This column was published February 8, 2025 in the Manhattan Mercury.
Between household chores and daily rounds, I have been known, on occasion, to while away some idle minutes playing Spades on my smartphone.
I’ve been playing Spades since taco Tuesday (it was actually more like taco salad Tuesday) and pizza Friday in the high school lunchroom.
Too cheap to pay for an app sans advertising for something as silly as a game, so I suffer through them. A commercial after every hand. These ads have become a key data point in my belief that our society is dumbing down.
“There are three different stages of peripheral neuropathy…” The answer is a foot massager that can make my feet “feel alive for the first time in years.”
It’s not a new concept. Trace it to snake oil as the cure for all that ails a body. As a kid devouring Superman comic books, I was in awe of my hero’s ability to see through doors, walls, anything that wasn’t lead. But wait, I could do it, too! The last page of my comic book would not only offer me X-Ray specs, but an Atlas body in seven days, disappearing ink and a gadget to “make money.”
“Turn the knob and from the opposite side, PRESTO! OUT COMES A REAL DOLLAR BILL!” Proving, once and for all, that the use of all caps to drive home a point preceded text messaging.
I don’t blame organized education. We’re asking way too much of our schools. Their classrooms and corridors are filled with too many problems we should be solving elsewhere.
“I always take it with me, just in case I want to engrave something.” For $19.99, they’ll sell me an electric utensil allowing me “to engrave on wood, glass, metal, stone and more.” Which begs the question, what more is there? That’s before we even get to the assumption of what is apparently my desperate need to engrave something 24-7-365.
Earlier in my career, I managed communications for a statewide special interest group. One of the tools to move hearts and minds was a quarterly, glossy hard copy magazine. When I inherited it, the ads were farmed out to an ad agency that sank to this lowest common denominator. The result was a full page ad for the vinegar diet, juxtaposed to my artful propaganda, which killed the vibe, vinegar being but one step up from snake oil.
“Everyone is talking about this new gift idea…” Trump uses this tactic a lot. “Everybody” loves his plan for the Gaza Riviera.
There’s a case to be made that we can be dumbed down only to the level of our gullibility or tolerance.
I do point the finger at the very algorithms that purposefully put the foot massagers, micro-dosed mushrooms/cannabis beverages and gut flattening tank tops in front of me right when I’m about the drop the hammer on my Spades opponents by bidding blind nil with 474 points. They create echo chambers, where, if we allow it, we are exposed only to viewpoints that reinforce our existing beliefs. There’s no understanding of differing perspectives.
Though I’ve lived long enough to witness this decline in critical thinking and knowledge retention in American society, it doesn’t mean I have to put up with it. I am not powerless. The solution is as simple as it is effective. Put down the phone and pick up a book.
“Meet the apple of hearing aids… the smallest, most powerful hearing aid.” In the ad, “smallest” is spelled s-m-a-l-e-s-t.
I rest my case, your honor.
Mike Matson’s column appears every other weekend in The Mercury, and he hosts ‘Within Reason,’ weekdays at 9 a.m. on NewsRadio KMAN. Follow his writings at mikematson.com
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