A few weeks ago I saw a rather artistic looking commercial. It was “artistic” in the sense that there was clearly care taken to consider a film stock and to set up and film the commercial on whole. Essentially the setting is sort of a ghetto “war torn” like city area mostly in grays and blues. As the activity of the commercial begins we see children in small groups become engaged in what escalates to a massive water balloon fight. Ironically the music used in the commercial is Teddy Bear’s Picnic. Ironic because this song is usually associated with children in gleeful play out in nature and here we have children who in a juxtaposition are gleeful while the surroundings and composition of the commercial seem to elicit the dirty documentary style that was employed during scenes of rioting in such films as The Battle of Algiers. The subject matter of this film being that that the native residents of French occupied Algeria are using terrorist tactics to fight for their independence from a French occupation that subjugates the the native people.
Okay so this is all pretty involved. On one level, albeit the “deeper” level, the commercial plays as a political commentary about guerilla warfare. However, on the surface the commercial shows children not suffering but playing. In large numbers the young people are enjoying the warm sunny day while having a water balloon fight. No one is shown to be crying or having a bad time, the occasional adult walks by and is oblivious to the fun that the youths are having with their picnic in the ghetto.
So what the hell was this commercial all about? It wasn’t a commercial for water balloons, it wasn’t one of those government PSA’s about getting outside and playing with other children. This commercial which though it had underlying themes of collective warfare, was really just about children playing outside and having fun on a sunny day, was for the new Xbox 360.
I suppose it is a romantic notion that children can play and have fun outside in the numbers and in the environment shown in the commercial. Still I am quite concerned if we have become such a technophilic culture, so detached from our physical world with sunlight and wetness from water balloons, and the laughter that comes from playing with other people that a commercial that features all of this so prominently is used as an advertisement for a video game box where you sit inside and play with people who are somewhere else.
I will concede this point. One of the more popular games for this sort of video game system is Halo which is a war game where an individual or a team fight to save the world, etc. I just don’t think the sytlism of riotous warfare made parody of in the commercial (which I will admit people in this day and age would associate with movies, video games . . . the news) is more strong than the “sense of play” that is conveyed in the content of the commercial.
Did you see the one with all the bouncy balls? It was pretty and also outside and for like Sony I think, also inside garbage.
If we can bring the outside into a nice hue inside, why leave the house?
We are social creatures, but no one ever said we had to interact face to face. Why not just blow up zombies in your living room with a new friend from Zimbawe? Isn’t that connection enough?
The stance I am taking is that “enough” is an odd thing to quantify let alone qualify. It is certainly not enough vitamin D and physical exercise if you are on a couch so there is that . . . but the premise of my argument is that there is “something special” about face to face play. You can’t just quit the game if you have a conflict with another person and I think that alone is a valuable skill that children devolop in play and people need in life.
In what life? Certainly not the life children are living today, which takes place almost entirely in virtual environments where only the physics of the video game reign.
There is only something special about face to face play if it is what matters in your environment when you become an adult. And nowdays, it just doesn’t matter.
I disagree.
On what grounds? Do you deny that our interactions are increasingly held in virtual environments, and that these virtual interactions will soon, if not already, consitiute a majority of our interactions? I already talk to you more often through text on the internet than I do face-to-face. Apart from my fellow grad students, nearly all my interpersonal interactions are virtual. Even with my family.
And this isn’t something novel with the internet; the internet just poses the most striking example. telephones, for instance, already enabled interaction at a distance. So does letter writing, for that matter.
I’m not saying that face to face iinteraction isn’t important. What I am saying is that it is wrong and reactionary bordering on Luddism to see the increasing number of virtual interactions as missing something special that can only be obtained through ‘genuine’ encounters. That would only be the case if the majority of our encouters as adults required real human interaction. But the fact is that interaction is increasingly taking place virtually, and the next generation of adults will be required to feel comfortable interacting virtually because that will become the standard. Video games help us learn how to negotiate virtual domains, and so the child’s play at these games is teaching them a valuable life skill, one that is just as important as running through the streets were for past generations.
I guess when you say “our interactions” it depends on who and what you are talking about? My grounds are simple that face to face interaction cannot be replaced for what it affords and that much can be done virtually is quite true but you can’t get a back rub from your sweetie, you can’t hug your children virtually let alone concieve them. Our bodies need exercise sunlight and play to deny that which makes us human and all that. Not everyone lives a life in front of a computer and I do not think that truly well rounded person can get all they need from virtual interactions.
“I’m not saying that face to face iinteraction isn’t important. What I am saying is that it is wrong and reactionary bordering on Luddism to see the increasing number of virtual interactions as missing something special that can only be obtained through ‘genuine’ encounters. That would only be the case if the majority of our encouters as adults required real human interaction.”
That is wrong. The last sentence does not follow from the preceding at all.
Different does not have to equal bad but it also isn’t neccessarily not bad.
Maybe we do lose something when our interactions with others become increasingly electronic, and we are being forced into this brave new world of online and telephone interaction.
I find it an odd claim that face to face interaction doesn’t matter as an adult. Face to face is still necessary for the survival of the species. You cannot impregnate women by having e-sex or watching pr0n.
And people are social creatures who crave human contact.
So just because being able to navigate a virtual world is important doesn’t mean that the nonvirtual world isn’t equally or perhaps still more important.
I’m not saying our bodies are obsolete or anything like that.
Listen, you can tell fairly well how an animal behaves as an adult by watching the sorts of games it plays when it is young. Kittens pounce and chase things across the floor. Baby deer will butt heads and baby horses will rear up in faux-boxing matches. Baby bears play rough. Play, at a young age, is nature’s way of preparing us for the skills necessary in adult life.
The same goes for human children. Babies spend a lot of time grabbing things and manipulating them with their hands (and more often than not shoving them into their mouth). We are tool users, and it requires agile fingers and good working knowledge of how objects work and how to interact with them. And as babies grow, their games get more complex, and through these games we learn a variety of skills ranging from strategy to social interaction.
I am merely pointing out that the increase of focus on video games at the early stages of life isn’t frivolous or distracting us from what really matters. On the contrary, playing video games really does matter, because it serves to prepare children for negotiating a virtual world which increasingly dominates their environment. These are necessary skills, and play is how they are acquired.
Of course there are things you can’t do virtually, but no one thinks that video games are depriving children from all other social and environmental interaction. But saying you can’t kiss someone online, and using that to undermine the value of virtual interaction generally fundamentally misses the importance of play in children. Which is what the original post was all about, after all.
Who tried to undermine the importance of virtual interaction?
The OP was pointing out that the commercial was stupid.
He then said that there is somethiing special about face to face play and raised a good point about conflict resolution.
Then you said face to face interaction doesn’t matter, TC disagreed, so you resorted to name calling.
We pointed out that face to face interaction does matter.
No one ever said that virtual skills aren’t useful or necessary. We simply said face to face is important as well.
Eschew Equivocation.
And name calling, you prick.
Woah, where did I call anyone names?
Toliver was pointing out an irony implicit in selling video games through a commercial that emphasized real games like running through the street throwing water balloons. Thats a totally legitimate observation, which he suppliments with lament over the fact that kids don’t play outside any more but merely sit in front of the idiot box playing mindless video games.
I’m not accusing him of anything he isn’t already very aware of and has stated explicitly in this thread:
“but the premise of my argument is that there is “something special” about face to face play”
By something special, he doesn’t just mean something unique, that can only be done face to face; he also implies that there is something important lost in ignoring it, something we suffer for not having.
My argument is merely that he has this negative view because he isn’t properly appreciating the value of virtual play, which serves the exact same function as real world play, and is just as important in the lives of kids today, if not drastically more so.
You called him wrong and reactionary and bordering on Luddism.
There is something unique and lost, why won’t you admit that much?
No one here is denying that the virtual world is important. You assumed he had some far reaching negative view.
And you assume the virtual world is the new age and feel justified in ignoring the importance of face to face interaction.
TC and I are not fans of children as couch potatoes. We do not deny that video games and virtual interaction are important, but we also do not believe that should be the main sort of interaction children have.
Mystery Apt Quote of the Day:
“It’s about choices and the overly technophilic seem to want to impose this artificial technical facism because it’s the world they are better at.”