Modern
technology has had a tremendous influence on the world of human recreation, partly
as a result of the development of totally new forms of competition, both with
others as well as with oneself, in the form of video games. In addition, modern technology has created
electronic versions of games that have existed in some form for centuries. A good example of the latter is bingo. Modern technology has created a version where
players hold electronic devices that can carry dozens of bingo cards and that
automatically mark the appropriate spaces in all the appropriate cards when a
bingo number is called. No need to worry
about having gotten distracted and having missed a box on one’s bingo card when
a number is called. The electronic
device never gets distracted when the bingo numbers are being called. And I guess that because bingo is frequently
couched as a form of gambling, eliminating as many of the risk factors as is
possible may be a relevant factor for people who have what is for them serious
money on the line.
But
what does this do to bingo as a game, as a life activity? Now playing bingo is certainly not one of the
most significant ways of making organic imprints on one’s field of
experience. As a form of competition, it
is certainly not what would be called a highly skilled game compared to chess,
bridge, checkers, backgammon, dominoes, poker, or scrabble. But it does require a certain skill in being
vigilant about the numbers being called and being able to scan one’s card or
cards as each number is called, and this tends to bring all the players
together emotionally, as they share the surprise and excitement created by the
situation. So traditional bingo can be
not only fun but it can be a rich vibrant experience and a contribution to the
memories that are formed of a meaningful life narrative, memories that can play
a small but useful part in developing a person’s surrogate immortality.
But
with electronic bingo, the major components of human agency being exercised in
traditional bingo, those of vigilantly listening for the number called and
scanning the bingo cards for a match, are eliminated. The electronic devices retrieve the numbers
being called and automatically match them on the person’s cards. The gambling aspect is still there. The suspense and excitement are still
present, if only in a more attenuated way.
But in the larger scheme of things, in the larger field of experience of
life, one more piece of personal agency in the larger world of human narrative
is lost. And one more small source of
organic friction, as an opportunity to test ourselves for being aware and quick,
disappears. And one more source of
interactive life is vacuumized and turned into a screen reality activity.
Supposedly,
the reason that so much work activity has been vacuumized by modern technology
has been so that we could have the time, energy, and state of mind to immerse
ourselves in recreation: a sphere of human activity in which we could focus on
having rich vibrant life experiences.
But now, not just bingo, but so many different areas of recreation have
been and are being vacuumized. Many of
us spend more time watching life on a screen than we do living life directly
under the propulsion of our own volition.
Young kids spend less and less time playing outside and more and more
time watching television, playing video games, and interacting with each other
on their smartphones.
Real
life is physical movement through time and space with a purpose. This is what makes for a meaningful human
narrative. To fully be able to
experience this movement, there has to be human agency and there has to be
friction. But modern technology is
chipping away at both of these. In the case
of electronic bingo, there is a loss of human agency, because it is the
electronic device that makes the match between the called number and the bingo
cards. There is a loss of friction,
because the person no longer is moving the markers onto his cards and no longer
feels anxiety over his responsibility for watching and controlling his cards. There is still anxiety over the risk
involved, if he is gambling on the bingo cards, but the risk is based on forces
that are now completely beyond his control.
They are abstract forces. If he
loses, he no longer has to beat himself over the head about what he could have
done better. He can be fatalistic. It is no longer his personal loss. Such a loss is not evidence of a deficient
organic imprint. Of course, the loss
still creates pain and anguish, because the player is still being hurt. Only this time it is because of random
activities with which he is not directly involved.
So
soon we will get to the point where we have sucked all the personal agency and
all the personal organic friction not only out of practically all work
activities, but out of all recreational activities as well. The world will move along around us, and we
will just sit there in our numb state watching everything going by.
To
the extent that we go through life stages, this growth can be considered a kind
of movement in place. But if everything becomes
free of organic friction, what do we actually experience. Life becomes a voyage analogous to sliding
down a chute. When you slide down a
chute, there is no opportunity to make or receive meaningful organic imprints
in connection to the surfaces around you.
And there is no opportunity of, course, to preserve organic imprints, to
recreate a surrogate immortality, and to prepare for death.
In
most of my articles, I have balanced my discussions of the understimulation of
the vacuum, with explorations of the overstimulation of the abrasive friction
caused by the waste products of tension pockets. I have ignored the influence of these tension
pockets in this article, because I wanted to focus on the primary influence of
the diminution of organic friction by the electrification of bingo, and the
growing appearance of a sensory vacuum for the players, as they have nothing
significant to do during the game.
Playing
electronic bingo is just one small piece in the ongoing attempt by creators and
promoters of modern technology to chip away at the organic friction that has
traditionally been an integrated part of the life narratives of human
beings. Furthermore, this modern version
of an old game shows that the proponents of modern technology are out to make
not only work more and more frictionless, but recreation as well. And as all of life increasingly turns into a
frictionless vacuum, people in their growing numbness become increasingly like
robots, in order to survive the sensory distortion created by a vacuum and the
forces of entropy that underlie it. This
is why even a little game like electronic bingo has a significant influence as
one small part of an increasingly pernicious technological transformation of
our human living environment.
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