Recently I watched a video documentary online entitled “Digital Nation,” directed and produced by Rachel Dretzin and co-written by her colleague Douglas Rushkoff. In this documentary they covered a vast array of issues encircling the state of our current technologies, namely the internet, and their effects on many aspects of people’s lives. Dretzin became curious of the effects of these technologies after observing her own family being entirely consumed by them for a period. She recalls that they “were all in the same house but were in other worlds,” which is both an interesting and slightly numbing concept. The documentary then follows some MIT students and their ability to multitask, many students believing that they’re completely capable of doing two, three, ten things at once without much of a limitation. One student claims they “can multitask and do it very well, and if they try to restrict us from doing it, it’s unfair,” which I would have to contend with because later on in the documentary they followed Clifford Nass, a professor of Stanford University and his studies have shown a significant drop-off in cognitive abilities in chronic multi-taskers when facing distracions.
Nass states his concern that chronic multi-tasking “may be creating people that are unable to think clearly.” While Nass is making a very valid point, I think it is important not to focus on only what is lost in this situation, but what can potentially be gained. The video then delves into the dark world of addiction focusing on South Korea, a place where video game addiction has been viewed as a “public health crisis.” The focus at this point is on a 15 year old Korean boy named Chum Yung Il. He is the poster-child so to speak of this epidemic. He has shown heavy signs of addiction to computer games, over the course of a year he dropped from being a top student to the bottom half of his class and he even shows signs of inability to communicate on a human level with his mother. He was sent to an internet rescue school for two weeks and afterwards didn’t show much of a sign of change. Il was not the only one, almost every kid in his program had at one time or another fallen prey to medical issues related to computer use. The issue is not only in Korea, later in the documentary Rushkoff interviews a few players of the game “World of Warcraft,” and shockingly one woman confessed playing the game as much as sixteen hours a day and doing nothing but sleeping in the meantime, even quitting her job as a means to get more time on the game. I as an avid computer user and “gamer” find these accounts of video game addiction deeply disturbing. There is no question in my mind that something needs to be done about this situation. The Korean government agrees and is now teaching younger students not only to use computers but to be responsible with them preaching “netiquette,” at about the same time the children are learning to read. The video then adjusts is focus to a lighter side of recent technologies introducing “Second Life,” touted by its creator as an “alternate reality.” Second life is a glorified simulation of real life where you can buy, sell, dress, dance and do pretty much anything you could do in real life but on a more grandiose level. Francoie Legoues, VP of Innovation Initiatives at IBM has begun using the second life program as a Virtual Conference room, saving more than 1 million dollars a year just by not flying people into meetings. She believes that this sim conference is “more human that phone conferences,” some people even use is as a means to meet daily. I’m inclined to think that ten years from now this will be the norm for just about any company that is not centralized, and will encourage more if not every company to work this way. The documentary finishes with an overview of how the U.S. Military is employing digital media. The main focus is of the military’s use of drones (aircraft manned from a virtual booth) and the Army experience center (A center designed to recruit the younger generation through simulations and video games.) I find the use of the Army Experience Center appalling. The Army says that kids know the difference between real combat and video games, but I think the adrenaline rush they’re inducing to them is an unfair variable.
The internet is a powerful tool, and must be used with responsibility, but the benefits of it in my mind outweigh the risks. There may be some Chum Yung Il’s in this world, but I believe with proper parental and scholastic observation our younger generation can thrive in this new technological era. The Internet is bringing people together in a way that was never possible before. My girlfriend’s cousin is an avid “World of Warcraft” player and met his current girlfriend, who is from Australia, through it. I’m inclined to believe chances are he wasn’t going to take a stroll past the billabong and randomly bump into her, so without the internet their relationship would never have been formed. I’ve also witnessed friends meeting and befriending many people met over online games, the social capabilities of the internet are endless and will be a massively important part of our future.
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