According to the National Institute on Media and the Family, the average child consumes 25 hours of television a week. I walk into Bellis Fair on a Wednesday morning to observe what our country has become best at consuming. Although a weekday, and the holiday season is over, the parking lot is nearly full. The inside of the mall is alive with shoppers.
School is in session, but teenagers walk from store to store.
I sit down on a bench at the end of a long corridor. Two elderly men approach, then stop and look around. They opt to continue their walk through the mall, instead of venturing into the outdoors, away from influences have begun to shape our culture. Every day we hear too much, see too much, buy too much, and as a result, our culture is becoming ill. According to a report from the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics, mental illnesses and addictive disorders affect nearly one third of the United States' population.