Addictions to the Vitual World

"Virtually is the cultural perception that material objects are interpenetrated by information patterns." (Hayles 69) I really liked this quote and thought that it fit well into what we have been discussing about the the virtual world and how we are fitting into the equation. I think that we are becoming a society that is digitally wired. We are ableto stay connected down to the smallest links. But at times it seems as though we have lost what is happening in the real world. But this is not always a bad thing. We are able to go into so many different directions with technology we have new ways to be creative and enjoy technology.
The article that hit closes to home for me was the Johnson reading where he was describing the the gaming community and the affects that it is having on us today. I think that he makes some valid arguments when he speaks about the fact that the younger generations do not read for pleasure. Most young people today only read books because they are forced to read them. Many young students do not find the time to actually sit down and enjoy the jouirney the the book offers them. They would rather just sit down and try to figure out the latest video game than wonder how a book ends. "People who read for pleasure are many times more likely than those who don't to visit muscums and attend musical performances, almost three times as likely to perform volunteer and charity work an twice as likely to attend sporting events." (Johnson 18) With this quote I found it very interesting how that is not how I see it most of the time.
I do not usually sit down and read book for pleasure and I still volunteer and an go to sporting events. I think that this is a myth in some way to assume that there two types of people the people that into video games and the others who are into reading. But we are not looking into the places where they intersect. Both reading and playing games have the ability to teach people how to do things. We have video games that can help teach young children learn their colors and numbers and enjoy doing it. Reading turns into a old tradition that isolates the reader, and games allow the user to create their own story and create a path to go down.
With reading this article I found that it was very beneficial to read the comparisons between todays new traditions of with using technology and the old tradition of reading a book. We still find ourselves jumping to one side or another. Like we ahve to pick between the new and old. And in this class we are trying to discover the way that we relate to these different ways that information is presented.