杂讯 Noise

我经常看到的一块大广告牌坏了，它原本应该显示广告的画面变成了不断闪动的灰白杂讯。我记得我小时候在电视上见到的这样的画面。好玩。可惜才过了一天这牌子就被修好了。搞笑的是过了大概一个星期之后它又坏了，然后我录下了一小段录像。

后来我在网上冲浪的时候突然看到了“娱乐至死”这样的内容。我记得它里面说到媒介就是信息。当看电视看视频取代了读书读文章变成了人们获取信息的方式，这种行为上的改变也会造成思考习惯的改变。

追逐快速的享乐是一方面，另一方面是专注思考一个内容的时间长度。我从小就觉得读书比较难，不只是当时老是碰到看不懂的字，我经常就看书看到一半就不想看了。有的学者就认为是因为电视节目的长度一般都只有一个小时左右。这就让人习惯了花这么点时间思考。现在手机上的短视频就更夸张了，几分钟一个新的视频。

快节奏的信息传递有它的好处，但是它的坏处太危险了。我觉得人是很需要花长时间去想东西的。要是老是忘了或者静不下心那我觉得太可惜了。

所以就算这广告牌修好了，它上面播放的内容对我来说也大多只是杂讯。

A billboard I often see is only displaying noise. I took a photo of it. I love seeing this malfunction because it brings up my childhood memory of seeing noise on TV. Someone fixed it after only one day; but funnily, it is broken again in about one week. I recorded a video clip this time.

While I was surfing the internet the other day, some content about amusing ourselves to death came up. There's a famous quote – "the medium is the message". The behaviour change of acquiring information from TVs and videos also changes our way of thinking.

On the one hand, it is the fast paced entertainment. On the other hand, the change is how much time people spend on thinking. I found reading difficult at a very young age. Not only because I was stumbled on big words but also because of losing interest on the topic. Some researchers believe that this is a consequence of people being accustomed to watching TV programmes which are mostly about one hour long. The online videos and short videos nowadays are more worrying as they are only a few minutes long.

I don't know what benefits there are in acquiring such fast 'happiness', but I am sure about the disadvantages from this habit. Taking time to process and think is essential for human beings in my opinion. It will be a pity if people often forget or always feel impatient.

So the noise is always on our screens, even if this one is fixed.