Why Do We Need Entertainment

If you look at the synonyms for entertainment. --amusement, pleasure, leisure, recreation, relaxation, fun, enjoyment, interest, diversion--you notice that it does not appear to have to do with work. So, earlier in our recent past, either because our work was manual labor, or we were supervising laborers, entertainment was more, "of the mind," yet, today, when most people work from a desk, (or even in the entertainment field), that which we call entertainment would be a busmen's holiday, and not truly an escape at all. So, truly, entertainment now represents occupying the mind in a different way than normal. Even a real-life detective might find it an enjoyable practice to solve a murder in 44 minutes given the fact that it is not real life, with the tedious responsibilities of notifying the families of victims or sparring with perpetrators, and attorneys of both sides.

It could be described as mental work without consequences. People describe their light reading as mind candy, and their crossword puzzles as time killers, meaningless diversions. Each person has a different reaction to types of entertainment. I would consider camping far too active and unpredictable a recreation to my preferred sedentary pleasures, while many people could not stand to read a book or watch movies back to back. The commonality is that entertainment occupies our time and our mind, doing something that has limited responsibility.

The entertainment industry has, over the centuries, established many genres and venues for actors, singers, poets, and comedians, to provide us enjoyment as a spectator, in shared group environments, getting from them a surge of endorphins, as we vicariously live alternate realities, without having to do the work or take the risks, of experiencing those emotions in real life. To many who enjoy Stark Trek Next Generation, the single greatest leap in their Sci if the world was the Holodeck, a place where a simulated world was created, in which you are allowed to be any place and any person and experience a 100% immersion in a simulated reality, with the computer-controlled hologram giving you every experience short of death. So, perhaps, it could be said that our greatest goal from entertainment, is in some small way, to experience alternative lives.

I think it's about the illusion of control. If you feel like you have no control, your stress hormones rise. There was a study done on some rats about the illusion of control. Two rats were locked in two different cages, both had a switch the scientist could flip and electrify the floor of, however only one of the cages had a platform where the rat could escape the shock, and therefore gain a sense of control over his environment. After a while of turning on the electricity at completely random times, the rat with the platform seemed perfectly healthy, he could just go to his safe place and gain control over the situation. The rat who did not have a platform was not only completely burnt out on stress hormones but had learned helplessness. He no longer ran around the cage trying to find reprieve, he just laid there. Eventually, the rat with no control died, while the rat with the platform remained perfectly healthy. This is to show how powerful the illusion of control can be. You can learn more about it in "The Lucifer Principle" by Howard Bloom. As Al Nelson was saying, dopamine also plays a part. If you say to yourself "I'm gonna run a mile today" and then you do, your brain releases the chemical dopamine as a reward for achieving something. This chemical can become addictive, but for good reason. If you had to risk your life for every meal, the promise of dopamine could be a pretty good motivator to get out there and get food for you and your family. If you sit through a half-hour show, you still feel like you've achieved something. Why? Because every show needs conflict, it's necessary to make it entertaining. If you sit through a show or movie and the main characters overcome that conflict, I think you vicariously feel a sense of achievement through the characters. Because of this, your brain thinks you've overcome a challenge and rewards you with dopamine. What's more is if you're vicariously overcoming challenges through the happenings of characters, that's a way for you to regain the illusion of control, which can be necessary after a stressful day. There was a comment I saw on a Youtuber's video one day that brought the question up in the first place. It said something along the lines of "Thank you so much for uploading such great content. You have no idea how fantastic it is to be able to come home after a long day and watch your videos." That's the comment that made me realize entertainment is important, and since it's so important it must be a need of some sort. So that's my best guess, the need for control, which you can get by feeling like you've achieved something (even if you haven't) mixed with the powerful need for the dopamine reward.

Yes, but you would likely lose your mind. Even people who have spent years in solitary confinement, such as Nelson Mandella, found ways to entertain themselves. Whether it’s watching the insects, or counting the cracks in the walls, our minds are always seeking stimulus. Buddhist monks don’t use any conventional entertainment, but they do keep their minds focused and busy.

I guess the true answer depends on what you consider entertainment.

Entertainment doesn't just have to come in the form of watching people perform in sports, movies, or music, and it also goes beyond reading. Life requires entertainment to relax, get excited, and take a break from the details that make life boring, stressful, and just plain annoying. When a person is away from other people for a long period, what happens? That person goes crazy. There is almost too much evidence of people hallucinating when they are alone and away from the entertainment that comes with communicating with other people and the simple entertainment of looking at someone's face. The mind's imagination proves that we cannot go without entertainment, because we start to make things up when waiting in line for coffee. When in the waiting room at the hospital we tend to make stuff up that scares us, or we think about something calming to not cry and scream. While entertainment today feels more complex than the imagination, it makes us too lazy to dream something up on our own.

This could be the reason why there are no real composers in our time like Beethoven, why we don't have any new artists like Van Gogh, why we can't read anything by the new Shakespeare, and why we have no Albert Einstein to tell us something we shouldn't know for another millennium. Our Beethoven must be listening to Eminem, today's Vincent Van Gogh is watching Breaking Bad, 21st century Shakespeare is rereading every Stephen King book, and the Albert Einstein of the century is playing The Walking Dead on X Box One. Now I love everything that I just listed, but I also love the famous people I mentioned who cannot get into their creative mindsets to accomplish what they could if they didn't receive so much entertainment from sources other than themselves through their minds and imaginations.

Entertainment is necessary; it should also be known that entertainment should be balanced out so that it does not slowly fade away into something that is not entertaining at all because no one can access their imaginations any longer. For entertainment to get better, (which it should), we must all take some time to get away from it all and we should see if we can do anything ourselves without mimicking what has already been done or adding on to something that has already been stretched too thinly.