Imagine a world where you can have whatever experience turns you on, anytime, all the time. Is that a recipe for addiction or what?
Monkeys Pay to See Female Monkey Bottoms
The rhesus macaque monkeys also splurged on photos of top-dog counterparts, the high-ranking primates.
Ok, but supposing female monkey bottoms aren't your thing. With advances in the internet, movie, and gaming/virtual reality environments, you could more and more have any experience you want. Travel virtually to any corner of the globe, exchange ideas on anything with anyone, solve clever puzzles. We all have some experiences we enjoy and some we don't. Imagine that you could have whatever sights, whatever sounds, whatever music, whatever interactions with the world or with other people you want anytime all the time.
Here's an interesting article, the Age of Egocasting, that explores what could happen to us as we become cocooned into our private little media shells. It's pretty long, but worth reading:
The Age of Egocasting
Remote controls, TiVo's, and iPod's. Where is it all leading us? Someday, we will all be connected directly to the internet and have programming plugged directly into our brains by hardware connected directly to our neurons, available wirelessly wherever we go. Eventually, we won't even bother going anywhere because it'll be easier to go in vitual reality, so we're going to end up as brains in vats with wires coming out that connect us to the internet. Right? Americans love junk. It’s not the junk that bothers me, it’s the love. -- George Santayana
It made me think: Hasn't the last election itself showed something about the effect the internet has on society? The righty people read the right-wing blogs and become more right-wing. The lefty people read the left-wing blogs and become more left-wing. People get concooned into their belief systems. It's the same thing that happens offline, with talk radio, direct mail, and Fox News, only amplified. Personally, I have some beliefs in common with the left-wing people and some in common with the right-wing people. So which am I, left or right? Is there a fundamental human tendency to stay within the belief cocoon to avoid cognitive dissonance -- and if so, should we not expect the political split in this country to amplify as well as people use the internet more and more people get on?
Here's an article about what happens to hardcore gamers when they play a bit too much. Don't think this could happen to you? Is it because you're not into games -- or because they just haven't come up with the kind of game experience that sucks you in? This question reminds me of the early days of the internet. We'd show people Netscape 2.0 and they'd say, "What good is it?" Well, until the internet has content *you're* interested in -- not much. But the internet has content on pretty much everything these days, and everyone wants to get on. Video games will evolve into virtual reality experiences, and the closer they get to reality, the more diverse, and compelling game experience will become, no?
Real World Doesn't Use a Joystick
Having a difficult time separating her real-life consciousness from that of her game playing is all too common among hard-core gamers.
Of course, this is exactly what you would expect. Video games (and other computer programs) grow the same neural circuits in the brain that you would have if the experiences were real -- whether those neural circuits turn out to be useful in the "real world" or not.
This article talks about virtual home theater -- so you can literally cuddle up in your cocoon and experience anything...
Virtual Home Theater Promises Immersion And Fits on Your Head
The eight-ounce visor, which is expected to go on sale by May at emagin.com for $900, is a personal display system that sits on your head like a pair of glasses.
Of course, I don't know whether this particular company and this particular product are going to take over -- but I do believe this trend will continue and eventually we will have effective personal display devices.
By the way, speaking of home theater -- this time the non-virtual kind -- I just heard that Sony released their black screen that lets you watch your projector during the day. Woohoo -- kiss that plasma screen good-bye! Up til now, you could only use a projector at night. Now you can have the big screen 24 hours a day.
Here's another trend in the direction of more and more compelling artificial experiences: high-definition video. "I have heard comments from people who say the images pop off the screen." Oh yes they do. I've seen "Step Into Liquid" in high-def (using Microsoft's Windows Media HD format). Trust me, it's quite eye-popping.
What high-definition will do to DVDs
First it was the humble home video, then it was the DVD, and now Hollywood is preparing for the next revolution in home entertainment - high-definition.
Of course, I can't talk about the future of entertainment without at least mentioning once the copy-protection conflict. Here's an artile about MythTV and the file sharing networks. Things like BitTorrent and MythTV are really just new twists on an old story. The war on copying will probably never end.
Steal This Show
And entrepreneurial souls are busily concocting even newer applications, including one that searches the Internet for illegal copies of any television shows you may desire and automatically downloads them to your computer. They're turning television - traditionally beamed into homes at the convenience of the broadcast and cable networks - into something more flexible, highly portable and commercial free.
Here's an article about future population projections:
World population 'to rise by 40%'
The world's population is expected to rise from the current 6.5 billion to 9.1 billion by 2050, the UN says.
The UN is failing to take into account that technological singularity -- the point at which cost-effective human-equivalent AI arrives -- will arrive around 2035 and after that the human population will decline rather than increase.
What does this have to do with entertainment? Because I think the decline will come in the form of low-fertility. Everyone will be off in their entertainment cocoons, and no one will be out there having babies -- except the muslims, I suppose. So to the muslims goes the future of the planet -- at least the human part.
So I started this whole thing with the subject of addiction. Basically, I'm asking the question, will humanity become addicted to ever-more compelling entertainment technology? Perhaps not everyone. Here's an article on brain research and addiction that suggests that addiction is not caused just by having a compelling pleasurable experience that you can make with a drug or some other way -- you also have to have "faulty brakes" in the brain to allow the addiction to take control. I'll let the article inself explain what this means:
Addicts have faulty brakes in brain
Scientists believe parts of the brain involved in slamming the brakes on potentially dangerous or inappropriate behaviours may be faulty in people with addictions. The theory challenges a long-held belief of an over-responsive reward system in the brain as the root cause of addictive behaviour.
So you see, it's not really about the pleasure centers in the brain. It's about the brakes.
Wow Wayne,
You must have posted a minute after me. I hit the refresh button and there is your post.
It's a good one, although it would be so much stronger if you wouldn't do this crass generalization about Muslims. Come on, there are quite some Christian splinter groups that also believe in "being fruitful" and they will inherit the earth too right :-/
Best, Mark.
Posted by: Mark Finnern | March 11, 2005 at 22:34
The egocasting phenomenon might have some credit if the web were a broadcast medium, like most of the others we've invented so far. However, the prolific ability to cross-polinate media actually makes the Web the place where such pigeon-holing can be broken.
Yes, choice on the web, like choice of TV channels, tends to give people more excuses to settle into their preferred modes of experience. The more variety of programming you have, the more comfortable you can make even the most fringe tastes. The web, of course, by virtue of its trivial production costs, explodes the variety of content one has to choose from.
But there's more to it than that. If the web were more like TV, everyone would just have their own TV station. The web, however, has far more flexibility in its ability to mix up communications, introducing conversations instead of transmissions. There are far more opportunities for discussion, debate, conversation, interaction, and correction than in any other medium. For the perfect example, look no further than this very post. Try getting an instant response tacked onto the end of your favourite television program or newspaper column.
Once I started noticing this feedback capability, I started looking for it. Most sites that have it are primarily blogs, like this one, dedicated exclusively to the medium of the world wide web, and the openness of communication that it encourages. Because of this, they foster much more vibrant communications. The other sites - those that don't provide the opportunity to post unmoderated comments on items - tend to be old media companies, who retain, for the good of their business model, of course, very elitist, closed, ivory tower views on journalism.
Only on the web do people have the capability to open dialogs, and question assumptions with such ease and accessibility. As a result, they tend to, giving them unprecedented opportunities to explore alternative views. Many institutions see the web only as an extension of the broadcast content, for consumption only. If their model becomes the only one that exists, then "egocasting", as a theory, has a point to make about intellectual stratification and stagnation. In the meantime, We have posts to comment on, and threaded discussions to have. This is the true model of the web, and I think it has a bright future.
Posted by: Nato Welch | March 12, 2005 at 01:12
Firstly, I think we have to acknowledge that most of the population is already media addicted - they like to watch the TV, play video games, listen to their favorite songs - and they work to finance that habit. What the internet changes (especially the illegal parts of it) is the quality/density of entertainment and information access. In consequence, this changes the level of intelligence at which mere consumption is still able to satisfy. Normally, a smart person will just get bored with television.
There is however another aspect to consider. A person does not have fun in any way that it would theoretically be possible. Instead, there is a selection of satisfactional strategies. The results of such a strategy may be more or less beneficial to the individual or society, resulting in it being classified as an addiction or as a part of personality. Wanting to hang out with friends would be a personality trait - researching topics and writing on wikipedia might already be considered as an addiction by some - and regularily taking drugs is a pretty clear case. People's personal belief systems will prevent them from having fun in all but a few ways: A strictly religious person will not have recreational sex, a niveauful person will ignore everything not considered high culture, and a decent person will avoid taking drugs and be generally unhappy living a "bad" life.
The key here is: ignorance. We are only allowed to achieve satisfaction in certain ways - a bit like what Freud called sublimation. As long as we are sufficiently happy, we don't know and don't want to know about things outside that spectrum. The idea, that our personal way of achieving happiness is the one and only, is the core of religions, societies and our entire social life. Maybe more so than scientific truth, these delusions are cultural achievements!
So what conclusion do I come to?
In the near future: Between those who truly care, and those who seek the happiness propagated in peer groups, family and television; the typus of the media bastard will gain in strength. He looks through the deceptions and hypocracies of our time. But instead of seeking clarification or reform, he is satisfied consuming the fruits of current society. Through a pathologically broad view of the world, there is always something new to discover, learn and experience. He needs to be forced to work. When outside he cares about nothing but going back home. He is sarcastic and cynical, deep but playful. He has no need for advertised status symbols. Thus to motivate work, access to any kind of interesting information has to be subject of sufficient taxation. This, for me, is the real argument for enforcing copyright laws - not that artists couldn't be paid in far more efficient and fair ways.
Posted by: Peter Shaw | May 26, 2006 at 00:28