That comparison is helpful, I think, because it reminds us that our culture—that vast vortex of ideas and images and values and habits and preferences and beliefs—swirls constantly around us, whether we're aware of it or not. And it's constantly transmitting a steady stream of information.

Even if we're trying to pay attention and think critically about the metaphorical water we're swimming it—which is one of the things we're trying to do here at Plugged In—it can be challenging to recognize where and how our culture's values seep in and begin to influence the way I see the world.

When it comes to my children, however, culture's influence is much more apparent. Because my kiddos are so young—Henry's nearly 4 and my daughter, Annabeth, isn't quite 2—it's pretty easy to spot when something new turns up.

Like, say, a song about lollipops.

A couple days ago, my wife came back from a baby shower with a bunch of baby-themed lollipops. Henry, of course, wanted one. And we eventually relented to his pleas.

After plopping the sugary confection in his little mouth, Henry did something that caught me utterly off guard: He started singing the song "Lollipop": "Lollipop, lollipop/Oh lolli lolli lolli/Lollipop!" As the lyrics tumbled out of his sucker-filled mouth, he danced delightedly through the kitchen, as happy, it seemed, to be singing this silly song as he was about the candy itself.

Here's the thing: I have no idea where he heard this song. Usually when some new cultural influence pops up, I can identify its origin. But I was stumped on this one. All I know is that my child, who's not yet 4, knows the lyrics to a song first made famous by the Cordettes waaaaayyyyy back in 1958—48 years before Henry was born.

To me it was a breathtaking illustration of how cultural influence works. This song has been floating around in the cultural current for 52 years now. And now that particular current has swept by my son—somehow, without me knowing it—as he happily swims about in his little world.

Thankfully, this example of culture's influence on my family isn't one that I need to spend too much time brooding about. But it is a sobering reminder that the oceanic currents of culture really are swirling all around us, whether we're aware of them or not. And my little "fishies"—as well as me, a bigger, older, and balder "fishie"—swim in that water every day.

They found the biggest drop in empathy occurred after the year 2000, and they have several theories for this—all of which involve entertainment media that have surged in popularity in the last 10 years.

Video games. Americans are exposed to at least three times the amount of media they were 30 years ago, a number that's influenced by the popularity of video games. Today's college students grew up with such games, and more and more research suggests that exposure to violent games can numb players to other people's pain.

Social media. Co-researcher Edward O'Brien says, "The ease of having 'friends' online might make people more likely to just tune out when they don't feel like responding to others' problems, a behavior that could carry offline."

Reality TV. O'Brien also believes that the "hypercompetitive atmosphere and inflated expectations of success, borne of celebrity 'reality shows,'" creates an environment that inhibits people from listening when others need support. 

Newsweek writer Barbie Nadeau has her own take on empathy's gradual demise. Writing about Joran van der Sloot, Casey Anthony and Amanda Knox, all twentysomethings who were recently accused or convicted of murder, Nadeau says:

Airtight cause-and-effect relationships between media and behavior are difficult to prove. But research like this increasingly seems to indicate a measurable, definable connection: Increased media consumption blunts our ability to identify with the painful things other people suffer.

Haven't heard of it? It's an experience delivered through a Website called chatroulette.com. Join in and you're spontaneously connected to random strangers somewhere in the world via your webcam. From French jugglers to deep-South garglers to morons asking users to lift up their shirts, you can never be sure who you'll meet next.

Foxnews.com reporter Joshua Rhett Miller put it this way: "One minute you're chatting with a mom of two from Montauk, N.Y.—and the next you're staring at a stark-naked man in Bangkok." A vimeo.com video-maker named Casey Neistat broke down his several hour Chatroulette experience to connections like this: 71% guys, 15% girls and 14% perverts.

One of the big attractions of the experience—though I personally can't see how one might find it appealing—is what Neistat calls "nexting." In essence it's when someone spots you on their monitor and instantly hits the "next" button to connect with someone else. Neistat reported that he was nexted by the first 19 out of 20 people he saw on Chatroulette—a hang-around rate of about 2.9 seconds each.

Think about it: 19 thumb-your-nose rejections in under a minute. And by Neistat's own statistical odds, at least one of them was probably naked. Man, this sounds like great fun doesn't it? In spite of that, though, CNN reported that about 35,000 people are connected to Chatroulette's homepage at any given moment.

The biggest crime, however, is that among all the thrill-seekers and deviants are a fair number of kids. To participate, you have to confirm that you're at least 16 years old, but bypassing those barriers would be a breeze for the average 10-year-old—who could probably reprogram my computer in less time than it's taking to write this blog.

"It's a predator's paradise," said psychiatrist and Fox News contributor, Dr. Keith Ablow. "This is one of the worst faces of the Internet that I've seen. … Parents should keep all children off the site because it's much too dangerous."

I'm no doctor, but that's one tidbit of advice I wouldn't "next" too quickly.

Why, you ask?

Well, I like records. They're interesting. And baseball has lots o' records.

So does TV. And one of the biggies, a record that's withstood everything television programmers could hurl at it for 27 years, fell on Sunday night.

According to preliminary ratings estimates by Nielsen, Super Bowl XLIV was the most watched television program ever in the United States. About 106.5 million folks tuned in to see the New Orleans Saints battle the Indianapolis Colts—about half a million more than watched the M*A*S*H finale in 1983 (105.97 million).

What should we make of such interest in a game between two teams that hardly hailed from major markets?

Some have speculated that the massive snowstorm on the East Coast may have contributed to the spike in viewership. But I think the numbers are interesting for a couple other, more significant reasons.

In a media world that is increasingly divided into a myriad of niche options for consumers, the Super Bowl seems to be the last man standing. It's a cultural event that transcends race and gender and socioeconomics and politics. It's something that just over a third of our nation watched. And we're still talking about the commercials, if not the game itself. In short, it's a unifying event that's taken on the feel of a national holiday—if not a national religious experience for more ardent fans.

But if the Super Bowl unifies, everything else under the television sun is fragmented—and fragmenting further given the profusion of cable TV offerings, on-demand capability and Internet options. And that makes it very unlikely we'll ever see a network television show serve as a the catalyst for a shared cultural experience like the M*A*S*H finale.

That fact is illustrated by how the nation's biggest sitcoms bowed out, ratings-wise, post M*A*S*H. In 1993, the Cheers finale drew 80.4 million viewers. Fast-forward five years to Seinfeld's final show (about nothing), and 76. 3 million fans tuned in. And Friends? The show's 2004 sign off netted 52.5 million viewers—less than half of M*A*S*H's record.

Now, fewer people watching popular sitcoms isn't anything to cry about. In fact, it might well be worth celebrating, given the content of current comedies such as Two and a Half Men and How I Met Your Mother. But it does illustrate the fact that our cultural common ground when it comes to broadcast entertainment is a far cry from what it once was.

At least, with everything except the Super Bowl.

I write roughly 6 gazillion words a day, most of which are immediately cut (and sometimes burned) by my editor. Those which remain could still lay siege to a mid-sized fortress (if they somehow attained the muscular structure and will to do so), and yet one of my novel-length film reviews still doesn't earn anything near what Soulja Boy earns when he tweets one solitary character.

It's true. Soulja Boy, who once tried to rule the music world by tellin' everyone to listen to his Tell'em CD, earns $10,000 and up for promoting various products on Twitter. That's $10,000 per tweet, mind you, which means if Mr. Boy was feeling particularly verbose and used his entire 140-character allotment praising the virtues of, say, Snapple, he'd earn $71.43 per letter. (And in his world, spaces are letters, too.) At those rates, this blog post would already be worth, oh, $62,787.

And now it's worth $64,716.

If I was getting paid Soulja Boy rates, I'd be able to retire this afternoon.

He's not the only guy who receives beaucoup bucks. Dr. Drew Pinsky, the guy from VH1's Celebrity Rehab, gets $10,000 and up for his own promo tweets (which mainly trumpet the wonderfulness of Gogo's in-flight Wi-Fi service), and Samantha Ronson (who, oddly enough, has five times more Twitter followers than former girlfriend Lindsay Lohan), gets between $7K-$10K.

Here's what's really interesting: Of the folks making big bucks on Twitter, according to ABC, most of them are mainly famous for being famous. Two Kardashian sisters make $5,000-10,000 tweeting, as does their mother, Kris Jenner. Celebrities at large Audrina Patridge and Kendra Wilkinson tweet for cash, too. Even Fake Robert Pattinson—yes, that's FAKE Robert Pattinson, who became famous by impersonating a real celebrity on Twitter—makes as much as $5,000 per promotional tweet.

So as soon as I become the first Christian entertainment pundit to score an invite from Oprah and land on the cover of US Weekly, I'm going to apply for my very own Twitter account. Corporations interested in using the soon-to-be-famous me as a pitchman can begin sending their five-figure offers, starting now.

Oh, I just love Snapple, by the way.

But Avatar wasn’t the only show in town. In fact, three films—Avatar, Sherlock Holmes, and Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel—made more than $50 million and helped propel the box office to a record $278 million take. And if I was to guess, I’d imagine that a good many of you have seen at least one of these flicks.

The only one I can personally comment on is Sherlock Holmes, a PG-13 reworking of the classic literary detective. Forget the deerstalker hat, the demurely curved pipe and the ever-present magnifying glass. The 21st-century Holmes is still plenty smart, but he’s not just an investigator anymore: He’s an avenger, able to kick the stuffing out of nefarious henchmen as he searches for tell-tale balls of lint. And while he’s loitering in Victorian-era fight clubs, sharpening his hand-to-hand combat skills, his friend Dr. Watson is skulking around the wharf with a gun in his pocket and a blade in his cane.

Granted, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s original Sherlock Holmes mysteries had some action in them. I believe both Holmes and Watson packed heat a time or two. But there’s a difference between characters prudently preparing themselves for violent confrontation and positively hankering for it. In an effort to bring us a Holmes and Watson that felt fresh and unfamiliar, director Guy Ritchie has taken two unique literary characters and made them—well, utterly familiar, and fairly indistinguishable from today’s crop of fictional crime-busting heroes. I mean, the only thing separating Holmes from Batman is a cowl, a car and Gotham City.

And that’s what we need in movies today: More homogeny.

But hey, I’m a fan of the original books, so perhaps I’m a bit biased. What did you think? And squeak in on The Chipmunks if you want, too. The Squeakquel probably won’t be on my movie-watching radar for a bit … but should it be?

Today marks the 20th anniversary of The Simpsons. Whether you like the Fox show or hate it, you can’t deny that it’s infiltrated our culture. And thus, our language.

D'oh!

Maybe it’s because I’m the resident geek who’s collected dictionaries since she was 11 (actually, I think I’m just the only editor here who’s man enough to admit that) that I was asked to comment on The Simpsons lexicon.

Mmmmm ……. lexicon ……. wordy …

Anyway. In 2001, the highly revered 20-volume, roughly 3,000-pound Oxford English Dictionary added Homer’s customary interjection "d'oh" (also spelled "doh"). Were he real and coherent enough, Mr. Simpson should be impressed. And the Collins English Dictionary added Lisa’s "meh" in 2008. That’s M-E-H, meh—an expression of utter boredom or disinterest.

Other dictionaries have added fauxcabulary gone viral as well. How is it possible that this show has embiggened our vocabulary with such cromulent words that have actually been used in scientific journals?

This is only a TV show, right? I mean, everybody knows television doesn’t affect our attitudes or language. It’s just entertainment.

But if that’s the case, then why have so many people adopted Simpsons lingo without even knowing it? And to those who indiscriminately shriek "Woohoo!", yes, I’m pointing a finger at you (but only because I have four pointing back at myself).

So, do you use  this sort of fauxcabulary, whether it be from The Simpsons or from another show? If you do, is it from watching the show itself, or from just living in a society that has embraced it? And, again, like or hate The Simpsons, do you have any thoughts on why it’s popular enough to ensconce itself into a language that was cromulent enough without it?