Social Media Fights, Talk Radio, and a Wasted Life
I am a little hesitant to start lambasting the recently deceased, but when Rush Limbaugh passed away this past moth, there was a rightful critique from many about much of the hatred that he sparked in the U.S. This is certainly a reality of his legacy that needs to be addressed. However, I think his legacy also represents something else-people wasting their lives. How many people spent hours every day and hundreds of hours every year listening to Rush Limbaugh? How much time of people’s lives was wasting away going from one political controversy to another? Never growing just running on a perpetual treadmill of outrage.
The reality this is a problem that goes far beyond Limbaugh himself. I was talking to someone the other day who drives a lot for a living. I asked him what he did on those long drives, and he said he listened to a lot of Glenn Beck. It is sad to think that the gift of that time is being squandered so badly. It also applies to outlets that may not be as blatantly hateful or perhaps might even be good, but are not the best use of our time. I have been guilty of this. I used to listen to a lot of Young Turks, especially during the election season. I don’t think it is anywhere near the same category as Limbaugh (and it is obviously on the left), but I wondered how much time I was wasting with that.
These type of programs are usually listened to when people are engaged in other activities whether cooking, driving, exercising, etc. Maybe 25 years ago there was not as many options, but today with audiobooks, podcasts, and a range of other outlets. I just discovered Scribd, which is amazing. It not only has a lot of audiobooks included but also high quality magazines like the Atlantic (which can be listened to). I can’t stress how much my life has been improved and how many aha moments I have had from listening to audiobooks and how much of a theologic training I have gained from listening to sermons. We also have access to a range of music that we could not have even dreamed of 10 years ago.
Something that is perhaps even more dangerous when it comes to our time is social media. This often is not happening while we are doing something else, but takes up our complete time. I am not saying a discussion on social media is never of any value, but how much time is spent arguing over the latest controversy of the week, which will be forgotten in a month. How much is actually gained? What else could we be doing with that time? Learning a language, an instrument, volunteering, praying, meditating, or maybe just dreaming of something better.
What a sad day when people look back and realized that they could have engaged with Dostoevsky, Baldwin, Hurston, and Allende. They could have learned that second language. They could have actually made a difference in their community. Most importantly, they could have grown as a person intellectually, spiritually, emotionally, and socially, but they were spending all their time listening to talk radio (or political podcasts) and engaging with social media fights. We only have one life, and we have more time than we actually think. Unfortunately, we are throwing a lot of it away.
