They Can Do WHAT?!!

NEW YORK, NY – Jan. 21, 2010 – Unless you’re a serious gamer, you have no idea of the connectedness of the world online.

Right now, data is available identifying the location of your computer, even more accurately than a GPS. It gives you a spooky feeling, doesn’t it?

The speaker was Kevin Slavin, a bright, energetic young man who’s head of Area/Code, a boutique design and software firm involved in computer games. He spoke at an early-morning meeting of the New York Television Academy, one of the many reasons that I wanted to be here in New York.

Beyond the technology lies an unresolved philosophical question. Is this good for the society? For a person’s social skills?

He says yes. “It’s a stylized form of social interaction,” he argues.

Here’s a mind-boggling example:

An online game “Guild Wars” has – ready for this? – 11 MILLION players. They get together in small groups, get to “know” each other, and spend an average of 4 hours a day playing. And it’s making the game’s creator hugely rich. It costs $50 to buy the DVD then it runs another $25 a month to stay active online. Not a lot for an individual but just imagine the revenue stream to Area/Net in Seattle!

And the technology spills over into education. Slavin’s company Area/Code developed "Sharkrunners" for A&E Television to bring aware of the network’s shark series. It was highly successful for A&E. But it lives on! High school science classes now use the software to study the movement of real sharks which are fitted with small transmitters signaling their locations on the North Atlantic.

The benefits of such connectedness are truly awesome. It opens up education to a new level of experience. For example, the government asked Slavin’s company to develop a budget game, Budgetball. It’s just a game. But it is an entertaining, engaging way of experiencing the economy. Sounds boring. But it’s not. And that’s the point.

Is all this “stylized social interaction” a good thing? You could argue that there’s no substitute for eyeball-to-eyeball communication, hearing the subtleties in the other person’s voice, sensing the spiritual presence around them, their aroma, their touch. (That’s where I am.)

You could also argue that it brings together people around the world, often speaking to each other on headsets, creating a bond among disparate ethnicities.

And they’ve just scratched the surface in medicine. Slavin said the government is using a form of video gaming to treat victims of PTSD. It allows them to re-experience the traumas they may have suffered in Iraq or Afghanistan and in the end rehabilitate them.

Think about kids with ADHD or other neurological disorders.

I came away with my head swimming. How will this technology/philosophy trickle down into transmission of news and information? Will people develop even fewer social skills?

I don’t really have an answer. But it certainly brings up a headfull of questions.

Copyright 2010 James C. Lewis