Virtually Limiting

Let me just start with saying that this is not meant to be anti-technology. I'm grateful for technology. I relish in my technology. I use it everyday. It helps our lives be more efficient and frees up our time to allow us to focus on even more creative endeavors. One of the best things about it is the way it can connect people from all over the world. But in the same vain, it can have an isolating effect that I find very alarming. It becomes very easy to slip from the world of reality to the world of virtual reality. I think that virtual reality separates us from real things and therefore, real people. Video games are a classic example of this. You can sit at home and even talk to strangers that are connected on the "interweb". With this, there is a distance between individuals. It's not just a physical distance but emotional distance. Even text messaging and chatting on Facebook (or the the like) is limiting. In I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou writes, "Words mean more then what is set down on paper. It takes a human voice to infuse them with the shades of deeper meaning." So much is lost in the written word alone. When we are so removed from others, it leads to cruelty and inhumanity.
Now, I'm not saying, "Never text again!" or "Death to all Halo players!" I'm just saying I think it is important to assess the reasons behind their use and to what extent they are being used. There is a hierarchy of meaningful and personal interaction and something lower on the totem pole should not replace or over power the more important and meaning ones.

P.S. I also think Anime is a way of avoiding reality (or suspending it) but that's for another time.

And now for the quote of the day: "I will lick the brain..." -one of my students wrote this and only this instead of doing his storyboard assignment. Go figure.