Modern Day Media Consumption

Dr. Fran’s commentary on modern day media consumption and Netflix catering to the
 millennial generation's emotional and psychological tendencies
-- our short attention spans, obsessive personalities, demand 
for instant gratification.  I am the expert psychologist who VH1 retained to do on-camera group therapy with Nicole Richie to cure her and her friends of cell phone addiction.  Netflix is smart to capitalize on the young market of mass culture who are obsessive-compulsively attached to and addicted to electronic and media instant gratification.  We have raised and nurtured a generation of kids who are conditioned to expect an immediate response such as one received online or in a computer game.  Human interactions require a beat or two longer. They require the person to think first, process information, retrieve and formulate an answer before spitting out their response.  The millennial generation has no patience for waiting.  They have (and will) paid a high price for the expectation of immediacy.  High schoolers and university students no longer desire to date, in the old-fashioned sense of the word.  They don't want to take the time to get to know someone and develop a relationship.  Instead, they are "hooking up" at dorm parties where they engage in kissing, heavy petting, and sexual intercourse with acquaintances and virtual strangers.  By the time they graduate college, they go out into the big wide world without a clue of how to form a relationship.  On the other hand, Netflix is creating and producing some very high quality film and television entertainment.  The challenge is that they are contributing to the myth and legend that human interactions function at the same light year speed that electronics do.  This distortion is a setup for a huge disappointment to our younger generation coming up!

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