How do you know that's what's going on? [WS:] From observation, I suppose. You know, I do not have earphones over my ears all the time, I watch and listen to what is actually happening around me. What I see I that people often "tune in" to a broadcasted entertainment of one sort or another all the time to avoid real life problems they face. As someone I know told me in response to my question how she puts up with long daily commutes and traffic jams "I just turn my radio on."
It seems that entertainment can be just as good opium for the masses as religion. Forget about the traffic, forget about the lack of efficient transportation, affordable health care or being one paycheck from homelessness, forget about the war, corruption, crime or lack of prospects - just put your earphones on and tune in.
As to your downloading music from the net. There are people who will always be looking for new things and those who seldom will - regardless of how easy or difficult it is to find it - so I am not trying to blame particular individuals or the medium, as your reply seems to suggest. My point was that there is such a thing as too much information, and that can be a bad thing for the same reason as trying to find the proverbial needle in a haystack.
Wojtek