In this episode of Community, the study group must play an 8-bit video-game to help Pierce Hawthorne gain his inheritance. That was simply a synopsis of the episode and has very little to do with what I am talking about, but it should show you that this show is all kinds of awesome and you should watch it...
I was reading an article about virtual reality, which is right here: http://www.theverge.com/a/virtual-reality, and it got me thinking about what it means for gaming and what kind of affect it will have on this upcoming generation.
Video games have always been a part of culture ever since I was born. I have never been a huge video game person but I have always been intrigued at the exponential growth in technology and consumerism.
Video games, along with television and movies, have always been a form of escapism. Escapism is some form of distraction away from daily life and reality. Television and movies have always been a shorter form of this, with the exceptions of binge-watching or a Peter Jackson film. Video-games on the other hand tend to take up a larger amount of time, taking up a larger amount of reality.
I have no problem with video games. They can be fun, recreational and even educational tool. The problem I see, is that with this rise of virtual reality I think people will become addicted to the idea of being able to escape this reality for long periods of time. It may even escalate into an inception situation where people can't determine what is virtual and what is real.
This is obviously a hypothesis made with no scientific data to back it up, but I think the question we need to ask ourselves is why would someone prefer a virtual reality over what is real and tangible?
Is reality that bad that someone would want to completely escape it? For some people it is and I see this as a huge problem.
Whatever issues a person might be having might cause them to think that virtual reality is a lot easier to deal with. We need to awaken people to the real and tangible love of Christ and the beauty of the reality that God has created so that they don't have to be fulfilled with some some one's and zero's.
Just a thought.
God Bless,
Blake Anthony
Blake,
ReplyDeleteI like what you said about the possibility of video games altering one's perception of physical reality vs. virtual reality. That's interesting, because it sounds pretty sci-fi-ish and far off in the future. The more I think about it though, the more I can see the potential of this "unscientific hypothesis", and it scares me to be completely honest. I know how addicting video games can be firsthand, and I can't even imagine how much moreso they will be within the next decade or two with all of the technological improvements. Scary stuff.
Good post man; we have to be aware of the possibility.