Just another thought...
Any time I can quote Rage Against the Machine I can't pass it up...
"Environment
The environment exceeding on the level
Of our unconciousness
For example,
What does the billboard say?
Come and play!, come and play!
Forget about the movement"
"Freedom." Rage Against the Machine. 1992.
I started my post about four times this week, but I never submitted it because I couldn't figure out exactly what I was getting at. It just sounded dumb. Luckily, there's Zack de la Rocha!
What I was trying to get at was the notion of play as distraction. As Huizinga says, "inside the circle of the game the laws and customs of ordinary life no longer count" (12). I'm not necessarily a conspiracy theorist. I don't think there's a singular malignant force somewhere that's trying to hypnotize us with reality television and sweet tarts. But I do wonder, like Turkle suggests, how susceptible we are or are becoming to losing ourselves in simulated worlds, to pondering our perfect mirrors. Granted, people lose themselves in all kinds of things, not just video games. We typically call them vices. But what I find fascinating, is the ubiquitous computing because its geared toward play. At any given moment no matter where I'm at, I'm carrying enough technology to play games, surf the web, listen to music, etc. Maybe that's why consumer electronics are so often referred to as toys.
We even have monuments to play in the form of Disney world and Las Vegas. "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" because "inside the circle of the game the laws and customs of ordinary life no longer count" (Huizinga 12)."