Second Skin and Culture Jam

A few words popped into my head after only the first few minutes of second skin: ridiculous, weird, obsessed, and disturbing.  If you would take the computer away from these people, it would be like taking crack from a drug addict.  They are addicted.  How someone can sit in front of a computer screen and waste their lives away is something I will never understand or agree with. I found it hard to sit and watch the different segments of videos, and had to take breaks to go and do something else.  I think it is very important to stay active not only because it is fun, but to promote life long health.  This is one contributing factor to the increasing amount of obesity in the United States. You can see this just taking into account the majority of gamers featured in this documentary.  They sit around in front of the computer for hours and eat tons of processed food, sugar, and fat.  They are not only putting themselves at risk of becoming overweight, but a number of health disorders that down the round can become deadly or disabling.  Anyone who would choose to do this to themselves in my mind is crazy.

I feel sad for the people in this documentary.  First off, it is sad that these people seem to have "closer" relationships with people online who they have never met than their own family.  I do not think that these people have true friends with those they meet online.  You should be able to have direct conversations and be able to do real activities with your friends.  It shows these people are not happy with their own lives and have to get online to be happy.  I think that if they spent less time playing a ridiculous video game, and more time trying to better themselves, they would have better lives.  I also feel this way about the so-called couples who met online.  I do not consider these people to have real romantic relationships.  I am not surprised that a lot of them break up because you can not get to know someone over the phone or internet.  A lot of people claim to be someone they are not online.  There also has to be some type of face to face interaction because that is how you know if you have chemistry and can have fun together.

I think that these gamers are the perfect example of who the author of Culture Jam describes and is worried about.
            Kalle Lasn writes, "Most of us are now fully  detached from the natural world.  We can barely remember the last time we drank from a stream, smelled wild skunk cabbage or saw the stars from a dark remove, well away from the city."

This sentence most likely describes every gamer in the US, and anyone else who lets technology and media run their lives. I can honestly say that it does not describe me or anyone in my family.  I was fortunate enough growing up with plenty of land and woods to have endless opportunities to play sports and play outdoors.  My parents encouraged my sister and I to play outside, hike, ride bikes, go four wheeling, swim, and get involved in sports.  They also did these activities with us, which I think not enough parents do these days.  Parents try to find stuff to keep their kids busy, like watching tv and video games, instead of finding activities they can do together. This reminds me of a passage in Culture Jam that described people who would not survive a family camping trip, and who are unable to have stimulating conversations with their family or other real people.  They would all score incredibly low on the "reality index" that Lasn also mentions in the book.  They more than likely spend way more time laughing at jokes from television or online than from a real person.