Popular culture isn’t challenging our minds

Ialways wondered if my inability to tolerate the music being played on the radio was just a natural side effect of me getting older or if music really was becoming worse. I decided to look it up a while back and I came across an article by the journal Scientific Reports, the analysis was based on 455,000+ songs from 1955 – 2010, which found that music actually has been getting worse. The analysis measured three criteria that determined the quality and depth of a song’s music and lyrics and found that there was a steady decrease since the 1960s in quality and depth when it came to pop music.

Television shows are tricky because on one hand the quality of television content has developed drastically as cultures have become more open to controversial ideas but conversely you have the alarming rise in popularity of reality television shows. These almost always promote the most outrageous and unacceptable behaviour, which fuels television stars to continue behaving as such, for their 15 minutes of fame. It begins a vicious cycle that normalises said behaviour and has children influenced because they see these stars become rich and famous through such means.

I think, popular culture does dumb us down but if we actually wanted our mind stimulated then we would’ve searched for something that serves that function. Instead, we prefer to switch off and avoid anything that makes us feel uncomfortable or uneasy — two feelings which are necessary for development.

From Mr Georges Joubran

Account executive based in Dubai