Maybe it’s not so much that we as Americans are “addicted to screens,” but we’re addicted to MEMES. That’s what this article in the Wall Street Journal by Joseph Pine suggests to me, anyway. He wrote a book with James Gilmore titled The Experience Economy arguing that the only way we can understand the current economy is that we’re addicted to experiences, especially those (selectively) nostalgic experiences triggering the good memories:
Fundamentally, experiences offer time well spent. People value the time they spend in experiences, resulting in a memory (and, so often these days, a trail of social media posts). Experiences have always been around—concerts, plays, sporting events and tourism, long the largest industry in the world by employment. The 20th century saw the rise of experience industries such as movies, radio, television, theme parks and videogames. The 21st century has brought entirely new genres of experiences, including social media, escape rooms and immersive art encounters. The pandemic decimated physical experiences; no one wanted to gather with others. Experiences are intrinsically important to human beings, so we shifted from the physical to the digital, from the social and communal to the familial and individual. But whenever experiences opened up again—theme parks, bars and restaurants—they filled to whatever capacity the government allowed
Our fearless leader at POMOCON Titus Techera has argued in the past that the desire for nostalgic experiences is the key to Disney’s media empire. Titus should really publish his insightful thoughts about Disney in print (and online). Think about it- it’s what connects up Star Wars, the Muppets, and old Mickey Mouse. It’s a small world, after all.
Disney is precisely the example Joseph Pine raises to make his point in the article, albeit from a more economics-focused standpoint:
Walt Disney World first charged a single admission fee in 1981, no longer requiring separate tickets for individual rides. According to AllEars.net, a website dedicated to covering Walt Disney Co., the price back then was $9.50—$8.89 excluding the 4% sales tax.Fast-forward to 2021, and a one-day standard ticket price is $109 before taxes. That’s a compound growth rate of 6.39%. Meanwhile, the CPI increased by 2.76% a year over that same period. So for 40 years the price to go to Walt Disney World has gone up 2.3 times as fast as the CPI. Is that because its costs—cast-member wages, ride-building supplies—have gone up so much more than in other businesses? Hardly. It’s because of more engaging and immersive rides, greatly expanded areas, shorter wait times and more personal attention. That’s why Walt Disney World outpaced measured inflation by so great a rate—because consumers value its experience more than the average market-basket good and are willing to pay much more for it relative to other offerings. This same effect is true for the myriad experiences that make up today’s “Experience Economy"
Another friend from Houston (Mike Newhouse) asks me: is this desire for experience innate, or a “chasing after entertainment experiences to fill the void left by religious and familial relationships”?
Following St. Augustine and Pascal, I would say that every human being due to their separation from God is lonely in this life, and that leads to a chasing after experiences. It’s part of the human condition.
But, following Tocqueville, I would add that modern man- especially AMERICAN modern man- is even more prone to restlessness for a number of reasons connected to our individualism. The widespread breakdown of religion and the family are both causes and effects of that individualism; it is a concomitant. And at the level of individuals our culture is getting more and more individualistic as time goes on.
Welcome to 2022, folks!
There are good and bad things about being addicted to memories, of course. Tocqueville talks about shared memories as being a key to sibling friendships in democratic cultures
I haven't been to Disneyland in two or three decades, but I can still remember its geography, its images. Don't remember a darn thing about Magic Mountain, which in those days had the better rides.