But we’ve all seen those TV commercials or ads while driving down the highway saying something along the lines “ Buy this product and you wont be bald anymore. Guaranteed or your money back!” or something like “ New Iphone 3g with 480 by 320 pixels” (Apple®). Anyways we’ve all seen some sort of advertisement persuading us to buy the companies new product or what not. But do we ever come to realize “are these ads trying to brainwash me?” Of course we don’t we think about that new product we see and it stays on our mind until the day we have enough money to buy it and show it off to our friends. But get this these ads really are brainwashing us as you come to think of it. A statement from Buzzle.com states, “Commercials are meant to make you think you are in great need of the product they present and try to make successful. As a means of communication, advertising does more than just giving information. It attempts to persuade people to buy all sorts of things and services belonging to a certain brand. The idea is to convince all potential customers to choose certain products. How do companies do that? Certainly by creating the so-called "brand image" which gives way to "brand loyalty". It most probably has something to do with giving people a somewhat feeling of identity, a sense of belonging. In order to achieve their purpose, commercials use a lot of psychological elements..”(Miclaus). Now if that doesn’t show you that were being brainwashed then I don’t know what will, but watch TV and see how the person talking about the new product sounds and see how they are dressed and how they advertise the certain thing. These the key concepts in order to sell a product that got to make the product look good and say everything that’s good about it in order to make the watcher buy it, but have you ever realize them stating the bad things about the product? Or what glitches it may have? Of course not, the company will not advertise their product to make it look bad.
These video games and whatnot can connect to the students that go to school from playing these games students grades drop. ENN’s article states, “However, those who played computer games regularly scored lower in tests. The report found that boys are more likely to play computer games than girls- 61 percent of boys admitted to playing computer games every day or at least once a week compared with 44 percent of girls.”(O’Brien). This shows that people who play games do badly in school, and in this case they are showing that boys that play more games scored lower on test.
Americans playing video games is so significant because it shows how addicting these things are to people, and how these game companies make money by making sure that they include everything that will catch a player’s interest. Since these companies know what the player’s want that means they would make a big sale and in the end a major profit. Thing is that kids as they are young are grown up introduced to games and as we grow up it turns into a major pandemic the game addiction spreads like crazy.
In the end video games are fun and stuff since I was grew up introduced to games since I was a little kid, but I finally realized that video games aren’t that great and that they hurt you physically and hurt you academically. Now this doesn’t mean that I’m going to stop playing games because I’m not going to lie and say I am. But my point of view of this is that people should limit their game time from like 15 hrs to like an hour or 30 minutes and they take a break and relax your eyes, because to much game play can hurt you. An article on Hubpages.com states, “For one thing, playing video games for a long, uninterrupted period of time, say, 12 hours, can make your eyes very tired. Some kids even develop tics. A tic is an uncontrollable twitching of the muscles in the face, such as those of the eyelid. The same will happen to your arms and fingers. They can also get very tired since you're doing basically doing the same movement over and over again.”(Webber) This proves that kids don’t realize basically the downfall of to much gaming they only realize they positive side of it, the excitement, the pleasure, the list goes on and on. In the end they damage themselves and their the ones to blame.
We Americans go through our daily lives basically brainwashed by what ever we see and we never really come into our senses until stuff hit the fan, and that’s when were like all alert. We got to realize what’s really around us and notice that everything that might seem good for us isn’t really that great at all, everything you carry on you phone, Ipod, etc. Cost you like almost 600 dollars now think about what you could be able to do with that money if you haven’t spent it on those things. Your child’s life insurance, maybe donate some to charity, or maybe even college funds? But no we think about ourselves and what we want, we don’t think about the stuff we might need! Think about it.
Bibliography
1) Hansell, Saul. "Cellphones Get Cheaper, So People Pay More." 20/11/07. Web. 4 Nov 2009.
2) Tanner, Lindsey. "Is video-game addiction a mental disorder? ." 22/6/07. Web. 4 Nov 2009.
3) "Iphone 3G." Web. 4 Nov 2009.
4) Miclaus, Claudia. "The Brain-Washing Power of Commercials." 21/10/08. Web. 4 Nov 2009.
5) O' Brien, Ciara. "Video games blamed for boys' poor grades." 30/8/09. Web. 6 Nov 2009.
6) Webber, Jessica. "Can VIDEO GAMES Harm Your Eyes? Your Ears?." Web. 6 Nov 2009.
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