Blog #2

Second Skin was, well, disturbing. The fact that people spend 12-18 hours daily playing a game online is mind blowing. They do not even have time to work, sleep, or eat. Talk about an addiction. The one guy from Philadelphia lost everything so he could pretend to be something he is not in a virtual world.

I also found it astonishing that people use them almost as dating sites. One of the people said they had around 6 online relationships. How does that even work? I can only imagine. Gamer 1: "Oh hey want to go run around in this fake forest and kill fake things for a few real life hours?". Gamer 2: "Yeah sure, its a date". I mean really? Is that what its like? I guess the virtual world is more appealing to them because there are no real problems they have to deal with, there is no real responsibility. They can pretend to be great, when in fact they are just people, mostly with dead end jobs, sitting in a chair, eating hot pockets.


Don't get me wrong, I like gaming just as much as the next guy but I do not let it get in the way of my real life. The life style the people in that documentary describe sounds miserable.

Introduction

If you read the about me section on the side bar you will notice I am a psychology major. I am taking this course because it is required, and well multicultural literature did not strike my fancy. I usually am in reading a book, and the last one I read was Pulp by Charles Bukowski (I would consider him to be among my favorite authors, if not my favorite).


I am not sure how to go about describing my past experiences with literature. However, I will say I am not a fan of having it forced down my throat, so often done in high school. In fact I hated reading the assigned material in high school. On the other hand when I read in my free time I love it. What makes books so great is that everyone can imagine a character or an event differently. 


I am a fan of gaming, movies (my favorite is Snatch), the internet and television. When asked, "what is literature?" all i have to say is, literature is what you make it. I end quoting Salman Rushdie, "Literature is where I go to explore the highest and lowest places in human society and in the human spirit, where I hope to find not absolute truth but the truth of the tale, of the imagination and of the heart.”