https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/03/weve-...
We have some of the sexyist media around telling us we should all be sleeping around and yet apparently sex is down too.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/12/the-sex...
Are we sure it's any different for other topics?
Also, as for media and marriage I feel like more media is about bad marriages than good ones. A common theme might be falling in love and getting married but a movie about people already married seems rarely about things going well. Or maybe I just have a selective memory.
There are lot of confounding variables, though. Sex could be down because both men and women have to join the workforce, people live with {their parents for longer, with roommates} because rent is expensive, technology lets parents keep tabs on kids better, etc.
EDIT (to reflect your edit, I believe):
> Also, as for media and marriage I feel like more media is about bad marriages than good ones.
I think that's exactly her point. We only ever talk about "falling in love" and "break up". How many songs can you think of that talk about a resilient relationship? Better yet, how many songs can you think of that talk about a relationship in the past tense and say it was great?
I was thinking about this yesterday. An interesting project would be to filter every top 100 song in the past century for love songs, then look at how many stories are predominantly in the past vs. future tense, and then how many of those say good vs. bad things about the other person in the relationship. My hypothesis is there's most forward-looking of those songs talk about the wonders of love, and the past-looking songs talk about how shitty the relationship was and how they're glad it's over.
Extra credits for whoever buckets the data by decade to see if the trend has shifted.
This has not been my observation, at all.
That’s why if you want to be informed about the world you shouldn’t watch the news and just read books.
???
This is the thing though, books are media too.
Also published for clickbait-y reasons.
It sounds like everyone's out suggesting methods for people to avoid using their critical thinking skills. There's no way around it, if you consume media, ANY media, you have to consume it with an almost deeply skeptical eye nowadays. It's just the world we live in, everything from music to books, and from video games to news paper articles, is riddled with bias. Using your head in such an environment is unavoidable, assuming you wish to take wise and measured actions based on the state of the world around you. If wisdom is the goal, reading books, or watching Al Jazeera is just no substitute for exercising your brain cells.
Really? I'd guess that most past-looking songs take a more mournful angle than an angry one (especially in the past century, what with the various wars), although that could just have to do with my sampling bias.
"Riddled with bias" doesn't make sense to me. Any book - one about maths, as much as one about the world - is written from a point of view. This is the "bias" that phrases like "riddled with bias" seem to suggest can - and should be - completely eradicated. But the decision what to include in a book, what to exclude, for example, is a personal one. (It's why committees have a bad name.) All we know of the world is how it appears to 'biased' individuals. There's no eliminating the human factor, and the desire to do so seems to me futile and misconceived.
"...every mind has a new compass, a new north, a new direction of its own, differencing its genius and aim from every other mind; as every man, with whatever family resemblances, has a new countenance, new manner, new voice, new thoughts, and new character. Whilst he shares with all mankind the gift of reason, and the moral sentiment, there is a teaching for him from within, which is leading him in a new path, and, the more it is trusted, separates and signalizes him, while it makes him more important and necessary to society. We call this specialty the bias of each individual. And none of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone. ...A point of education that I can never too much insist upon is this tenet, that every individual man has a bias which he must obey, and that it is only as he feels and obeys this that he rightly develops and attains his legitimate power in the world. It is his magnetic needle, which points always in one direction to his proper path, with more or less variation from any other man’s. He is never happy nor strong until he finds it, keeps it; learns to be at home with himself; learns to watch the delicate hints and insights that come to him, and to have the entire assurance of his own mind. And in this self-respect, or hearkening to the privatest oracle, he consults his ease, I may say, or need never be at a loss. In morals this is conscience; in intellect, genius; in practice, talent; not to imitate or surpass a particular man in his way, but to bring out your own new way; to each his own method, style, wit, eloquence." - Emerson, Greatness