Rome, 15-23
March
2008

Being, Appearing, and Communicating: Entertainment and Happiness in a Multi-Medial Society

Amidst the flood of tasks and activities that fill day-to-day living, now and again opportunities for entertainment can be glimpsed on the horizon. Sometimes they are perceived from afar – vacations, or weekends – and as a result, they can be planned for. On other occasions those opportunities are encountered as small islands of free-time that appear, often unexpectedly, amid the hurly-burly of academic and university life. Here there is no planning, only improvisation. The unexpected calls for decisions.

The new perspectives of audiovisual entertainment have multiplied greatly the possible ways of using these moments. A story that begins as a movie can continue later as a video game. The spectator then ceases to be a passive witness and becomes an active participant. Once he has taken up the controls, the spectator is he who decides what will happen within scenes and situations that are always more spectacular than before, with graphics that aspire to the quality of cinema.

And in the cybersphere, the possibilities are multiplied even more. Here entertainment reaches and conquers all sorts of “down times” throughout one’s day: mp3 players and iPod’s have filled metros and buses everywhere. Devices that before were left behind in one’s dorm room, are now to be found in one’s pocket.

The cybersphere has also created new possibilities for social relations. To connect to the internet is to connect to networks of friends, family members, and other members of one’s social world. Here technology permits communication in the briefest and most instantaneous of forms: a photo, a brief video, a phrase, new versions of popular songs…

Without a doubt the spectrum of possibilities has grown. And where there is more possibility to choose, it becomes all the more important to choose well. Happiness cannot be something that “just happens,” but something that I as a free person must take an active part in. I am the one who must creatively discover the principle that is to be applied, the good that is at stake, aware of the risk of falling into mere evasion, distraction, or a retreat from reality.

Entertainment is not simply a spontaneous event without consequences or without meaning. Indeed, we might say that how you enjoy yourself says a lot about who you are and who you will eventually become. For in all of my decisions my life is at stake, because the way I use my free time for diversion is not without consequences. It involves choices that condition my education and integral formation – the harmonious and progressive use of all the dimensions of the human person. The person who achieves happiness is he who, in the midst of all the challenges of life, is able to give the best of himself.

So, as we contemplate the contemporary world of entertainment from this humanistic perspective we can more easily attain a panoramic view that avoids all forms of shrill outcry as well as acritical gullibility. We must rather be like the navigator on the open sea who, espying new currents, determines the ship’s position and the proper route that will permit him to arrive at the destination he seeks.