The PATH train rolls along on another rainy weekday morning. It has already been a trying day for the author after setting his alarm for 6:47 PM instead of AM. He’s now running so late that the usual stop at the newsstand was bypassed to ensure he made the next available train.

Joe isn’t used to not having the thing that gives him the second most amount of pleasure in the morning: The beacon of dishonesty known as The New York Times. Like a pair of Joe is normally able to bury himself in any of its vast sections to escape the commute for the sixteen minutes it takes to get from Hoboken to Manhattan. Now paper-less, he is left to reading the faces of other people surrounding him.

"They must have all incorrectly set the alarm clock too," he observes. "Because there are only two people out of 50 reading anything at all."

The faces all have that vapid look—as if this was a one-way PATH ticket to the dentist—or even worse, a Renee Zellweger movie. The ride feels as long as a trip to Atlantic, instead of New York, City.

The next day, all is well when Joe gets up on time and is able to buy his paper. But halfway between Christopher Street and 9th Street, déjà vu strikes.

He looks up from the paper slowly, first glancing at the five people standing in front of him. All of them—with the exception of one—aren’t reading anything. Two do have CD players strapped to their arm, bouncing their heads to what sounds like 50 Cent. Still, they all have THAT look again, and it’s not a Down with Love look, but an expression of emptiness.

"If these people aren’t reading now when they have nothing else to do," Joe thinks to himself. "They likely never read at all."

He realizes this is strangely a big deal to him. Further research leads him to find that America’s fourth-graders' ability to read ranks ninth in the world, according to an international study released by Boston College researchers. This puts us behind such far more technologically advanced and economically superior countries like Bulgaria and Latvia.

Back on the train, a conversation strikes up across the way.

"Have you seen the new "Matrix" movie yet?" one twentyish guy asks another.

"Yeah dude! I didn’t understand what was happening, but the special effects blew me away."

"Yeah, that was the bomb."

"Oh, it was a bomb alright," Joe mumbles to no one in particular while staring back down at the OP-ED Section. Joe was dragged to see the second Matrix after some friends from work got tickets to a VIP screening. Joe has since spent his time trying to figure out ways to kick the ever-living crap out of Keanu for taking two hours out of his life that he’ll never get back.

The reality of nobody reading, never educating themselves, but worshiping J Lo and bad flicks made Joe start analyzing matters now.

Was he becoming old, jaded and crusty? Or is American society going the reality TV route by somehow getting stupider by the day?

The thought process in Hollywood has already given us the answer to these questions in the form of a complete disregard for innovation. This summer alone, there will be fourteen sequels to movies, most of which weren’t exactly the caliber of Top Gun or The Shawshank Redemption in their original releases.

Has our ability for original thought really become so lacking that we need to see a second Charlie’s Angels movie? Joe felt that a rotund Drew Barrymore pummeling six bad guys while handcuffed in the original should have pummeled any thought of a sequel.

The other encores planned are even more insulting:

Terminator 3? (James Cameron not directing this one is like Hazard without Boss Hogg running the show)

Dumb and Dumberer?: (One catch: No Jim Carrey. No Jeff Daniels. Should be hilarious!)

2 Fast 2 Furious? (Without the overrated Vin Diesel, it’ll be like watching Happy Days after Richie left for the Army)

And for the love of God, Legally Blonde 2? (Despite making $100 million, Joe has still has yet to meet anyone willing to admit they have seen Legally Blonde 1)

Has society really morphed into something so brainless that they’ll fork over $9.00 to see the same movie twice? Besides Godfather 2 and The Empire Strikes Back, what sequel has ever been better than the original?

The dumbing down of America is just as blatant on the reality TV front.

Last fall, the allegedly sweet and genuine Trista Rehn captivated Americans with her search for a soul mate on ABC’s The Bachelorette. When she finally picked fireman Ryan, the Robert Frost of 21st Century courtship, she was asked if the wedding would take place on television as well.

"My wedding will be private because it's something that's honest and sacred to me," was Trista’s answer at the time. Many fans’ eyes welled up, blubbering that this proved the couple was truly in love, unlike the pairs created on other programs.

Since then, Trista has obviously missed that little red light on the camera.

It was announced last week that Trista and Ryan’s honest and sacred vows would be televised nationally on ABC. Ratings are expected to be Prince Charles and Diana-esque, proving once again why the apocalypse is upon us very soon.

Movies and TV are the ultimate escape from reality. Imagining life without either seems impossible to most. Unfortunately, for some more than others, what used to be a quick getaway from the real world has become a permanent vacation from the written word.

Until we learn to balance the lazy temptation of the plot-less content that films and the small screen provide by compensating with some other form of cerebrally substantive and productive behavior, we’ll continue to own minds as vacant as the newspaper-less faces on a PATH train

Joe Concha is a feature writer for Hobokeni.com as well as a sports columnist for NBCSports.com. His omnipotent, pontificating condescending persona makes hate mail part of his daily reading schedule.

Please send all comments, questions and corrections to features@hobokeni.com and we'll be glad to forward them.