It has been quite interesting for me over the years watching the evolution of how we Americans entertain ourselves.

We keep raising the bar. It takes more and more to get us excited.

When I was a kid, we had three channels on television and a deck of cards to entertain ourselves.

No cable. No satellite TV. No video rentals. No video games. No home computer. No Internet. Very few extracurricular activities after school.

Frankly, there was very little to distract us from ourselves.

Sometimes I think that was a good thing.

Anymore, the distractions are rampant. It's tough to get the family together for dinner one night a week.

When I was a kid, we ate together every night. I think that was a good thing.

And it wasn't just my family, it was like that all over America.

Beyond that, there seemed to be this larger sense of community back then.

I am not just waxing nostalgic here. I really believe that a simpler lifestyle made us a more cohesive society.

Take television.

It used to link us. I mean, everybody had to watch the same thing. There were only three channels, so you knew the next day at school every third person on average had watched the same thing you did.

How many people out there over 40 can sing - word for word - the theme songs for "Green Acres" or "Beverly Hillbillies?"

Television united us whether we knew it or not.

We seemed to know our neighbors better back then, too. Probably because we had time to know them.

Now there's barely enough time to know ourselves.

We've tried to slow things down, but it never seems to work. It works for a while, but pretty soon, we're right back into the grind.

And when we do manage to slow down, and we're all home on a Sunday afternoon just hanging around the house, invariably the kids say, "I'm bored."

They are bored.

They're programmed to be on the go. There's no turning back.

As time goes by, it takes more excitement to keep them from being bored.

It goes back to that raising the bar comment I made earlier.

My son went to Cedar Point last weekend. He was talking about the new "Millennium Force" ride they have there.

Its statistics sound ridiculous - 310 feet tall, 82-degree drop, 92 miles per hour.

The boy said as the car crested the top he was certain he was going to die.

As extreme as that sounds, you can bet it won't be long until there is a taller, steeper, faster roller coaster somewhere.

And they will continue to get taller and steeper and faster as long as there are people to ride them.

Take a look at the proliferation of "extreme" sports.

Average kids do things on skateboards, rollerblades, bicycles, snowboards, wakeboards and motorcycles that only the most psychotic daredevil would have attempted when I was a kid.

The "professionals" in those sports are twisting, turning and flipping through the air in ways no one could have imagined just a few years ago.

Even the pioneers in those sports are in awe at how their trade has evolved so rapidly.

And why?

Well, for two reasons.

First of all, it's a way for a kid to be a professional without getting a degree. Get sponsored and you got it made. How cool must it be to make a living riding a snowboard - to have all your lift tickets paid for, to have all your equipment provided free of charge, to have endorsement contracts with manufacturers, to be the star of a video.

The second reason is because the rest of us - or at least enough of the rest of us to make it profitable - love to watch.

The videos sell. The "extreme" TV shows draw advertisers and viewers.

Sometimes I think we live vicariously through these kids - or maybe we're just in awe at their almost superhuman antics.

Either that or we're waiting for the big crash.

Whatever the reason, we watch. And if it isn't exciting anymore, we stop watching.

So to keep the advertising dollars rolling in, it has to keep us excited. So kids will jump higher and twist and turn more. New, ever more creative ways to challenge gravity will be concocted.

Even mainstream athletes are becoming bigger, faster and stronger. There are more amazing feats and injuries in professional sports than ever before.

Videos and video games become more graphically violent and realistic. TV shows become more risqu and sexually provocative.

And it all streams into our homes via hundreds of satellite cable channels or via a personal computer and the Internet.

No wonder the prospect of a family game of cards on a Sunday afternoon bores my kids.

Sometimes it make me wonder.

What will we do to entertain ourselves 20 years from now, when all the stuff going on today has become pass? [[In-content Ad]]