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Ken del Rossi
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Okay, I confess. I am officially
out of it.
The moment of realization came when I was reading our
story on gadget-savvy students
and I came across the acronym MMORPG. What the . . .
?
Sounds like a suspicious government agency, or the
name of a vowel-allergic rapper. Turns out it stands
for Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game.
Of course you already knew that, right?
In an MMORPG, with-it people all over the world log
on, assume a character in a fantasy simulation and compete
for, well, I’m not sure about that part. Dominance,
I guess.
MMORPGs are hugely popular, especially with college
students. The analogue for those of us who grew up in
the ’70s might be Dungeons and Dragons, an elaborate
simulation game that was usually played by bearded graduate
students named Lester. The difference is MMORPGs don’t
require getting all your friends together in one room,
or even having friends, since you can play against whoever
shows up in this virtual world.
Anyway, after reading Christine Foster’s article,
I was confident it would be illuminating to STANFORD
readers because I had already learned a lot by paragraph
four. And what I learned was this: I am sadly out of
touch, not only with the massively multiplayer universe
and its adherents, but maybe with something more serious—youth
itself.
Our story refers to them as the “technology natives,”
the first generation of students that has never known
a world that didn’t include instant, 24/7 communication,
go-anywhere phones and Internet dating. To them, interrupting
a conversation means leaving their laptop to go get
a sandwich.
Their lives are governed by digital devices. That may
be a bit of an overstatement, but I imagine many would
agree that they’d be lost without their iPods.
It would be easy to look at this always-on phenomenon
and be jaundiced. But instead of playing the skeptic,
I’ve decided to inhabit this world awhile and
see what’s it like.
From now on, I will only talk to people via instant
messaging. I’ll order all my new clothes online
and sell the old ones on eBay. I will never buy a movie
ticket in person, never set foot in a bank, never read
a newspaper made from paper. I will make my own CDs
one song at a time, thank you very much, and don’t
bother trying to sell me the whole album. I will send
postcards electronically, travel virtually and share
my deepest thoughts with total strangers by blogging
each and every day.
Most important, my new associates will know me by my
MMORPG name, Bazar the Terrible, wielder of an enchanted
spear and overlord of Outer Sanctum. You can call me
Lester for short.
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