Again, we're having definitional differences.
Does it matter to me whether the Redskins beat the Giants in football or vice versa? No. I watch because I enjoy watching people who do things well do them, and because I understand the game well enough to appreciate nuances. And for reasons which I don't even try to analyze, I find it enjoyable. But it doesn't matter to me in any real sense as I use the term matter.
I don't watch soap operas. Some people do. To some few, they really do matter, and I think those people have a serious problem. But for most, it's recreation.
Not that recreation isn't valuable as recreation. But which recreation isn't. The recreation doesn't matter in its own right, but only because it gives pleasure. Whether Cindy and Brian (made up names, I have no idea who any soap opera characters are) go to bed together on a soap opera may be fun to watch, it doesn't--or at least shouldn't--make any difference in the real life of the watcher.
So in the way I use the term, the watcher is getting recreation, which matters because it is recreation, but the nature of what goes on within the recreation doesn't matter. Could be soap opera, could be football, could be BB on SI.
When it starts to affect a person's life outside of the recreational aspect, then there is trouble. |
