My boys love to
play FIFA 14 on the PS3. It is their way of relaxing after school and enjoying
themselves at home. They would be on it permanently if they had their way –
which they don’t. Whenever they lose or the game goes against them, they say
things like “that was a massive glitch,” or “the game's really glitchy today.”
These ‘glitches’ do seem to be something of a phenomenon and if you type ‘FIFA 14
glitches’ into youtube it will show you the games best ever glitches. These moments of computer freakery and technological meltdown annoy my kids
and this got me thinking about how reliant we are on computers, technology and
broadband to actually exist nowadays. When it goes wrong we are screwed, quite literally, life's a glitch. How
were things before the Internet, computer games and Tesco deliveries? I can
barely remember. What I do recall is that communication – I’m talking
face to face engagement here – was a damn sight better. People actually spoke
to one another and held conversations. So often, the four of us will be at home
and each one of us will be looking at a screen. Me and the GLW (see Saturday’s
post for definition) and our two boys all sat there in our own little worlds,
computers on laps, or I-phones/I-pod touches held up to faces, looking at
wherever our minds have directed us to on the Internet. The best family time is the old fashioned family meal, all of us sat around the dining table eating and chatting. Of course the ability
to communicate virtually, by e mail and social media is fine, a great way to stay in touch and a very nice thing on one level but it isn’t proper communication is it? It’s not a
telephone call or a physical - we are standing in front of each
other - kind of meeting. I guess today, things get done at a much quicker rate and we
are more efficient at what we do due to the technology. Two very good friends of mine have never held
facebook or Twitter accounts. Can you believe it? They don’t appear to have
been affected by this and I admire the fact they have been able to resist. Just
think of all the pictures of other peoples dinner they have missed out on!!
Actually, once you are in, there is no going back. Can you seriously imagine closing
your Facebook account? One thing that I love the Internet for and what I guess is it’s main purpose, is to find out information. My eldest son is reading
Emil And The Detectives at the moment and he asked me about the currency used
in the book, which happens to be what was in circulation prior to decimilisation in 1971. Another interesting fact that I discovered
when helping him find out about his query, is that if an elderly person talks about
LSD, they are not referring to drugs but to pounds, shillings and pence as per
the pre 1971 currency used in the UK. Don’t you feel so much better now you
know that piece of information? Right, that’s enough for now, I’m going to check my Facebook
account, send a few tweets and write up my blog…
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