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1st year Design & Communication student at University of Ulster Magee

Tuesday 15 November 2011

Has life became secondary to simulation?

Simulacra suggests that the line between reality and simulation is blurred. And that we live our lives through simulations of real life rather than real life. And that for some people things aren’t real until they’re put on facebook. I don’t agree, there’s things that happen that don’t be put on facebook but that doesn’t mean that they haven’t happened or aren’t real. I know they happened and the people that were with me know they happened and just because it’s not put online doesn’t make them any less real. Maybe they just don’t need the online approval? Is there a certain age which we feel like we need approval? Weather we admit it or not everyone has the need for validation with everything they do, to make sure were doing the right thing, from a young age this approval comes from family but as we get older it comes from external sources such as friends, and social networking sites. 
"Technology is the knack of so arranging the world that we don't have to experience it" - Max Frisch
Magazines can provide simulation. I don’t really buy any magazines but I would sit and flick through one if it was there. I would look at the pictures and think “oh that’s nice” but I wouldn't go out and buy the clothes that are in it just because some celebrity is seen wearing it.

Gaming is changing how publishers think. Most games don’t have a story they let the gamer decide what to do and how to create the story (getting them more involved). Gamers like to be challenged. In an interview with Jane McGonigal she was asked how was gaming positively affecting the world, this was part of her reply:

“There is the positive impact of traditional games, and then there's this second, newer category of games that are engaging gamers to solve real problems. One of my favourite examples is the Foldit game, created by researchers at the University of Washington. This is a 3D game, a kind of really complicated Tetris, that teaches you how to fold proteins and folding proteins is a way to investigate the causes of diseases like cancer or Alzheimer's. Recently, more than 50,000 players of this online game, Foldit, were credited as co-authors in a scientific article in the journal Nature about the steps involved with curing cancer. These gamers had actually outperformed the most advanced supercomputer algorithm that scientists had been using to try to fold proteins. And these were, according to the researchers, almost exclusively people who were untrained in biochemistry, gamers who used their creativity, their problem-solving stamina, their resilience, and their collaborative skill.


I found this so interesting that games were providing the collaboration between people with different skills to help push research forward. The full interview is here.

Technology has changed how we behave, and how accessible we are. Everything is now constant.  Its only beginning now and it can only progress further. Is this a good or bad thing? If you didn’t like your job you wouldn’t want it to be 24/7 but if you did you wouldn’t mind it being constant. This then makes me wonder should jobs be better tested before we do a degree. Because some people go into their subjects without knowing what it would be like, for example criminal forensics where there isn’t an A-level for it. How can someone know at age 18 that they’re going to enjoy the course and future job without any experience of it?

Everything is mobile now; the iPod started this but the iPad is the absolute game changer, it has more technology available in it than the worldwide technology in 1985, and it’s completely mobile. The only catch? Prices start at £399, (for an iPad 2) then you have to pay for most of the apps you want to download or access. But with the likes of this technology will this eradicate Phones, laptops, cameras, TVs, and magazines? You can design and personalise it to suit you and your lifestyle, there are thousands of apps for everything, there’s even apps for making apps. And it’s all more interactive and interesting – this would keep kids more focused and get them to explore and ask questions more. Plus you have the touch screen element, which lets people feel more involved. If all you need is the initial purchase of the iPad and then you pay less for all your apps that you would for say a hard copy of a magazine or a TV license, it could be worth it. I’ve roughly calculated how much some of the things that the iPad could do that other hardware could do - phone £170, laptop £310, Camera £90, TV £100, Total - £670 which is £271 more than the iPad, And could you carry all these round at the same time, with the same amount of effort as the iPad? But I suppose the real question is would you want to? Is it really necessary to have that much technology with you at all times? And are we becoming too dependent on it?

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