Living Through Technology

[MorsePacific]

So, I decided to take on the challenge of watching Surrogates tonight. While I found the movie to be horrible, I noticed myself wondering something throughout the entire experience; has technology become an addiction?

We're surrounded by technology everyday. Everyday we're surrounded by things that make our lives easier and help us live out our wildest dreams. But are we as a culture relying too much on technology? Are we using technology simply to escape from ourselves, much like society in Surrogates?

What do you think, fellow Escapists? Could we all use a little time away from our computers? Have we come to rely too much on technology to take us away from ourselves?

 

[teisjm]

Nah, any sort of entertainment is there to entartain us. I don't really think it takes us away rom ourselves. What are "ourselves" am i escaping from myself when i game? what about when i watch tv? when i draw? play teh guitar? have sex? talk to people? go to work?

I've never really gotten it. I don't escape reallity, the games are a very real thing. A real disc with data on it, which magically translate into entertaining games when i put it in my computers coffe-cup holder. Sure the world shown in the games aren't the real world and the character i'm controlling isn't be, but hwo is that different from reading a book?
The enjoyment i get from playing the games or other stuff is real.
It's not liek it takes you away to some otehr dimension, it may depict one, but you are still in the real world having fun, whwther or not the digital hero you're controlling is on the elemental palne of fire or the nether world.

 

[MorsePacific]

Yes, you are in the real world, enjoying what you're doing, but by escaping through games, people mean to be sucked into the story, into the world, into the characters, so that sometimes they don't need to concentrate on the happenings around them.

 

[Amardor]

Depends on how extreme you want to talk about it?

A pen is technology...

 

[Gadzooks]

I think technology is addictive, but not really to escape ourselves.

When I've had power outages and can't use any (most) of my regular entertainment outlets, I get bored and restless, a little uneasy - similar to when I go without nicotine for a day.

But technology isn't all there to escape reality. Sure, games maybe feel like a nice womb to crawl up in every now and then, but most technology is there simply to make life easier and more convenient to live.

I think as much as technology tears apart personal moments; it makes it that much easier to talk to someone, to see them or to write to them that those interactions lose some of their special nature. While they lose that, the fact remains that you can proceed through daily life at a much greater pace. Get more done. Experience more that there is to be experienced. Most technology actually aids the living of a full life, and it's only laziness, apathy and fear that stops a small proportion of people from taking advantage of that.

 

[insectoid]

Well yes technology is addictive, and it has certainly ingrained itself in our society, but I do not think it is primarily used as an escape. Besides, on the occasion where we do need to forget ourselves, had we no technology, we'd just find some other way of doing it, like watching films or reading books.

 

[Revolutionary]

No. Sorry addiction implies adverse physical reactions to depravation. I can say confidently I dont experience such reactions.