The Wiki Man

14 March 2009

A fortnightly column on technology and the web

Greenfield also takes issue with games and online social networks. ‘I often wonder whether real conversation in real time may give way to these sanitised screen dialogues, in much the same way as killing, skinning and butchering an animal has been replaced by the convenience of packages of meat on the supermarket shelf,’ she explains, bizarrely equating real conversation with the kind of thing Jeffrey Dahmer enjoyed on one of his quieter evenings. I’m less happy with this line of criticism. It’s daft to criticise social networking as a poor version of face-to-face contact when it so obviously complements it. And what’s so great about real-life socialising, anyway? Drinks parties, for instance, are often rubbish: you have to stand up for hours, you can’t hear a word anyone says, the wine’s bilge and, since the smoking ban, there are no telltale clouds of smoke to help you spot the interesting people. Give me Twitter any day.

Her attack on computer games is less silly — but not very discriminating. Some games involve ‘fight-or-flight’ orgies of random violence but the best are great tests of mental reasoning. One, World of Goo, is almost a work of art. Bracketing all computer games together is as absurd as suggesting all real games are the same; as though there were no difference between chess and KerPlunk.

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Fraser James

March 14th, 2009 11:16am Report this comment

"there are no telltale clouds of smoke to help you spot the interesting people
So true. On long haul flights if I wanted a chat and a laugh I would always go to the back of the plane where the witty folk were having a smoke.

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