We seek to encourage Positive Entertainment and Games, hopefully drawing more of the entertainment industry and consumers into a healthier, happier lives.

We spend a vast amount of time and energy consuming entertainment. Today we access an enormous variety of entertainment media. Video games, television, films, news, blogs, magazines, the internet, Youtube, comics and so on. It’s all supposed to be fun…. indeed entertaining.

But is it really? Do you become bored? Perhaps we are a bit addicted. Maybe we want other things in life. Does this sound familiar to you?

However, entertainment is not something one goes cold turkey on to forgo forever. Having fun is an integral part of our lives. So what to do about it?

What we need is a new way of looking at entertainment. A way that is emphasising whether the entertainment adds value to you and those around you or not. In other words, is the entertainment helpful?

Now ‘helpful’ might be a good term but it is also a bit vague. What exactly might ‘helpful’ actually mean in practice? One way is by looking at what is not helpful.

  • Repetition. Most video games and TV series show a lot of repetition. In a game we might have the same mob of spawned enemies we kill again and again, in TV we might hear the same canned lines in every show. Repetition brings familiarity and a degree of comfort, but it is also boring and it wastes time by definition.
  • Emotional hooks especially of the negative kind. News and TV drama is rife with this. Have you noticed each news event is delivered as though breathtaking and are generally designed to trigger fear? Obvious negative junk like needless violence, rape and so on.
  • Deception, especially the promotion of deception. Adverts often contain this but it can be found in all the other forms of entertainment too.

Moving on from the idea of avoiding the negative and focusing on what positive things we can do takes more work;

  • Is it creative?
  • Can you learn from it?
  • Can you experience things through it, you would not otherwise experience?
  • After the person has been entertained, do they end up with some benefit to their life?

When I apply these principles I find I am consuming less entertainment and getting a better mix of it. I am having more fun with the entertainment I am consuming. It was not easy at first. Once I let go of the bulk of wasteful entertainment I usually consumed, I was left with a lot of spare time which I’ve had to fill in other constructive ways. Another problem is much of the entertainment on offer is not particularly good so there’s a lot less to choose from.

Which is why this blog exists. You see I want to have a go informing you about positive entertainment. I also wanted to help other people who may think along the same lines to find these, often under-promoted entertainment pieces.

This blog is updated roughly once per day. If you have a question or wish to contribute towards this blog it is welcome. Contact me via the contact page.

 

Authors: This blog is run by author Aaron Poeze. I use my real name so the website is self named. My blog originally kicked off back in July 2007 with all sorts of topics covered, particularly politics and technology. However for some time I’ve been trying to decide what direction to take the blogging and in February 2011, decided upon Positive Entertainment.

I have long been a gamer and have lately discovered passion for the positive side of that as well as extending it to entertainment as a whole (including music, TV and films).

Your author writes from Adelaide, Australia. He is a self-confessed gamer, is gay and a fan of chocolate.