Got your attention? Good. You’re stimulated. You’re jolted. You’re still reading... Such is the make-up of our contemporary mass-media conditioned society, this is simply an exaggerated example of a common tactic deployed to fix your attention. However our senses are now so overloaded by such stimulatory poking and probing that we no longer see it as an invasion of our privacy and balanced judgement.
A stimulus is defined as “an action, influence or agency that produces a response in a living organism”, whilst to stimulate refers to anything that “incites, instigates or excites towards increased action”. Therefore, a stimulant is effectively engineering a pre-meditated reaction within us in order to capture and sustain our attention upon the rousing source. Modern media and marketing is specifically geared towards unleashing as many of these stimulants as possible in the direction of potential consumers – i.e. you and I - in order to grip our attention and instigate interest in what they have to offer. These stimulants will appear in many different mediums; mainly in television, films and mass media, but also increasingly so in radio, music, games consoles and static advertisements. This is achieved by the inclusion of distinctive sounds, flashing visuals, arresting buzzwords, catchy sales slogans, and sensationalism of controversy, sometimes all incorporated into a single source! Think about it... How often have your eyes and ears been subjected to such stimulus today?
Just consider television for a moment... We now live in era of round-the-clock news channels, a cult-like following of soaps, and a plethora of ‘reality tv’ shows each striving for our attention with their maxed-out inclusion of emotional triggers and stimulants. The 24 hour news channels throw up and regurgitate sensationalist news stories in the form of easily digestible soundbites, carefully condensed into quick-read summaries as to fit into our oh-so-hectic lifestyles. Flick the channel over and we are at the mercy of soaps and reality tv shows that strive to include as many controversial and provocative scenes - ranging from sex & drugs to violence & conflict - as possible into their pre-watershed slots. And, of course, in the scheduled breaks between these programmes, we are subjected to the shameless deluge of slogans, celebrity endorsements and flashy animations that we call adverts in which we are relentlessly encouraged to Buy, Buy, Buy. But whilst you could argue that all of this simply adds up to provide us with absorbing entertainment, ‘stimulating media’ should not always be considered to be a positive description as is commonly perceived...
The real issue lies with the way in which these stimulants are deployed in order to deter us from being distracted by our environment, effectively slapping our faces over and over again just in case we lose focus and take our eyes off the ‘prize’. It is the concept of focus that cements the reciprocal nature of our interaction with modern media, whereby less stimulation would result in reduced viewer focus ultimately leading to poor ratings and low viewing figures. Therefore, tv executives and marketers are eager to fit metaphorical matchsticks between our eyelids by constantly jolting us without a moment’s respite to make judgements upon the quality of the show itself. So what’s the problem here? If this is a virus, what are the symptoms?
The result is that we’re walking around constantly aroused (no laughing at the back...) by our surroundings, with little or no time to digest explosive animations before we are bombarded by the next. This is hitting the younger generation the hardest; as newspapers and books are increasingly judged as boring substitutes for online or televised media, advertisement slogans predominate over parents’ preachings, and iPods are viewed as a welcome buffer for that most uncomfortable of natural silences that arise when in the untainted outdoors. And if you look hard enough, the effects are there for all to see... An increase in nervous energy, anxiousness, fidgeting and restlessness is evident within us all once that stimulation is momentarily taken away, leaving us with no visual or verbal stimulant to hold our focus. Just try asking a teenager to sit still between their marathon Xbox sessions. Furthermore, this discreet form of conditioning seems to have diminished our attention-spans, levels of concentration and focus to the point where Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is now perceived as a common ‘condition’ amongst children in contemporary society. It could also prove to be overpowering for those individuals of an impulsive disposition, who are more vulnerable than most to marketing’s relentless drive in encouraging consumption of their promoted products.
Our underlying relationship with this form of bombardment can therefore be likened to that of the respiratory process... However, as much as we are constantly inhaling all of these stimulatory media, what is being exhaled? All those sales slogans, emotional triggers, violent movie scenes and games console binges... where does it all go? With the only tangible output being that of consumption in response to mass marketing and sales advertisements, what happens to the television & media intake? It all seems to be bottling up inside of us, discreetly fizzing up nervous energy and restlessness until we sit up and take notice of just how badly this can spill over when the cap is lifted. But, what match are we for the media people in trying to avert the gaze of the millions from their television sets...
Yup, those same media people who claim the media doesn't influence people, but are perfectly willing to sell you advertising time.
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