• Question: why do humans need entertainment? Could we survive without it?

    Asked by Keely-Beth to Ben, Sam, Kirsty, Maggi, Rose on 15 Jun 2017.
    • Photo: Kirsty Miller

      Kirsty Miller answered on 15 Jun 2017:

      Hi Keely-Beth! Good question! I think we could survive without it, but that life would be much less pleasurable! Different forms of entertainment are good ways of bringing people together which is necessary for health (physical and mental) and also for good relationships. Entertainment would also give people purpose (for example the creation of art, music etc), and bring them happiness – both of which again are important for health and wellbeing! So to answer your question, I think we could survive, but perhaps less healthily and not for as long!

    • Photo: Rose Turner

      Rose Turner answered on 15 Jun 2017:

      Hi Kelly-Beth, Hi Kirsty!
      Also – there is a view that we (as humans) developed forms of entertainment – things like film, TV, theatre, books etc – because they have special social benefits for us. Telling stories allows us to convey important social information, about the norms and values of our society, and how we are supposed to behave. This evolutionary perspective makes a lot of sense when you consider that most works of fiction that have stood the test of time (like Shakespeare’s plays) tend to feature themes that are important to our survival as a species – such as love, status battles and death (if you think about Shakespeare’s plays again, they really all revolve around love, status battles and death!)
      However, there is another less positive perspective on the prevalence of entertainment in our lives. Some psychologists think that we developed a capacity to share social information because it was useful to our species, but then this capacity got hijacked by pointless stories and films and TV that don’t have any benefit for us at all! They can be thought of as a ‘virus of the mind’ that has got in the way of what our abilities originally evolved to do – to communicate valuable information to our fellow humans – a bit like an internet meme! 🙂

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