final

So, during Summer School I’m also taking a Fine arts paper as my General Ed. It has been quite interesting. Our last guest speaker was a contemporary Irish New Zealand artist Alex Montieth. As a pro surfer she is quite interested in taking photos of sports in action. Her latest project was taking photos of the air force’s helicopters. My whole point to this story is that she was explaining that the air force were getting ready to receive newer more updated (technological wise) choppers. It was here she stated that the air force do not want to train their older more experienced pilots to fly these babies but rather younger gamer type people as they would be more technologically capable in functioning these choppers. This amazed me as it was placing gamers at a more of a positive and advanced position in society seeing their skills of technological understanding to control larger machineries as an asset to our society.
From this statement I link it back to this week’s reading by Rob Cover who talks about new technology and how it creates anxiety and fear amongst society especially with the representation of popular culture. However, this is not the case with the air force. They want may I note a stereotypical “gamer” young male who they believe has much knowledge in the gaming world, as to say the technology side of things, to train and learn to control these choppers.

This course has really helped me to deepen my understanding of videogames. Understanding the essence of “addiction”. The final of the six concerns in Rob Cover’s reading was “The real and the virtual in gaming addiction” what caught my attention in this section was the discussion of the “self” within the gaming context. You are physically not in the gaming space – the virtual space but in your mind you picture yourself in the game. Cover compares this imagination to men who use pornography to masturbate physically they are not present but mentally they have the fantasy that they are. And this is exactly like gaming space. The fantasy of being in these places creates a pleasurable place to be therefore the addiction comes to play.
The term “addicted” always seems so negative and almost “loserish” to an extent. Thinking about my own addictions “problematic use” also sounds negative also but much less than “addiction”. I will admit that I have an addiction to the internet, especially facebook! But I don’t know if I am digetically immersed or immersed in wanting to keep up to date with people’s daily activities which than would fall under.... stalker? – haha. My time spent on facebook as noticed by myself is a whole lot of wasted time, time I could rather be studying! I doevery month try to deactivate my page for at least a week and I always fail. Without my facebook account I do have those mental cravings Kevin spoke about on Tuesday’s lectures, where my mind is used to the daily browse on fb that my mind begins playing games with me. Like other addictions there are those compulsions and psychological dependencies! As discussed, just like immersion, you still have a choice weather you want to be immersed into a particular game. Addictions are harder, but the choice is still there.