from "Mediated"

I am in the process of reading Thomas de Zengotita's Mediated.  In this book, de Zengotita describes how the deluge of mediums soaking us affect our psyches.  In the following excerpt, he describes how Times Square epitomizes our predicament.  The description is haunting, especially the juxtaposition between the virtual and real.

 

Take the new Times Square, everybody's favorite icon for the virtualization process, because that's where what is happening in the culture as a whole is so effectively distilled and intensified.  All the usual observations apply--and each observation contributes its iota to muffling what it was intended to expose, including this one, my little contribution, which consists of noticing how everything in that place is aimed.  Everything is firing modules, straight for your gonads, your taste buds, your vanities, your fears.  But it's okay; these modules seek to penetrate, but in a passing way; it's all in fun.  A second of your attention is all they ask.  Nothing real is firing, nothing that rends or cuts.  It's a massage, if you just relax and go with it.  And why not?  Some of the most talented people on the planet have devoted their lives to creating this psychic sauna, just for you.  

And it's not just the screens and billboards, the literal signs; it's absolutely everything you encounter.  Except for the eyes of the people, shuffling along, and the poignant imperfections of their bodies; they are so manifestly unequal to the solicitations lavished upon them.  No wonder they stuff themselves with junk--or trying to live up to it all, enslave themselves to regimes of improvement.  The flattery of representation has a downside, as we shall see--for the flattered self is spoiled.  It never gets enough.  It feels unappreciated.  It whines a lot.  It wants attention.  

(from Mediated: How the Media Shapes Your World And the Way You Live in It, 21)