Seeing clearly in the age of apathy

Living in the US as an artist has been a peculiar place for me. Within a healthy media driven complacent society I find myself at loggerheads with just that aspect of our society. I am constantly berated with "come on, what are you complaining about?". A large percentage of the people around me communicate through their television. The common areas of their houses seems to always surround the television subtly telling a visiter that their TV is far more important to them than anything they might have to say. Owing to the fact that the visitor comes from the same sort of set up, it quite often is. This deterioration of a common meeting area devoid of media seems to be crushing our self esteem and the only way to prop it up is to let media fill our imagination for us. I am seeing my contemporaries fall into a terrible sort of apathy and I find this to be very disturbing. When I discuss this with people they just reply, "I know its terrible isn't it" which is followed by a shrug of the shoulders. I can no longer tell people that I try not to watch TV because they think I am trying to be Superior or as my preschool students tell me "that sucks man".
-Kurt Nilson