The Beijing Times reports that “after playing online games for three days straight at an internet cafe in China, a 30 year old man collapsed and fell into a coma and was pronounced dead at a hospital. It was reported the man had not ate, slept, or drank for three days straight after spending more than $1500 on internet gaming.”
What did we do before the Internet?
From archaeological evidence, it seems people went out more in the past, to places like rivers and barns and where pebbles rang in “the holy streams”. Where time, distance or circumstance prevented, they came to them in their dreams.
I never saw a moor;
I never saw the sea,
Yet know I how the heather looks
And what a billow be.
The possible impact of video games may have been first been foreshadowed in popular culture by Mr. Spock and Captain Christopher Pike in the Star Trek episode Menagerie. Trapped in his body by a crippling accident, Pike is returned by the loyal Spock to Talos, a world in which everything is a video game; everything is an illusion. There Pike can live out his days free from his body. The Talosians’ final message to Kirk is “Captain Pike has an illusion, and you have reality. May you find your way as pleasant.”
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