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Work and Play
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Our everyday existence is divided into two phases,
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as distinct as day and night.
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We call them work and play.
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We work so many hours a day,
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and when we have allowed the necessary minimum
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for such activities as eating and shopping,
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the rest we spend in various activities
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which are known as recreations,
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an elegant word which disguises the fact
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that we usually do not even play in our hours of leisure,
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but spend them in various forms of passive enjoyment or entertainment —
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not playing football but watching football matches;
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not acting, but theatre-going;
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not walking, but riding in a motor coach.
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Therefore we need to define clearly the difference
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not only between work and play but,
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equally, between active play and passive entertainment.
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It is, I suppose,
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the decline of active play —
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of amateur sport —
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and the enormous growth of purely receptive entertainment
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which has given rise to a sociological interest in the problem.
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If the greater part of the population,
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instead of indulging in sport,
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spend their hours of leisure “viewing” television programmes,
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there will inevitably be a decline in health and physique.
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And in addition, there will be a psychological problem,
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for we have yet to trace the mental and moral consequences
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of a prolonged diet of sentimental
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or sensational spectacles on the screen.
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There is, if we are optimistic,
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the possibility that the diet is too thin
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and not nourishing enough to have much permanent effect on anybody.
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Nine films out of ten seem to leave absolutely no impression on the mind
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or imagination of those who see them:
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few people can give a coherent account of the film
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they saw the week before last,
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and at longer intervals they must rely on the management
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to see that they do not sit through the same film twice.