Video games, the web, smartphones, TV and movies are addicting and change our minds.
Our kids are being destroyed by them. I am an engineer, so I am no saying this from a anti-technology stance.
The situation is focused at the attention span, the rate of stimulation and the artificial reality that fosters addiction.
To explain this I remember the reaction of a Russian writer the first time he saw moving pictures; he said: I dont like it, because it makes real life more boring.
And this was with the early black and white movies without sound, usually very short and stupid (to our standards) like “Workers leaving the factory“.
So, let us start with the attention span. Any movie is based of changing angles and scenes. The objective is to create a more dynamic and dramatic view, in opposition to our REAL LIFE VIEW where we are looking only from one perspective or angle, a continuous situation developing.
This little trick made the movies very appealing, yet filmmakers started speeding up the rate of change of angles and scenes. This makes old movies boring as hell, and new movies really interesting.
The side effect is that LIFE becomes boring as hell. You are so used to the speed of changing views, that you see life as a permanent slow motion movie.
The cutting of the movie in several scenes allows the creation of an artificial reality. In this new reality the character can spend a decade training hard to accomplish its revenge, and you only take a portion of a song to get through this decade.
In the real world a decade is a decade, and the dedication of a man training full time requires a superhuman devotion and infinite patience. And all this without the cheering soundtrack.
So, no kid in the audience is going to have the patience to endure more than an hour of martial arts practice. And after a month the give up because they are not yet at the level of Bruce Lee.
That is why most martial arts Dojos are becoming empty in my country…
The editing of the movie removes all the boring stuff, making war a really fantastic and epic adventure. In reality any veteran will say that war in 100 days of unbelievable boredom for every few hours of frightening mayhem.
The side effect is that LIFE becomes boring as hell.
The rate of stimulation provided by interactive media, like video games, the web and smartphones is a composition of the previous problems in steroids.
Everything I mentioned before had to be crafted carefully by the artists to achieve the desired result. It didn’t work the same way for everybody, because people are different.
Now, it is computers that adapt the content to the individual. You supply the requirements, and the machine supplies an infinite amount of entertainment. you no longer have the time limit of a movie, you can play games and seek videos until you die of starvation. It is infinite.
And our mind is adaptable. It adapts to this new reality. It becomes the new normal.
Real world becomes the abnormal place. It is boring as hell. Yet people have to work, they have to eat, they have to take care of their house. This all becomes dry, while people try to fill all their awake time with electronic drugs.
If you want a test of this theory, just sit down against a tree and look at the birds and the clouds. Clock the time-span of your contemplation until it becomes insufferably boring.
DorkShit 3 years, 5 months ago.
