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September 3, 2009

Online time leaves no rest for the wicked

Ron Booth

DUNCAN — I spend most of my day looking at a computer screen. If I’m not laying out a page, I’m working a photo.

If I’m not working a photo, I’m writing a story, and that’s just at work.

In my down time, I’m checking duncanbanner.com (that’s right, I check my paper’s site religiously), or espn.com, or a myriad of other sites.

When I’m not looking for news, I’m checking my fantasy football and baseball teams.

When I’m not doing that, I’m Facebooking, and yeah, that’s weird for me.

The thing that I notice, though, is that there is a plethora of ways for me to communicate with people, and vice versa.

There’s also Twitter, which I don’t get, and I don’t like. I need room to express myself and Twitter has limits. On top of that, am I a Tweeter, Twitterer or a Twitt? I’m not comfortable with any of those names.

You can also blog, and, while that’s OK, it isn’t my cup of tea.

Plus, that would just take up more of my day, which I’ve already established is spent in front of a computer.

That’s been the case for most of my life. If it wasn’t a television show, it was a movie keeping me occupied. By the time I was 13, I had discovered that I loved reading. I’d read anything, magazines, novels, really anything. The first novel I read was “Lonesome Dove.” It was big and it took me forever to read, but I made it through. I’ve read that novel so much since then that my copy is tattered and torn.

But things are different now.

I’m busier and, as a society, we’re busier. We need information and entertainment to fit into our schedules.

Used to, people made time for newspapers and the nightly news. Now, the news has to be available at all times of the day and night. That’s a tough order to fill, but that’s what people want, and it’s what I want in a news or entertainment service, too.

For decades, Hollywood has been turning out movies like “Rollerball” or “The Running Man” about sports that are centered around literal fights for survival that are broadcast on television.

Could that ever happen?

I think it could.

Boxing is a barbaric sport if you listen to some, and cage fighting was going to be the death of society. Boxing is still around, but the more brutal sport, cage fighting, is climbing in popularity.

Supporters of the sport call participants “gladiators,” while critics call it “ glorified dog fighting.” I think the truth lies somewhere in between, but with our need to be entertained is there a line that people won’t cross?

And it isn’t just the fighting sports that people are flocking to. If you watch ESPN, if there was a fight in a baseball or football game, you’re sure to see that clip run 10 to 15 times in an hour program.

You can also go to one of the video sites and see clips of backyard fights that are pretty horrific.

I hope there is a line out there that people won’t cross, but with the popularity of tabloid sites and the things that I’ve seen posted, that line is already getting blurry.



— Ron Booth is the managing editor for The Duncan Banner. He can be reached at 580-255-5354, Ext. 166, or via e-mail at ron.booth@duncanbanner.com.

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