Bad Good Tv Excerpt.
From the initial pre-read of this 13-page excerpt, I gathered that the Author's point was centered around the growing possibility for cognitive interaction with the shows we watch on TV. The author catalogs the incremental growth of cognitive themes in TV media, citing examples from Starsky and Hutch to The Sopranos. The excerpt debunks how it seems that so often in modern media, we as an audience are basically handed plotlines like children, with movies often leaving terribly apparent "signposts" for us to better get the movie. Their seems to be a sort of disconnect with the argument, implying that many TV shows do not offer this sense of total clarity, while most movies do. The text also describes the necessity for at least some "signposts" so that the viewer isn't completely at a loss. The principle example used is the show ER, in which Medical Jargon is thrown around so casually that without explanation, the viewer wouldn't make head or tails of the show. The excerpt finishes with the supposition that the increase in cognitive media is due to an increase in cognitive ability in people.
Bad/Good Games Excerpt
Reading this thoroughly, (at 8 words a glance) I not only get a very rich understanding of the piece, but I also see the author come out from between the lines to demonstrate his ideas to me. The arguments presented are rich and strong, incorporating excellent real-life examples to provide support for an incredibly well-reasoned thesis. Perhaps most brilliant is the author's choice to demonstrate a thought experiment argument from a timeline swapped for our own; the example of the creation of gaming before reading seems so well reasoned that it seems almost that life followed this circuit in reality. Moreover, the author reveals his point twofold; by demonstrating the common, shallow argument of the perception of videogames and countering with his own insight, all of which he conveys literarily, hitting home the idea, the significance to his earlier point of reading.
It does get slightly confused, however, when he discusses the level of enjoyment present in the games. He made his point clearly that games are often difficult, as mentally challenging as a book can be (albeit a different mental state), but he doesn't acknowledge what is ultimately a hollow reward; you still end up playing the game for hours, growing frustrated, tired, annoyed, and you eventually get the reward for your countless hours- but does this reward truly outweigh the effort? The example of Troy Stolle demonstrates this; he spent all this time to become a Grandmaster Blacksmith in order to simply continue a monotonous action to buy a bigger plot of virtual land. For what, we ask? Having a virtual mansion vs. a virtual shack equates to essentially the same thing, no? A virtual place to sleep for your virtual self. Perhaps this is best explained for the reward we seek in real life, the house we want in reality; our virtual avatars do not tire as we do, and takes less time to earn the spoils we all strive for. Whatever months you spend to upgrade your home on Everquest doesn't come close to the time and effort put into a real life job to do the same thing, which takes years and years. Blacksmiths online face a simpler life, they are never out of work, and can always count on steady pay, requiring nothing of what we as flesh humans need. Videogames remain an escape, albeit a challenging, more difficult one than we may imagine.
As for these two texts' connection to Feed, the author here describes the potential intellectual benefits to digital media, taking into account the external accessibility of such things, as opposed to the onboard access presented in Feed. In Feed, the characters are forever synced to the digital world, never having to sit down and watch or play, always doing so on the go. With Feed TV shows, they don't necessarily need to concern themselves with cognitive advancement, only with pulp entertainment, as everthing is instant gratification. There is none of the delayed gratification that the author of Everything Bad is Good For You speaks of. The users all want everything now, there is no other way to do it.
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Let's do this. No trash talking about the commenting system this round.
ReplyDeleteAs always, your writing portrays great ideas in such an articulate way (e.g."I found myself with less distraction in the form of music, which normally lifts me away from my surrounding and deeper into myself by shutting off the outside and the other people around me"). Although our class has the same general ideas about digitalization, it's just so much more intriguing to read your blogs. It's a lot more engaging.
With that being said, it seems to me that your main focus is digitalization being a source of distractions and alienation. And it's not something that we're not aware of, but like you said, we don't act on it. As a result, "society is doomed for a collapse, that's inevitable." I agree that this contributes greatly to our collapse. We're just so blinded by having fun, using our DRDs and focusing on the next step to take to stay fresh, that we don't see anything on the bigger picture. We don't see our lifestyles are messed up, or how we really have no control of anything, not even the people that we choose to be. One big idea that sums this up would be "you need to be distracted in order to survive." If we're not distracted, we'd be left with the reality of life, which I don't think many of us can handle.
The results of your self-experiment would agree with your argument. By starving yourself of digitalization, you had more time to think when you were on the bus and became more aware of the people around you, rather than shutting them off. You were able to make something (skateboard) meaningful by having some sort of contribution to its production. And you "felt free." Even so, I'm assuming you didn't/wouldn't completely cut yourself away from the digital world. We always tell ourselves that DRDs distract us, and are bad for us, but even thought we known that on the days of our "digital ramadan" we are more perceptive and freer, we always, for some reason, go back to digitalization. Remember "Never Let Me Go"? That's probably another allegory too. We're devoting our lives to become tools for the "real" people- the ones that matter (let's save this for another day; this is about digitalization). So anyways, we're all kind of like the students from Hailsham. Even after they left the school, they continued to think about it and wished they were back there. And even more so, hardly anyone aside from Tommy and Kathy saw this system as messed up, because they were all caught up in enjoying their time, and fulfilling their roles. And even with Tommy and Kathy as the exceptions, nothing was done to change it. I guess here's the "D" or the "E" portion of the ABCDEF commenting- it could be used to develop your ideas, but it's also a question that was triggered through reading your blog, hmmm I'm not sure. How much of our desire to go back to digitalization/Hailsham derives from holding on to something familiar to us? And how much of it is out of fear for change?
Another question I would like to prompt in response to "People are no longer encouraged about doing things themselves" is: Is this out of laziness, or out of being efficient? I think it's both, but mostly laziness. Things (e.g. downloads) also just seem more fun and agonizing when you're just watching it go.
A-B-C-D-E-F...I think I did all of them. Anyways, it was my pleasure reading your post. Let's just make those "drafts" into real deals. I'll be interested in seeing how you expand on the ideas that you already wrote about. Oh, and you might want to read or re-read John's HW 14, particularly the last one or two paragraphs. It connects with the whole distraction idea. For now, chao outside Gutha Mucka.