The complexity of the answers to your questions are off the scale of what I would even attempt to convey on a forum. I have an issue with verbosity anyway, so maybe someone else who understands can answer those questions with a reasonable level of explanation.
Normally I read far more than I respond, sometimes because I don't know or understand or there is no response needed, but more often because my response will not be condensed enough that most anyone will read it. Sometime I also don't have time as well. Most of the time when I post I type out what I wish then spend the next few minutes condensing it as far as I can without too much loss on meaning. I find this frustrating sometimes as so much is lost in this compression. If the compression causes too much loss, I often never actually post. This happens often and when it does I say to myself jokingly "Lame Post" relative to Lame Duke... as without this polish, the end product just isn't worth bothering or at least doesn't represent what I wanted to say.
The point to the above statement is related to the below quoted material is why I even got here.
With that said, I have some speculations or theories that are brief enough to attempt.
Protected by Viper, on 27 July 2014 - 10:04 PM, said:
Why don't they just fucking play it?
I wondered this too when I first learned about this. While I like watching videos of gameplay to learn about them, to see if I might want to play them.
Speculations
1. Economics? Maybe they are poor and have adapted to only watching what others are able to do?
2. Motivational? It could be that they are just so ultra lazy compared to earlier generations and would rather be fed input than interact.
3. Social? It could just be the influence of society that the concept of being fed rather being more interactive/inventive/creative is completely ok which would compound with #2 (no pun).
Protected by Viper said:
I don't understand how downright absorbed in technology today's youth are. Or, for that matter, modern day nerd culture (Which is even more isolationist). I mean, it's kind of an issue with people in their 20's but teenagers and younger literally can't be pulled away from a screen.
I don't have much exposure directly to many children, but my girlfriend son is now 15 and we talk about this at times as he grew up with me from age 4 until one year ago... living in the country, growing food, heating with firewood etc. Although he has some "laziness" that at times seems appalling to me, I don't know that he is that different from myself at that age other than some maturity differences. He DOES note how so many of friends are "still smart" which he interprets based on how much they remember, not an actual assessment of their intellect, but are SO uninteresting. He goes on and on about how they can't talk about real things "like we do". That is hard to define here with a paragraph of background. <deleted> Anyway, listening to how he defines all the new kids he is exposed to is pretty foreign to me.
Protected by Viper said:
Even when Zelda 64 was king shit, that game was a half assed excuse against actually exploring in the woods or riding your bike...and I was a fucking fat kid. And I still am fat.
My dad would not ever get us like an Atari as we were really poor anyway, but he did get us a Commodore Vic-20 in 1982 which I spent a LOT of time on... but like you describe I didn't divorce my bike and my exploration of the woods.
I believe it worked this way for myself (and possibly you) because we already had a base of doing such things. Most of these kids are "born" with this tech in their hands and I believe they just never make it to a bike or into the woods.
Protected by Viper said:
Also, what the fuck happened to edutainment? I'm sorry but I'm still feeling impact on my mindset 20 years down the line. I'm not kidding. That really changed how I took in information. I've been ravenous about scientific stuff ever since.
I mean, seriously, I would say at least half the television I watched as a kid was educational. Moreso as years went on, and I moved to New York, where Cablevision actually gave us fucking channels like Animal Planet, unlike gay ass Comcast. That was pretty much the end of Nickelodeon for me.
There's more content than ever, but it's all crap.
Yep... television today is pretty bad. Hahaha... ok, just kidding cause I have not watched television in over 15 years. I have seen a tiny bit a few times over the years at other houses. Of course there are plenty of things to watch that are interesting, but it seems the vast majority doesn't choose those. Around 2000 I dated this girl that had cable and we watched the surgery channel and other stuff I can't remember now, but it was almost all educational.
When I am getting pressure from family or others to "get out more" or "do things in society" or whatever I generally explain my resistance of such things like this... I am not an "entertainment" type of person... I seldom go to movies or watch movies and I don't watch television because they simply aren't enjoyable. Then there is those who enjoy going out to eat often, attending sports events or other large-group social events. The point is that the majority of people I know seem hyper-focused on "being fed" rather than doing.
When movies or games are extremely entertaining to me, I almost always build things relative to them... take the Nuke floor for example. Why don't more of us ride bikes, explore woods, and have Nuke Floors? I can't answer this, but it seems related to what I view as "the entertainment" types vs the "bike riding, woods exploring" types.
It is easy to say "Lazy", yes? But lazy is relative in a way as we no long have to survive in a natural way. Many thoughts, but out of time. Go to go out to the woods, so to speak.
More later maybe...
MrBlackCat