Fear_and_Attention

Fear and Attention Let’s be honest, society today is a mess. We are always under thinking, over criticizing, and blowing things out of proportion. In the cartoon, there is man who represents the majority of America and he is looking at what is obviously a freckle on his arm. In the word bubble next to him, it has him saying all these ridiculous things that the freckle could be but are so farfetched that it’s actually funny the things he is saying these things. Society fuels fears such as these with commercials and news articles to make us think that everything little thing is something that’s so much bigger than it really is. Making us seek medical attention that we really don’t need and spend the money that we really don’t have either. The attention we receive makes us want more so we go back for every single little thing we have. The things we come across in society fuel this fear and need for attention. In today’s society, almost every marketing tool we come into contact with is meant to entice fear in us. Commercials, articles, research, the news, every one of these can have a negative effect on the way we view either the product they are promoting or the way it affects us. Commercials, such as one promoting different medications; always have side effects that seem to outweigh the reason to take the medication. One of my good friends was telling the group of people we were sitting with about this drug she will be starting next month for her acne problem. She proceeded to pull up the side effects on her iPhone and was reading them to us. Some of the side effects were hair loss, facial hair growth, deepening of voice, mood swings, and depression; among other effects. We then proceeded to ask her why she just wouldn’t live with the acne rather than have the chance of all these awful side effects. “Because I hate my face!” That was her answer. Sounded like a pretty pathetic answer. News stations are about the same way, it seems almost no reported wants to report positive stories about young teens doing charity work. All we ever really hear or read are negative stories about someone who was raped or murdered. Log onto FoxNews.com or open The Oklahoma the majority of stories are negative. Society feeds off these fears, like the man in the picture; we cannot just accept that the little dot on our arm is just a freckle. We always want to think that there is something lying underneath. Another thing society fuels is the need for attention especially medical attention. After seeing commercials about some outrageous medical condition, we all want to go to the doctor for everything small, such as a cough. We all crave that attention. Every time I go to the doctor they are wanting to run all these tests on me when I’m just there to get a shot. I don’t want to spend the extra money when I know there is nothing wrong with me. And if there is something wrong it has nothing to do with anything and I will live with it but they want to make it a big deal out of it when I can live perfectly fine with it. They just want more money. Society fuels this and feeds off it, everyone wants that attention. The man in the picture really does represent the majority of America. The sad part is that the society that we live in really encourages this type of behavior to blow things out of proportion.