DISTRACTIONS OF WIRELESS.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 306, 26 December 1924, Page 4

DISTRACTIONS OF WIRELESS.

A reoent "Punch" depicts a householder on Christmas Eve telling waits to go away because they are interfering with the- carols that are coming by wireless. Probably his action was justified by the difference between the entertainments. The broadcasting station would take care to engage competent carol singers, whereas there are, as even Auckland knows, waits and waits. The joke, however, illustrates the development of "listening In" in England. Reports indicate that every second house among the more well-to-do classe3 "listens in" to something or other, from Harry Lauder to the cunningly engaged nightingale, whereas in New Zealand the amusement is only in its infancy. Every craze has its reactions, and according to the headmaster of the Bradford Grammar School (as reported in our cable news on Wednesday) "listening in" is playing havoc with home-work. Boys have to work, he says, "while the loud speaker is in full blast," and unregulated indulgence in the delights of wireless is imperilling careers. It is said that school teaching is a monotonous life. It may be; on the other hand, the teacher has at least this relief, that new enemies present themeelves. One day it is the moving picture that distracts the schoolboy, causing him to scamp Caesar because of Douglas Fairbanks. The next day it is wireless; he cannot concentrate upon the division of all Gaul into threte parts while one of Mr. George Robey's funny stories is coming through the loud speaker. Seriously, there must be a good deal in what this headmaster says. Work is an old-fasnloned thing, and unless civilisation can evolve a type that can study amid distractions, boys and men must have a reasonable degree of quiet if they are to concentrate. The whole trend or city life, however, is against quietness and repose. The telephone, the motor car, and wireless do more than annihilate distance; they destroy rest and reflection. They create, like the merry go-round, an illusion of progress.