Fifteen years ago, when the SIMS first hit the public it was huge. Create cities and watch them flourish (or destroy them yourself with the monster alien that looked like a one-eyed magic eight ball), create people and watch them interact, grow and mature. Create roller-coasters, and then ride them...?
As avatars become more lifelike and gamers push the boundary between reality and well, online reality, a new breed of online games are emerging. www.secondlife.com. Great concept. Cool looking interface. Quite popular (especially amongst the "tween" set - www.teensecondlife.com). Generating revenues. All the things necessary for success.
But something about the idea of it and "lifegames" like it are making me wonder - what's happening to REAL life. Are we quickly approaching the world of holograms and holodecks (sssh! don't tell anyone I know what those are) - a society where those who can afford to would prefer to interact, alone with a bunch of digitized people in digitized scenarios creating digitized lives, rather than with...well, me and you?!?
Doesn't that explain some of the success of MySpace - "hey, she was homecoming queen and is dating the captain of the football team, but I have 4,501 MySpace friends, so HA!"
Have we reached the point where we are trading real lives, for online ones?!
Maybe Noah has a point: Step Away From the Computer
DO IT NOW!!! But not before you leave us some comments. Quit lirking, start commenting.
Now Playing: DJ Shadow - Napalm Brain, Scatter Brain (how fitting) Album - Entroducing
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2 comments:
I second that motion - step away from the computer! If you've been following some of the threads on www.younggogetter.com (which I know you do from time to time) you may have noticed that I've been involved in more and more brick & mortar/real life businesses that are getting my ass out of the computer chair and into the real world on a daily basis. I started seeing my life turn virtual more and more each day and it was TOTALLY depressing.
It's dangerous to lose touch with reality. The internet is so new yet people feel like it's EVERYTHING and that you can't live without it. YOU CAN live without it, and you must...or else life becomes very empty.
I encourage everyone to get off their asses and do something in the real world for at least a few hours everyday.
It struck a chord with me also. It's funny when I talk to my friends and ask what'd they do last night and they were like "ohh, I spent a few hours re-doing my MySpace page". Cool - I guess. It just amazes me how quickly and forcefully internet activities have become people's lives. Social lives are now not only determined by who got voted "best legs" in the yearBOOK and on MyYearbook.
I wonder...who has more clout?!
Miss America or MissMySpace?
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