It was said that games like World of Warcraft can give people a powerful life. Its element of fantasy and imagination is what makes people fully immersed. There's also that urge to connect with other people...this factors into why people can become so obsessed with these kinds of games. In fact, some people spend about ten hours a week playing World of Warcraft. Ten hours. I guess that's what people mean when they say that time flies by. It was said, additionally, that the game wasn't isolating the players, but rather giving them a new way to be "intimate". Intimate? Well, I suppose it could be called that, but I think that there's something more "intimate" about being face-to-face with someone, but that's just me.
In the past, technology has separated us, but apparently, it's bringing us back together now.
There's a growing market for research about how we behave in these virtual worlds. Now, if something just looks real and feels real, then the brain thinks it's real. 50% of kids will have believed what they saw in a computerized setting to be true. The military, additionaly, has been using technology to treat troops with post traumatic stress disorder. Now, pilots can even fly drones just from a base. Still, they have to think in character. There's a disconnect between being at war and at home. It's hard for the mind to comprehend.
Also, today I overheard a conversation that strangely paralleled what we he had watched in class. At the library, I just happened to hear two girls talking next to me...They were having a conversation about how much they hated having their AP Government textbooks online. One of them said that she'd rather have the book in front of her, because she didn't like reading on the computer. She mentioned that she wanted to highlight the text, so she found it more helpful to print out the pages and highlight them. The other girl said that her teacher mentioned that soon, most, if not all textbooks will be available online only. The first girl said that she'd print out all of the pages in the textbook if she needed to. Then, almost in unison, they both groaned.
I've heard a lot of people complaining about online textbooks. It's a lot harder to focus on and interact with words on a screen than in a book, in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteTechnology is used in schools to make things more convenient for teachers and students, but I think it can cause a lot of inconveniences too. It was difficult for me to get through the Houlgate reading because my computer's in the main room in my house. So I had to block out my mom cooking, my dad ranting, and my sister blasting the television while trying to grasp the phenomenology of the spirit, haha.