In contrast, modern life is fast paced and isolating, informed by the passive observation of characters in the distorted world of advertising and entertainment media. If you are unhappy, you can buy something that will make you happy. Advertising and marketing are processes designed to make you unhappy, and keep you unhappy and busy shopping. Our consumer culture teaches us that more is better and that new is alway improved. Futurists can gloss over problems and be naively optimistic.
Parents have no real community to back up the values that they try to teach their children.
Family members may be in the same house, but they are no longer truely interacting. They may be in the same room, but instead of making their own story, they are watching another family's story unfold. Or even more likely, family members are separated, having private experiences with different electronic equipment. It is not a pretty picture, and not a problem that another drug or another purchase can erase. Readers of this book face the danger of recognizing themselves in its pages, but also will have the opportunity to hear the voice of a therapist suggest a number of things families can do to change how and how well they live, and how to value life above things and the temporizing experinces of information, entertainment, and shopping.