Americans don’t have time for long speeches anymore
By Salim Zymet
Jan. 27, 2011 11:18 a.m.
If spending an hour of your hard-earned time listening to the president deliver his State of the Union speech doesn’t sound appealing to you, don’t worry ““ you’re not in the minority.
While I sat down in the computer lab and opened up the live video feed on the White House’s website, most of my peers were perusing Facebook, studying or watching other far more entertaining videos.
It made me realize that the age of the hour-long speech, public hearing or anything else is over. Can college students really be expected to keep up with the affairs of the world when society has shifted so drastically from the attentiveness of the ’50s to attention deficit disorder of today?
As a card-carrying member of the YouTube, sound-bite generation, I’d have to answer in the negative. Any speech, debate or public hearing held that does not directly deal with a scandal, war or terrorist attack will be met with low ratings. And we shouldn’t hold it against ourselves that society doesn’t encourage long-winded, antiquated forms of communication.
The numbers aren’t out yet, but there’s no secret that much less than 1/4 of Americans took the time to tune in. I’m sure those numbers are even lower for our age group. Obama’s speech has to compete with thousands of different ways that Americans can spend their time. For many, the next episode of Glee is a far more appealing way to spend their evening.
It makes me wonder just how relevant the State of the Union is. In an age where most can’t be bothered to spend more than a couple minutes looking at anything in a newspaper or on TV, it’s sadly unrealistic to expect Americans to tune in to an hour-long speech.
Instead, it will be read through headlines, heard in sound bites, and generally forgotten within a couple revolutions of the 24-hour news cycle.
It’s a reflection of the sad, if technologically advanced, state that we live in.
To the White House’s credit, it did what it could. It tweeted about the speech and even updated its Facebook page. It encouraged users to submit questions which would be answered live, right after the speech was given, by policy experts in the administration.
They even streamed an enhanced version of the speech, complete with infographics, on whitehouse.gov. The face of this initiative was Kal Penn, of “Harold and Kumar” fame. But none of that matters if no one is listening, no matter what medium or what celebrities you engage them with.
While the White House Facebook page has been “liked” more than 800,000 times, Justin Bieber’s has more than 19 million.
Perhaps we didn’t tune in because we just don’t care. Much of the speech dealt with admittedly political issues. Further, the infuriating amounts of standing ovations, though reduced from last year, is no doubt a contributing factor to the dwindling viewership of the State of the Union each year.
Although some of what President Obama said did deal with college students, it was only a brief section of his 61-minute speech. He mainly spoke of “Winning the Future.” Although an awkward phrase if I’ve ever heard one, his three keys to winning the future are “to out-innovative, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world.”
When he spoke about education, he spoke of the need to make the tuition tax credit permanent, which saves some students as much as $10,000 over the course of four years.
He said that community colleges will need to be strengthened but gave no specifics on how to do so. As current University of California budgets decline and fees raise, community colleges like Santa Monica College will be flooded with those wishing to pursue some form of higher education.
Once again but without specifics, the president mentioned his goal of reclaiming the title of the country which has the most college graduates in the 25-34 age range. We currently rank 12th on that list.
Following the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the president also urged colleges nationwide to allow army recruiters and the ROTC on campus.
Finally, the president reemphasized his support of undocumented students who live in the shadows, a tacit nod of the head to the besieged DREAM Act.
This is all information college students would undoubtedly like to hear ““ but it won’t be heard by us in the form of an hour-long antiquated speech.
As an addict of the 24-hour news cycle, I wanted to hear every word roll off Obama’s tongue. I wanted to be inspired, to feel good about living in America again.
But as a college student, I understand why many of my peers, and most Americans, decided to abstain from tuning in.
Is the art of the speech simply outdated? E-mail Zymet at [email protected].
Send general comments to [email protected].
