In conclusion, how many ignorant adult voters are there in America that a presidential candidate can fool to gain votes? I think the answer may be found from the number of adult Americans that do not read books and watch too much reality TV.
According to Mental Floss, Where Knowledge Junkies Get Their Fix, in the United States:
1. One-third of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives.
2. Forty-Two percent of college graduates never read another book after college.
3. Eighty percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year.
4. Seventy percent of U.S., adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
5. Children who watch four or more hours of TV per day spend less time on school work, have poorer reading skills, play less with friends, and have fewer hobbies than children who watch less TV. Source for #5: Reading.org
However, according to A. C. Nielsen Co., the average American watches more than 4 hours of TV each day, and the number of hours per day that TV is on in an average U.S. home: 6 hours, 47 minutes. Source: csun.edu
No matter what we hear from an American politician running for election, the Bureau of Labor Statistics proves that education/literacy pays, because the unemployment rate for adult Americans with less than a high school diploma is 14.1% (medium weekly earnings in 2011 was $451) while unemployment for workers with a college BA degree is 4.9% (medium weekly earnings in 2011 was $1,053).
In fact, about 39% of voters ages 18 and older that do not have a high school degree vote, while 77% of college graduates vote. In addition, you may suspect that low-income voters would vote Democratic, but the top sixteen states with very high or high level of persons living below poverty (43% of adults with low literacy skills live in poverty), twelve of these states vote solidly Republican. Source: Election 2012 Factors: Poverty Level Households by State
Answer this question: If you cannot read or understand what you read, where do you get information to help decide how to vote or what to think about China?
A. talk radio (dominated by conservative talk shows such as Rush Limbaugh)
B. television
C. reading informative Blogs such as this one
D. reading newspaper, books, and magazines to become better informed
E. other sources – for example, the barber shop or a bar
I think that Abraham Lincoln should have also said, “It is easier to fool someone that is uneducated and does not read than someone that is educated and reads.”
Note: If you want to learn about the impact of watching too much TV, I suggest you read TV Turns Kids Into Zombies, Retards Development, and eventually, these children grow up to be adults that vote.
Return to Scapegoating China … Part 3 or start with Part 1
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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.
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[…] via Scapegoating China and Manipulating the Opinions of Americans – Part 4/4 « iLook China. […]
Sad statistics. Cant believe some have never been in a book store for over 5 years. Wow. Even in China I stop at least every 2 months inside a Xinhua. Last time I spent nearly 3 or 4 hours skimming through a book gaining the general idea of it without paying the 100+ rmb to buy it. Also, I feel computer games should be added to the list because they are like hollywood in that they distort reality. Actually, in my opinion computer games offer more than a television reality show has. I really dont like sitting and watching american idol where somebody gets famous because I added my vote on my iphone 5. The only game show I ever watched was Price is Right mostly because there’s not much on at that time in the morning when you’re sitting around receiving a blood transfusion, plus it’s fun seeing how much the price of things are even though the show upsells the actual cost.
The only good channel on TV is the H2 History Channel, but as interesting as that is, sometimes the shows on there can only go so far.
Computer games at least offer a fun challenge like playing a board game with friends.
In high school, several of my friends and I would play Avalon Hill strategy games for hours on end. In college, I continued to play by mail and instead of the roll of dice, we had to use the stock market results to see the results of a turn. That was before computer digital games when board games ruled.
The following link goes to the site of the company that now sells those games.
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=ah/welcome
However, today, playing those games I enjoyed so much as a teen and young adulot are a luxury I will not allow myself to enjoy. Gaming would take too many hours away from other things I want to do.
One time, when one of my friends was losing the game, he turned on a fan and it blew all the pieces off the board. There were four of us playing and the three that were still in the game all howled our protests but that game was over. There was no way to place hundreds of pieces back on the board where they had been.