Blech, more not writing has been going on. I blame my lack of energy to actually sit down and type something up on school. I have actually been writing a little bit here and there when we have breaks, which is how I got the idea for this post, but otherwise I just haven't felt like sitting down to unleash some thought... Anyways, I'll be done with school in about a week so maybe I'll feel more up to writing once that comes around. But, for now, this post length is just going to be variable...
Anyways, this idea isn't originally mine, but I'm actually building off of Danny a little bit. Basically, we were walking about Quicksilver just talking about things that were coming to mind and what not, and one of the things that came up was replaying conversations in one's head. In the case of Danny and Devin, they do it silently. But thanks to a certain brother of mine (I bet Alex knows what I mean haha), I tend to do it out loud which can make for certain awkward social situations... Anyways, not only do we all play out old convo's in our head, but there's the idea of planning/predicting what the person is going to say in the future as well. This may seem a bit weird, but I do wonder if anyone else does it as well...
Anyways, Danny came up with an idea for why this might happen. Basically, from what he has observed, he believes that this isn't really a thing that the previous generation did as much (as in terms of parents and what not), but is more common for our generation. In order to explain this, Danny pointed out that video games today have a huge aspect of control/redo to them. If you go back to the beginning of gaming and what not, it was mainly simple things like Pong. Yet for today, video games are a lot more complex. You can save, replay multiple times, restart and go with a different path, keep on going till you have achieved everything that was programmed, etc. Thus, there's a huge array of things to do and how to go about doing them. With this new aspect of how we can now play video games, it affects how we go about life as well. Thus, in terms of social situations, we replay them in our heads in order to try and find the best one since that's the one we could typically do in games and what not...
Well, even though I do believe that Danny may have a point that video games can lead to this control freak mentality (hence the title/reference to teen titans), I believe that there may be more to it then that. I mean, not only video games have changed over time, but lots of forms of technology as well... With televisions, you have DVR's which allow for saving, speeding up, slowing down, and recording any program you want. Even though there are probably other forms of technology that would help out as well, I see television and gaming being probably the main factors if even so. Iono if really does have an effect or not, but it is something interesting to think about. I mean, it does seem to line up on interesting aspects of technology just being able to allow more control over what you want to do with life. I guess it could transfer over to a social aspect and try to instill a sense of control in that well. I could just be completely wrong and it's something that only a few of us do, but I figured I'd just share my thoughts anyways. Oh well, off I go. Farewell...
Saturday, July 31, 2010
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Oh my...so crazy. My last post was titled "Losing Control," and God's been teaching/showing me how notincontrol I am--everyone is. :P Interesting insight. ...and, I definitely do replay conversations...and predict them, and...it's really often, actually. >< Yeup.
ReplyDeleteThis is Alex.
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness, yes, I do know what you're talking about. You should ask me about the times I've walked passed the bathroom while Dave is inside, and I hear him participating in some past or hypothetical/future conversation. He's funny when he starts making fun of himself while he's at it, but I feel his pain... because I do it too.
Anyway, I've given a lot of thought to how our generation's primary source of entertainment (electronic media like movies, video games, iPods, and so oon) influences our way of thinking and seeing the world. I never really thought about how older people don't seem to do the talk-out-loud thing regarding past or future conversations, so maybe you're onto something. I do think that we're trained to feel like we need control over our immediate surroundings at all times. That's perhaps why everyone seems to be attached at the hip with their iPhones, or to have a symbiotic relationship with their computers. Access to basically everything is always just a click away. We can easily backtrack our steps and return to prior pages within moments by using the "return" buttons. Editing what we write is usually an option, and so is deleting what we don't feel like seeing or dealing with anymore (whether it be junk mail in our inbox or our own words that we type in an e-mail before getting frustrated because nothing is coming out quite right).
Dave has said before that, having grown up playing video games, he's often thought "Why can't real life be like a game where you can just go and re-do everything?"
I know I personally have been unable to accept certain circumstances, even if just for a few moments. Usually it's when something troublesome happens, and my denial lingers just a little too long to be entirely congruent with reality. It's hard to explain since I don't consciously think "Oh, there MUST be an 'edit' key somewhere." It's more of a subconscious, knee-jerk response that I take for granted that I will get to shut things off and therefore delete everything I haven't "saved" (accepted), and start over. That there's some sort of "re-do" option. But there isn't.
Well, I'm tired and it's late and I'm not sure where I'm going with this and I think I'll see you tomorrow anyway (technically today) but I'll probably have forgotten about this by then because I'm delirious which is probably why I was able to say all this :D
Heh, crazy stuff Dawning! Funny how our minds work, eh?
ReplyDeleteAnd Alex, wow... Like that's what I was thinking of too but realized i hadn't put it all into writing, but you basically nailed everything I though I had left unsaid. But yeah, I totally agree with you. I wonder if it'll just become more and more evident the more technology has its optins...