English 101
Outcomes Assessment Essay
Spring 2012
Convenience of Technological Entertainment
As I think back on my childhood, one memory seems to be constant—my dad as he dusted off vinyl records. Gently, he would unsheathe them from their delicate sleeves. In the same room I would sit and sift through Nintendo video game boxes and relive each monumental triumph as I read the game titles on the cartridges. I couldn’t help but smile. The conveniently placed game console meant instant gratification, and through today’s technologies, similar consoles continue to mean the same thing. Technological entertainment and its convenience factor are major heartbeats in today’s civilization.
But there will be a time when these sensations mean nothing. There will be an entire generation with new “things” to obsess about. Maybe they won’t be “things” at all. Maybe they won’t care about past generations’ obsessions with video games and electronic media. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe we need to ditch the concept of “instant gratification” and appreciate other types of entertainment.
Once upon a time, we valued our entertainment—we would fall in love it. We appreciated and respected media, and we sought out quality in entertainment and beyond. We would absorb live performances and go to the single theater in town. We used to spend quiet evenings playing parlor games with the family, and we considered that genuine entertainment. But for better or worse, we became fans of things, of objects. I wonder if that is about to become a thing of the past.
My dad still listens to vinyl. My brother still invests in Blu-ray copies of his favorite movies. Instead of purchasing a kindle, I spend hard earned money on my wife’s tangible books because she prefers the feel and texture of the printed page. When most of us think of video games we think of something that comes in a box, which we collect and give value to. But this is the age of convenience, and we’re part of the minority.
Now more than ever, I’ve been thinking about the way I consume media. I love music, but I have given up on the high quality of the compact disc (CD) and have succumbed to the cherished and prestigious iPod Touch—despite the fact they provide a compressed, tinnier sound. Once again, it’s the convenience factor at work. I can carry up to sixty gigabytes of music on my iPhone and iPod Touch. Imagine the amount of CDs I would have to haul around to equal 60 gigs. No thank you. I prefer my mini Apple hard drive and some cheap headphones. The same thing may apply to full length movies or television shows.
I love watching movies, and I’m in possession of a High Definition Television (HDTV), but I can’t remember the last time I bought a movie on Blu-ray. I prefer to stream movies through the various services available to me, or I’ll quickly download a compressed version and suffer the visual sacrifices that come with that compression to my Apple laptop. I don’t want to spend time searching for movies in a store or waiting in line to purchase those movies, and I especially dislike unwrapping the adult-proof tapes and plastics that cover the movies. Streaming movies is much more convenient.
I’ll watch entire documentaries on YouTube. I’ll even scroll through low quality photographs on Facebook. My media life is viewed through a window within a window, surrounded by options for downloading, sharing, annoying advertisements, and with multiple tabs. It is no longer a focused experience—it is progression. It is cheap. It is low quality. It is convenient.
Years ago, “new devices” were bought and sold on because they were top quality. For example, DVDs were high quality. CDs delivered the best sound possible. Nowadays we’re happy to sacrifice quality for convenience, and that goes for our video games as well.
The onset of mobile devices was supposed to ring in “The Age of Convergence,” but it has really been a starting point for a new Age of Convenience—an age where quality is a niche market and where technology has lost its ambitious quality. We all have access to multiple types of media, and the only questions we ask are: how quickly can we access it, and how can we fit it into our busy lives?
Despite the fact that technology has granted us an unmatched amount of free time, that same technology has convinced us that our time is more valuable—that we have less of it. Part of the issue is the massive swarm of media that surrounds our lives every day. How do we find time in our lives to digest this media? How do we maximize our potential to consume entertainment? This is a mentality that has filtered through to the way we now consume video games.
I consider myself a “gamer” or whatever that translates into today. I play a lot of video games. But still, I find myself reaching for convenience over quality. I wonder what that means…
It means that my PlayStation 3 remains untouched, while I play $0.99 iOS (iPhone operating system) games anywhere I have free time. It means I prefer short bursts of gaming instead of investing time and energy into the latest Call of Duty. This is the age of convenience, and I must do what is convenient for me and my lifestyle. I’m happy to sacrifice the glitz and glam in order to do so, especially if that means spending more time with my wife. Because let’s face it: happy wife, happy life.
In the future of video games, I expect “quality” and “high production values” to become an increasingly niche area. As video games continue their relentless march towards ever-coveted, award winning games and storylines, the affluent experience will be pushed further to the outskirts, and if we want to continue indulging in that kind of experience, we will have to pay more for it.
In the future, we will have to fork up the cash for quality, but most likely we will settle for what is convenient. I wonder what that means for fans—for those who truly love media, be that music, movies, or video games. Will we eventually trivialize the content we consume, or will “fans” simply be pushed towards the outskirts of the mainstream? Maybe that’s where we’ve always been.
I respect the process of fandom and the impact it has on people’s lives, but I look at media today, and I wonder precisely what it is I’m supposed to be a fan of. What will my children fall in love with, what will they value? Will they unsheathe vinyl like my Dad? Will they fall in love with books like my wife? Will they simply obsess over the objects that media is stored on? Will my kids treat their old iPhones with the same reverence that I treat my copy of The Princess Bride? It’s hard to say. I find it difficult to believe consumers will stop being “fans” of things. Becoming a fan is a human trait that will simply evolve.
But on what will our future generations foist their nostalgia? What will they care about? What will they become obsessed with? Maybe it’s a sign of aging. Maybe I’m just getting old. In essence, I sincerely don’t have an answer to that question.