WOW is Right!

         So, when I was thinking about what I was going to write for my second free write blog, I thought about the last topic we studied in class about Massive Multi-Player Online Role Playing Games such as World of Warcraft.  I took an English Class Winter and Spring quarter of my Freshman year called Science, Technology, and the Self.  We studied things such as second life and MMORPG’s in this class as well.  We actually even watched the same video about the WOW convention that we watched last week in Sociology 49.  

         This subject really interests me because I have seen first hand what it can do to people and how it can affect real-life relationships.  My younger brother who is 17 and my ex-stepfather who is 43 both used to play WOW for hours and hours on end.  My younger brother was diagnosed with general anxiety disorder as well as bipolar disorder when we was ten years old.  When he was a freshman in high school he missed a lot of school due to chronic migraines.  When the migraines subsided, he tried to go back to school and continue where he left off however the amount of work that he had to make up overwhelmed him and his anxiety level was at an all-time high.  It also probably did not help that all of his friends, just as teenage boys do, gave him a hard time and harassed him for why he was not at school for of that time.  Due to this, my mom had to pull him out of our high school and start him in a local independent studies program.  

         Since my brother was no longer regularly attending school, or playing sports, his new interest was WOW.  He got into the game along with my stepfather at the time.  They would stay up all night together playing WOW and sometimes all day.  They would hide in their rooms and office like cavemen and wouldn’t come out unless it was time to eat or if they needed to use the restroom.  It was bad.  My stepdad still worked and only played at night but it was getting in the way of him and my mom because he would no longer spend his free time with her.  He used this an outlet when he was depressed or upset, which was most of the time it was a problem.  For my brother, he had nothing else to do.  He was not going to school, wasn’t playing sports, WOW became his life.  My mom was really worried about him because he wouldn’t go to sleep at night so his sleep cycle was all messed up.  He would play all night and sleep all day.  We would ask him, “Colten, why don’t you come out and play a game with the family?” His response would be something like, “I’m in the middle of raid, it’s going to be a few more hours.”  

         Luckily, my brother broke that habit.  He no longer plays WOW and if he does, it is only for an hour or so when he is home alone and both my brother and mom are at work.  He sleeps, eats, and goes out his daily routine in a healthy way, and no longer lets WOW dictate his life.  I am so thankful for that because we as a family, now can be a family and have dinners and other events together without having to wonder if Colten’s brigade was going to be a part of a raid that evening.  When it comes to my former stepfather, I am not sure if he still plays WOW, but I do know that he let this get in the way of his marriage and even though World of Warcraft was not the primary reason for my parents’ divorce, it was a contributing factor.  

         MMORPG’s are very addicting and they do cause a lot of people to withdraw themselves from their regular, real lives, and indulge themselves in a fantasy world.  The video we watched about the WOW convention and how people feel about WOW makes me cringe.  I do not understand how people can actually consider their brigade members on facebook to be better friends than with people they can relationships with face to face.  I do not understand how people can get engaged when never meeting each other.  I think that MMORPG’s are terrible.  Even though I do believe that one can play in moderation as a release without getting consumed by it or having it run their life, I also do not suggest ever allowing a loved one to begin playing WOW or other games like it as there is that chance of it becoming their life.  

Cyber Bullying

         The reading that we did at the beginning of the quarter, “What Makes the Internet a Place to Seek Social Support?” written by Martin Tanis, does a good job of putting both the positive and negative aspects about Online Social Support Groups into perspective.  In his article, Tanis discusses how anonymity is a huge benefit to Online Social Support Groups but then counters this idea with the view that anonymity can also be a huge problem with online sociality (Tanis 2011).  One of the main reasons that he gives as to why anonymity is a problem is because of things such as online harassment which is also known as cyber bullying.  Cyber bullying and online harassment is a big problem into today’s society.  It ranges from personal attacks to general insults on cultures and subcultures.  

         One minor example of online harassment, in my opinion, include comments like the ones posted on YouTube.  A lot of people who go onto YouTube are ruthless asses who just post rude things because they can.  Because of anonymity, no one knows actually who the person leaving the comment is, giving the commenters the freedom to post whatever they want without having to suffer any consequences.  I have seen many comments that actually do not say anything real... it’s just a few words between curse words.  Comments like these make the person posting them look ignorant.  However, even though I personally would not take the things that complete strangers have to say to heart, some people do take it personally.  Personal attacks such as these do get to people and affect the way they see themselves and the way they live their lives.  

         Earlier this year, on March 21, a seventeen year old girl, Alexis Pilkington, committed suicide.  An investigation occurred only to discover that cyber bullying could have been a main contributer to her suicide.  Even after her death, vicious messages were continuing to be sent to her profile from the taunters.  The messages were very nasty and although she was is counseling before the messages started coming in, her parents said that these messages played a major role in their daughter’s unhappiness.  CBS News covered this story.  http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/03/29/earlyshow/main6343077.shtml

         After reading these article, I was very sad to think that such a young woman, whose life had not nearly even begun, killed herself because of mindless, ignorant people who do not think about the consequences of their actions.  I do not understand how people can send such horrible messages to people.  I mean, what do they think it is going to do?  What do they think that it is going to solve?  Cyber bullying affects teenagers as well as adults around the world and will suicides like this one will continue on as long as people continue to be selfish and not think about the things that they say before they say them.  

         The Internet allows for cyber bullying as anonymity is a huge part of online socialization.  I really hope that they find a way to control this issue because as we can see from the article about Lexi Pilkington, cyber bullying indeed does affect people in a direct way.  

Technology and Social Interaction

        I talked a little bit about this issue in my last blog because I think that it is a big issue in society today.  I think that the spread of technology has had a NEGATIVE impact on our everyday face to face interaction.  I think we lose our raw communication and relationship skills when we rely on technology as our primary source of communication.  Face to face interactions are what build our relationships, both with friends, family, and lovers.  Technology has substituted seeing the smile of your boyfriend across the table to seeing that little smiley emoticon [ :) ] on the screen of your cell phone or computer.  It has replaced hearing your loved one’s laugh over an inside joke with a “lol” or a “haha.”  One of my favorite things about having face to face conversations with people is hearing their voice, listening to the changes in tone and looking at their face, seeing the changes in facial expression.  I think that these things are some of the core parts of building and sustaining strong relationships.  

         I think that it is a joke that people think they can start relationships via online dating sites, Craiglist, message boards, fan sites, online gaming, or virtual worlds.  I think that this is a cop-out way of meeting people.  I think that those who are afraid to go and put themselves out there in real-life situations use the Internet as their way of meeting people and developing “relationships.”  

         I do not think that connecting to others via online communities is a viable way of creating meaningful relationships.  You need more than a keyboard and a computer screen to create a meaningful relationship.  You need that face to face communication to really create long-lasting relationships.  It is easy to create relationships based on lies when you create them over the Internet.  You can tell people exactly what they want to hear over the Internet, whether it is actually true or not, they won’t know.  But I think that it is much harder for people to lie to someone’s face when first establishing a relationship.  On the other side, I totally understand the Internet and technology is a good way to sustain meaningful relationships as we are not all lucky enough to live near the ones we love so sometimes, we must rely on these forms of communication to keep relationships going.  Facebook and Skype allow us to stay connected to the ones we love when we are unable to drive a few hours or even fly across the country to say I love you or to see how they are doing.  I am who relies on these technologies as means to keep my relationships at home going.  But there is a bigggg difference between CREATING relationships through online and SUSTAINING them through online.   

I do not necessarily think that we are neglecting out everyday relationships in favor of these “virtual” relationships but I also do not think that we are making room for our everyday relationships because Internet relationships take much less effort.  

         I do think that we, as a society, need to focus on creating more “real” spaces/public spheres for people to connect and interact.  The relationships that we establish through raw means of communication are those that are going to last, not the ones that start of with “lol”s and [ :) ]s.  Even though this will probably not happen, I think that we need to continue back to when people met up and went for coffee to catch up, not grabbed their laptops and typed back and forth and considered it “good enough”.  I know that I am just a guilty as anyone when it comes to using this cop out form of communication and I am personally trying to improve that, I hope that others will as well.