Changes in Leisure Change Society

Changes in Leisure Change Society

Changes to the types of leisure in our society have a profound change on how society evolves as a whole. For instance the impact that television has on society as a whole. The idea for the television was hatched while Philo T. Farnsworth was “mowing hay in rows”¹. Just think, if he hadn’t went outside to WORK we all would have never had to sit down next to a television and waste away our lives in front of it all day long. And it is not just television it is social media in general. Social media has is positive effects. Like being able to connect with people you may not have been able to be with for a long time. For example thanks to social media one of my friends from Africa can talk to his family for free if he has a good Wi-Fi signal. This gives him the time he needs to communicate with his family and still be able to afford to pay rent on his apartment because he does not have to go through certain agencies that charge him obscene amounts of money to say happy birthday to his siblings. Another of the positive effects that social media has had on society are opportunities for businesses. In the time it took to write this paper I saw at least a dozen ads if not more on every page that I visited. But there are always drawbacks to social media.

Poor choices in the types of leisure we engage in can lead to addiction, isolation and loss of productivity². Other than what I say in this paper the addiction to social media goes without saying. Almost everyone has a facebook, blog, an email, a cellphone, a tablet, etc., that keeps them hooked all day long. It may not even be important but if your phone goes off you have to check it. Phones are even worse now that they have internet on them. Speaking from personal experience there are certain things that we can do without. Number one I think is things that give us instant gratification. Things like instant messaging, live stream, Netflix, XBOX etc. aside from games like Wii fit and Dance Dance Revolution, here is so much time wasted every day by things like this.

One last thing that I wanted to share is the drop in births due to social media specifically caused by loss of marriages. A study done at Boston University had this to say “It turns out that spending countless hours talking to friends in front of a screen can negatively affect your most important relationship—the one with your spouse.”³ According to the study, between the years 2008-2010, of married individuals 43 states with facebook usage they found that a 20 percent increase in facebook users in a state could be attached to a divorce rate ranging anywhere from a 2.18 to a 4.32 percent growth in the divorce rates.⁴ Crazy huh.

And that’s not all according to the University of California San Francisco Medical Center back in 1999 said “the recent rise in childhood obesity has been linked in part to time spent watching television.”⁵ That is just crazy. Back when I was a kid if I heard that I would not believe it. But now… I believe it.

References

1 Television History – Invention of Television. (n.d.). Retrieved March 30, 2015, from http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/television.htm

2 Social Media - A Good Thing or a Bad Thing? (Social Media Today) Retrieved March 30, 2015, from http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/social-media-good-thing-or-bad-thing

3 Could Facebook Use End a Marriage? | BU Today | Boston University (BU Today RSS) Retrieved March 30, 2015 from http://www.bu.edu/today/2014/could-facebook-use-end-a-marriage/

4 “Social networking linked to divorce, marital unhappiness” CNBC’s Everett Rosenfeld Tuesday, 8 July 2014 2:10 pm ET Retrieved March 30, 2015 from http://www.cnbc.com/id/101819591

5 Obesity and the Media (UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital) Retrieved March 30, 2015 from

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