How Entertainment has Evolved Over Time

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How Entertainment Evolved Over Time.

  

(By: Pixbay creator ID 12019)

  When you think of entertainment what comes to mind? You may have thought of popular social media such as YouTube, or you may have thought about movies or television shows. Entertainment has been around for ages, just in different forms than we have today. Before digital technology was created you couldn't watch tv. Instead, you had to go to a theater and watch a play.  Although it did not look the same as today, entertainment has been presented throughout time in different forms. 

Entertainment Before Technology: 

    Before technology, entertainment was different. People could not enjoy entertainment events from their homes. Instead, they had to attend the events they wanted to see. A very popular form of entertainment, the Olympics, was started in 776 B.C and continued again in the 19th century. According to the editors of History.com,  ¨By the end of the 6th century B.C had become the most famous of all Greek sporting festivals.¨ Says the History.com Editors. Before digital technology was created, The only way to see the Olympics was by attending the event in Olympia and watching in person when they took place. 

                                                        (By: Yazah MRihan)

  Before sites like Netflix, you had to attend theaters to see plays. Plays have been around since the 5th century in Athens Greece. Mark Cartwright says ¨The two types of Greek drama would be hugely popular and performances spread around the Mediterranean and influenced Hellenistic and Roman theatre¨, showing how not only that plays were popular, but the influence they had on other societies. Greece was not the only major contributor to plays and playwriting. One of the most famous playwrights was William Shakespeare who introduced 1,700 words to the English language (Joki), affecting entertainment today.

Entertainment With Technology:

    One of the first advancements in entertainment technology was the television. Invented in 1927, it brought a major change to entertainment by bringing entertainment to the people, compared to plays, where people had to go to the entertainment. Mitchell Stephens says ¨Before 1947 the number of U.S. homes with television sets could be measured in the thousands. By the late 1990s, 98 percent of U.S. homes had at least one television set, and those sets were on for an average of more than seven hours a day.¨ The television became a status symbol, almost every American had one and if you didn’t it seemed as if you could not afford one, and therefore could be looked down upon. Many Americans today have televisions too, not the first versions as I was talking about above, but new smart TVs. Smart TVs allow people to do more than watch movies and television shows, they allow you to do more like use apps like Diney+ or games. I personally have not been to anybody’s house and not seen a TV in their living room. Today the TV is almost a necessity, as news and other forms of media are now presented through the television, especially as the world begins to become more technologically advanced.

 

(By: Pexels)

A more recent form of entertainment are video games. They changed entertainment by allowing people to control actions within the story of the game. The first video game, ¨Pong¨, was made in 1958. The game was simple and didn´t require much skill. ¨Pong¨ is a virtual form of table tennis, the goal was to get the ball passed your opponent’s paddle to get points while preventing them from hitting the ball past you. The one with the most points was the winner.  Unlike Pong video games today can vary on difficulty and genre. If you want you can play as Spiderman in New York City and stop crime or you can play Fortnite and get a Victory Royale with friends. A benefit of today’s video games is that you don’t need to be near someone to play with them, especially during a time like now when you can’t be with friends in person but you can be online. A Mental Floss article states ¨a study of laparoscopic (small incision) specialists found that those who played for more than three hours per week made 32 percent fewer errors during practice procedures compared to their non-gaming counterparts.¨ Video games are affecting everybody, positively even doctors are improving through the use of video games.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, entertainment began with storytelling and progressed to worldwide events like the Olympics to the great plays in Athens. Today technology has advanced our ability to be entertained from the comfort of our homes with the invention of the television and video games.  We can now choose from a variety of genres to watch instantly, or use our imagination and curiosity to explore virtual worlds within video games. Entertainment has evolved from simply telling a story to controlling a virtual one.

Citations:

Works Cited

12019. "Chicago Illinois City City Urban Downtown Buildings." Pixabay, 28 Oct. 2016, pixabay.com/photos/chicago-illinois-city-urban-1775878/. Accessed 13 Jan. 2021.

"15 Surprising Benefits of Playing Video Games." Mental Floss, 2017, www.mentalfloss.com/article/65008/15-surprising-benefits-playing-video-games. Accessed 13 Jan. 2021.

Grolier Encyclopidia. stephens.hosting.nyu.edu/History%20of%20Television%20page.html#:~:text=Electronic%20television%20was%20first%20successfully,electricity%20until%20he%20was%2014. Accessed 13 Jan. 2021.

History. A&E Television Network, 6 Jan. 2010, www.history.com/topics/sports/olympic-games. Accessed 13 Jan. 2021.

Joki, Kimberly. "How The English Language Is Shakespeare's Language." Grammarly Blog, 16 Dec. 2020, www.grammarly.com/blog/how-the-english-language-is-shakespeares-language/#:~:text=Shakespeare%20introduced%201%2C700%20original%20words,the%20language%20since%20Shakespeare%27s%20time. Accessed 13 Jan. 2021.

MRihan, Yazan. Olympic Games Rio Olympics Rio 2016 Games Summer. Pixabay, 23 Aug. 2016, pixabay.com/illustrations/olympic-games-rio-olympics-rio-2016-1608127/. Accessed 13 Jan. 2021.

Pexels. Rv Television Retro Classic Old Antique. 30 June 2016. Pixabay, 26 Nov. 2016, pixabay.com/photos/tv-television-retro-classic-old-1844964/. Accessed 13 Jan. 2021.