I believe that society now days definitely masks themselves behind a shroud of technology. We as member of this super advanced society don't have to talk to anyone anymore whether it be friends or someone we just met all we need is there email, phone number, or face book account. We have so many different way of communication that the our most important one, conversation has fallen by the wayside. Lets face it, its way easy to be your self in text messaging or on face book because you don't have that face to face interaction opposed to if your were talking face to face with a person. For example I am a very out going person but talking to girls I get real nervous and blow it every time, but if i can get a girls number and text them I'm golden because i can flirt and be myself with out them judging me or at least i cant see them judging me. I can even put a little ;) after my message to let them know i mean business. but in the real time face to face conversation, lets get real winks aren't cool at all anymore. As for "synthetic worlds" becoming "real worlds" i disagree the movie second skin had many good points but i believe to get its point across they focused solely on the most exaggerated and hardcore side of the matter. i have lots of friends that play W.O.W and they have all had points where they go on playing sprees when the new expansion pack comes out or they just get new gear but they don't play like that all the time. i even can relate to the relationships in the movie because one of my best friends in high schools parents are similar. They didn't meet online but the play W.O.W and so does my friend. when i went over to spend the night for the first time i was amazed that his parents played it was kind of cool though, his dad would do a quest and then his mom would be like "huny i need to get on and do my stuff soon." just like they were chores in the house, and i thought that was so cool that they did that. Online gaming is just like any other hobbie, it just gets a bad wrap from the people that take it to far. For example if someone went to a comic book collectors house and asked how much he paid for issue 129 of the amazing spider man...for people who aren't total nerds its the issue where the punisher hunts down spiderman. if u don't know any of this bare with me here, this issue is valued in mint condition to sell for $700 when it came out it sold for 20 cents. to some one who is outside the comic collecting scene would be like your crazy why would your crazy. but to that comic collector its really special to him and its what he loves.i think that society needs to be more accepting and open to peoples likes and differences rather than judging people. like the movie second skin said how maybe society needs to change and not make people feel banished to these synthetic worlds where they feel no judgement and can make friends with out worrying what they look like or what they have in the real world. I think society and technology in a combination are the problem. the only thing i could think of during second skin was the south park episode where they make fun of world of war craft so here is a video clip from that its kinda gross and a super exaggeration on how people are but there's similarities from the four kids on south park to the five guys in second skin
http://youtu.be/ffjBxA-cnbM
I know that so many people take advantage of the security of texting and instant messaging to flirt and date, but I think this is sort of dangerous, especially in younger kids. In these mediums, people have more confidence to say things that they normally wouldn't say in person. But think of it the other way around: A freshman girl in high school gets a text from an older guy who uses texting as a way to push the limits and see how far he can get. The girl doesn't know any better and starts to think that this is the norm and that this behavior is socially expected of her. They meet for a 'date' somewhere and the girl gets taken advantage of simply because he was comfortable enough in the virtual world to push the limits. I was that girl once, and I don't think that enough attention is spent looking at the effects of what people say in virtual worlds.
ReplyDeleteI loved your post. It touched on so many different sides of technology and the movie. I thought it was very funny when you talked about talking to girls through text messaging. I totally agree! It so easy to talk to someone through text messages especially someone you want to date or "hook up" with. Talking to them in person is scary sometimes! I also agree that the movie just showed the most serious extremes of the gamers. There are people out there that know how to control themselves and no when to turn it off and say thats enough.
ReplyDeleteI can absolutely see where your coming from with being judged in person compared to not feeling judged in a text message.
ReplyDeleteI can also see where your coming from with your friends parents being gamers because my dad loves call of duty. Around 11:30 at night, Call of duty was on the TV. It was like clockwork
your post makes complete sense and you make very good points! i totally agree with the whole texting someone you like becausei know i feel more confident through text or just sending a cute face to someone. I believe that texting can actually work up your confidence to eventually say or do the things you to text to someone. I also understand how you said your friends parents play WOW and how you think its cool, i would feel the same way if my parents or friends parents enjoyed something i liked to do and thought was "hip" at the time.
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