Nothing is new

The ninja has been contemplating on the subject of technology, and was particularly struck by a comment on this blog. The comment said, roughly, that while role-playing games do contribute to our sense of community, they do so at the cost of isolating players from, as it were, the real world. Can one really say, the comment continues, that these players are giving their whole attention to their jobs, with the pull of such a mesmerizing experience just out of reach?

I'm not sure what class the writer meant to include in that sweeping statement, but I think he, or as the case may be, she, didn't take into account that not all who play have compulsive personalities. For example, it isn't likely that I will ever start playing World of Warcraft, because ninjas have notoriously high addiction rates to fantasy lives. ;-) But seriously, I won't play because I am the sort of person who will be unable to stop, and I know this because I was addicted to exactly the sort of fantasy life that this comment writer feels is so inevitable in gamers, even though I've never been a gamer. Yes, that's right--I became addicted to a fantasy life, not through computers, but books.

And so, I have come, once again, to the very old conclusion that nothing is new. It is almost paradoxical to say that in connection with technology, because I think it's safe to say that nothing in the history of the world has changed and developed as quickly as computers and their associated technologies have. Yet the problems we encounter when we use technology are the same as we encountered during any other time.

Take physical fitness. Is there anything worse for your body than sitting at a computer, straining your eyes to deal with the glow, not moving for hours at a time? But think about manual labor, and being continually bent over to rake, hoe, plant seeds, milk cows, feed livestock. Or think about working in a factory, and being subject to repetitive stress injuries from moving in the same few ways in the same order, over and over. It is difficult to live in a body without damaging it!

And if it is true that the same disadvantages hold for this development in human history as in any other, perhaps it is also true that the same advantages hold as well...... a point to be considered, ne?