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How Much Time Do Americans Spend Plugged Into The Matrix Every Day?
Submitted by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,
The average American spends more than 10 hours a day using an electronic device. And most of that activity is not even interactive. The vast majority of the time we are just passively absorbing content that someone else has created. This very much reminds me of the movie “the Matrix”, but with a twist. Instead of humans being forcefully connected to “the Matrix”, we are all willingly connecting ourselves to it. There is a giant system that defines our reality for us, and the length of time that the average American spends connected to it just continues to keep growing. In fact, there are millions upon millions of us that simply do not “feel right” unless there is at least something on in the background.
Just think about it. How much time do you spend each day with all electronic devices completely turned off? Thanks to technology, we live at a time when more news, information and entertainment is at our fingertips than ever before, and we are consuming more of it than ever before. But this also gives a tremendous amount of power to those that create all of this news, information and entertainment. As I have written about previously, more than 90 percent of the “programming” that we absorb is created by just 6 enormously powerful media corporations. Our conversations, attitudes, opinions and belief systems are constantly being shaped by those entities. Unfortunately, most of us are content to just sit back and let it happen.
The following numbers regarding the media consumption habits of average Americans come directly from Nielsen’s most recent “Total Audience Report“. The amount of time per day that Americans spend using these devices is absolutely staggering…
- Watching live television: 4 hours, 32 minutes
- Watching time-shifted television: 30 minutes
- Listening to the radio: 2 hours, 44 minutes
- Using a smartphone: 1 hour, 33 minutes
- Using Internet on a computer: 1 hour, 6 minutes
When you add it all up, the average American spends more than 10 hours a day plugged into the Matrix.
You have heard the old saying “you are what you eat”, right?
Well, the same applies to what we put into our brains.
When you put garbage in, you are going to get garbage out.
In my recent article entitled “It’s Official: Americans R Stupid“, I discussed how the U.S. population is being systematically “dumbed down” and how we are now one of the least intelligent industrialized nations on the entire planet.
A big contributor to our intellectual and social demise is the Matrix that has been constructed all around us.
Virtually every television show, movie, song, book, news broadcast and talk show is trying to shape how you view reality. Whether you realize it or not, you are constantly being bombarded with messages about what is true and what is not, about what is right and what is wrong, and about what really matters and what is unimportant. Even leaving something out or ignoring something completely can send an extremely powerful message.
In this day and age, it is absolutely imperative that we all learn to think for ourselves. But instead, most people seem more than content to let the Matrix do their thinking for them. If you listen carefully, you will notice that most of our conversations with one another are based on programming from the Matrix. We all love to talk about the movie that we just saw, or what happened on the latest reality show, or what some famous celebrity is doing, or what we saw on the news that morning. The things that matter to us in life are the things that the Matrix tells us should matter.
And if someone comes along with information that contradicts the Matrix, that can cause anger and confusion.
I can’t tell you how many times someone has said something like the following to me…
“If that was true I would have seen it on the news.”
To many people, the Matrix is the ultimate arbiter of truth in our society, and so anything that contradicts the Matrix cannot possibly be accurate.
Fortunately, more people than ever are waking up enough to realize that they have a choice.
It is kind of like that moment in the Matrix when Neo is being offered the red pill and the blue pill.
Admittedly, a lot of people that do begin to wake up choose to take the blue pill and go back to sleep.
But there are so many others that are grabbing the red pill. That is why we have seen such an explosion in the popularity of the alternative media in recent years. Millions of people all over the planet now understand that they are not getting the truth from the Matrix and they are hungry for real information.
Yes, the Internet is being used for unspeakable evil, but it can also be used for great good. The Internet has allowed ordinary people like you and I to communicate on a mass scale like never before in history. The Internet has allowed us to reclaim at least some of the power that we have lost to the Matrix. I don’t know how long this period of history will last, so we should make full use out of this great tool while we still have it.
On my own website, I have felt called to mainly focus on economics in recent years. And I will continue to chronicle economic conditions as we descend into the greatest economic crisis in U.S. history. What is coming is going to be worse than 2008, it is going to be worse than the Great Depression, and it is ultimately going to be worse than most Americans would ever dare to imagine.
But I also want to take my readers on a journey down the rabbit hole.
Our world is about to get really, really strange, and I would like to be a light in the chaos.
Yes, I believe that great darkness is coming. But I also believe that a great awakening is coming.
Personally, I believe that it is a great privilege to be alive at this time in human history.
It is a time of great evil, but it is also a time of great opportunity.
It is a time when everything that can be shaken will be shaken, but it will also be a time when those that stand for what is right will shine like the stars.
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well... 150 for telephone.. 200 for cable + internet .. plus micro payments of whatever the hell nature... mortage/rent .. utility bills.. pretty much consume all monthly income of everyone in Canada and USA.. Britain >. etc.
http://hedgeaccordingly.com/2015/03/debt-ridden-young-couple-in-vancouve...
I'll take the red pill please.
drool
We are plugged in 24 hours - they control time and space.
Shutup, I'm busy!
G'Way! Batin'!
"we are plugged in 24 hours" unless/until we wake up, and act like Neo.
Sometime watching Teh Pr0ns is not exactly passive.
LOL. Interesting, this "anti-passivity" thrust "And most of that activity is not even interactive"
judging from what I read on blogs like ZH, if I had made a rant it would have had the opposite thrust: too much time spent talking and writing, too little time spent thinking and researching offline
reading news might be a "passive" activity... if you don't have a mental/historic framework that allows you to digest and think critically about what you are reading
and this framework is severely lacking. as a comparison, older generations up to the US Founding Fathers were schooled in the so called "Classics". in a discussion about constitutions, for example, they were able to quote older thinking, like Plato's or Macchiavelli's
So if I'm reading this on ZeroHedge while watching the Asian stock market news, and monitoring my cell phone at the same time, does that count as triple time? Maybe I can get it all done in 3.33 hours and have some extra time to play video games?
When I get done with that, I'll say "Hi," to my wife, whatever her name is.
Actually, cancel that last bit. The only way to get her attention is to Facebook message her.
Waiter, I'd like to order a juicy steak, please
I'm making over $7k a month working part time. I kept hearing other people tell me how much money they can make online so I decided to look into it. Well, it was all true and has totally changed my life. This is what I do... http://goo.gl/ezLA00
I skimmed this in 30 seconds so that cuts my time down.
Not young college dudes and gals. They don't have TVs and I know because we've been asked by our professors from time to time. It is under 10% with TVs. Most believe, Rumsfeld and Cheney and Bandar took down the World Trade Centers and that the banks are preparing to kill the citizens of the US with the DHS and American military as well as with militarized police forces. The young college dudes and gals are mostly from China.
Great closing line.
Believe-it-or-not, I talked with a Malaysian recently, and he asserted that MH370 was destroyed because, as the USless CeaEyeEh reported, there were weapons on board ... the civilian commercial airliner. He went glassy eyed when asked, by an amerwreckan; why should anybody trust the trurthfullness of anything that the SeaAyEh says? Based on the Malay media message, he was convinced that Russia is the aggressor in the Ukraine and brought down MH17. I pointed out a few facts of the matter which he seemed unawares, and this left him with a pinched look on his face. I find it unbelievable the extent to which Malays trust western media.
Given that a sizeable proportion of all humans ever born are alive today, it's not as exclusive a privilege as it sounds.
Checking ZH articles : 2 hours, 0 minute.
Is Zero Hedge interactive or it is a forum just to vent? So many questions.
It's considered a form of porn where I come from.
Doom market porn, an exquisitely tailored product for the ultimate hedonistic connoiseur. Tyler is constantly scouring the world for artists capable of satisfying our discriminating tastes.
Checking ZH articles : 2 hours, 0 minute.
Notice on popular TV shows nobody is a smart phone zombie.
Social Media is neither social, nor media.
No but I have noticed todays movies/tv have to move so fast, because of out short attention span. They move so fast that folks talking on the phone hang up while they are still talking. Have you seen this? They are saying the last 1/2 of their last sentence while the are putting the phone down or flipping it closed; every one of them do this.
I blame it all on Sesame Street.
My thesis: the world (actually folks raised in US) divide into two groups....those old enough to have been raised by being plunked down in front of "Captain Kangaroo", and those who came after, and were raised by being plunked down in front of "Sesame Street".
Captain Kangaroo had a couple old farts conversing slowly, several minutes at a time without a camera change. They would read entire stories, slowly turning the pages of a favorite kids book. They would talk to puppets and such and have conversations. It was calming. It was focusing.
Sesame Street invented the jumble of quick shots. Kid's dancing to the letter "Q" with swirling patterns, camera shot changes every 0.8 seconds, no focus at all. It trained you for sound bites and no attention span. Those kids graduated to MTV....which was just more of the same.
The whole sound-bite culture, inability to focus, lack of attention, lack of zen "thereness" roots back to Sesame Street. Damn progressives.
what else is there to do?
Porn and ZH baby !!!!!!!!!!!!111111111111111111
Does the occasional vibrator on your girlfriend count as an 'electronic device ' ?
is nightly still occasional?
Eh. It's not the cause, imo. As the author says, we are opting into stupidity. It shouldn't be a surprise. Stupid people will choose stupid inputs. Just like the last article, the author misses it. He's looking for a cause of stupid, but keeps pointing to the outcomes of stupid.
"The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it" -Morpheus
all of the day into the dreams
at night. that is the plot
General Strangelove/Breedlove is at it again...
NATO Commander: Even Destabilizing Options Should Be Considered in Ukraine
http://thenewsdoctors.com/?p=329367
Never mind.
Yea, I know this real dumb-ass who spends at least 4 hours a day reading nonsense like ZeroHedge, Turd Furgeson, Max Keiser, etc... What a waste of t.......
Oh wait, that's ME!
( never mind )
damn, I thought for sure you were busting me out
Fortunately this all makes us fitter, happier, more productive, comfortable, not drinking too much, regular exercise at the gym (3 days a week), getting on better with your associate employee contemporaries, at ease, eating well...
It's not who you are, its who are you plugged in with that matters.
I spend all day mocking the matrix.
we are fucked
Time-shifted television? Now they're just trying to sound cool.
If I spend all day in front of a computer programming, that doesn't count does it? That time is adding content, not passively absorbing.
(Though the distractions such as ZH browsing.....)
But..but...I found THIS article on the Matrix! I'm sooo confused!
I disagree with the comment that it is a great time to be alive. Personally, I'd rather have been born in the early 1900's and witnessed the Greatest Generation than this Idiocracy. Then I would have already checked out and not had to experience this hell on Earth.
It is only going to get worse. When you live in a society where people are cultured and conditioned to be morons then what happens is that the most irrational, most idiotic events and trends almost certainly come into play, and that WILL affect you, and affect you most negatively.
Do you want to live through the next 20 years? Really? Enjoy today my friends. This is as good as it is going to get. Remember, these millenials are the people that are going to decide your fate into old age. Think about that.
But Carl's Jr. will look after my kids and give me free sleeping gas!
This is how bad it gets from John Oliver, bouncing up the municipal fines where the poor can't pay later and how the fine grows. #shutdownthefuckbarrel (HBO) http://bit.ly/1CK5d3J
Back on target, wait until the Matrix charges you to stay connected, it's coming and charged to your credit card,20 cents and the credit card can sell those transactions too.
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2015/03/major-us-newspapers-sign-up-and-invest.html
if im not driving or sleeping, i'm in front of some device doing something to make money or perusing news
People who constantly post and browse facebook/twitter need therapies. Yeah, couple hundred so called friends. They can't even name all of them in their heads if you ask them. Low.
Special exception: if the twitter feed you're following is NanexLLC (Eric Hunsader) that's a key to unplugging - given almost every item is proving this or that item of market-fraud down to the millisecond. With charts.
When I turned it all off, the transformation in my kids was rapid and amazing. Even their teachers noticed it.
TURN IT THE FUCK OFF. They call it programming for a reason.
Instead of watching other people do stuff, or comparing yourself to others' wonderful lives (as posted on FaceFuck), just get out there and do something.
What most hive dwellers don't seem to understand is that self-esteem comes from accomplishment, not emtpy words and platitdues like 'everybody gets a trophy' and 'we don't keep score in basketball leagues' bullshit.