I was fascinated by last week’s article in this newspaper ‘Am I bovered? No, I’m not’ by John Howells. The article focused on pointing out our flaws, particularly how we get carried away with the frivolous issues around TV personalities and stars, while we ignore serious social concerns such as the challenges faced by the NHS, teachers and healthcare workers.

Personally, I would have wished to see his article on the front page in bold letters, but I guess the newspaper had equally important information for the front page.

I come from Tamil Nadu, a state in India, where film stars and cricketers are worshipped as gods. While growing up in India, I used to hear the maxim, ‘Cricket is our religion and Sachin Tendulkar is the god’. This sort of cheap content is mass produced by the media and encouraged by those in positions of power who do not want the public to bother with the important and serious issues in society.

I have often noticed that local newspapers such as the Okehampton Times are more responsible than some of the national and international newspapers that entertain frivolous issues on their front pages. This is one of the Machiavellian tricks where rulers keep engaging their subjects on trivial matters rather than encouraging them to get involved in serious political processes. Perhaps rulers fear that if they promote serious issues it might expose the flaws and the incompetency of their administration.

Most of our human brains are naturally wired for trivial and frivolous entertainment. This is the reason some silly content goes viral on social media while the serious and important content goes unnoticed. In a democratic society such as ours, it is an important duty of every citizen to get involved in sensible political process. It is the responsibility of the state to ensure that the mass media is not flooded with frivolous matters at the expense of important and responsible content. I think there is a lot of truth in what our previous Indian President A P J Abdul Kalam said, “If democracy needs to maintain overall prosperity, peace and happiness, it needs to train people in responsible political engagement which in turn becomes an important part of the entertainment schedule”.

Darline Joseph Marianathan

St Boniface Okehampton & Holy Family Chagford.