Holly Sullivan

English Language and Linguistics Graduate. 

[hollysullivan]

Gaming Addiction

From around ages 5-10, trying to get me to sit inside for more than an hour was quite a challenge. I was always out playing games in my cul-de-sac road with a group of boys all around my age. Yes, all boys. I was more of an Action Man than I was a Barbie Girl. 

 I had so much fun in these years and subsequently, I find it really disappointing that children in today’s society are CONSTANTLY gaming and have essentially been robbed of an imaginative childhood. However, it would be unfair to say that this has not been a part of most people’s life; including my own.

 After the bare foot, playing outside days; when I was about 11, The Sims was introduced to my life and that of all my friends. I spent days creating my perfect dream home, with 20 flat screen TV’s, 15 rooms, and a pool the size of a small country. Then after, like everyone else, I would put my sims in the pool and take out all the ladders. Even now, me and my flatmates reminisce on all the same cruel things we made our Sims do. 

 These trends in gaming are still relevant in todays culture; but in a more harmful way. Now, after a 10 second search on the App Store you can see the “top trending free games” in an accessible numbered chart. It connects people in a way that is consistently surrounding us- “what’s your high score on Flappy Bird?”, “have you downloaded that new game Colour Switch?” or “look how many likes this girl got”. For me, this obsessive culture poses a question of the underlying effects that gaming has on our generation. Our conversation is increasingly being dominated by the recent happenings on social media, high scores, how many steps you’ve made on your Iphone’s inaccurate pedometer…

Essentially, it encourages addictive tendencies within people from a young age. Whether it be beating your high score or that of your friends, doing that extra 1000 steps, or getting that extra 20 likes. We are constantly craving more, and although of something rather trivial; in my opinion, it is quite alarming.

[hollysullivan]

If you’ve got nothing short to say, don't say it at all.

I am a reader. I burn through books in the space of a week. At the moment I am near completing ‘The Help’ and I can’t put it down. The characters and storyline engulf my concentration from anything else in the world- the other day the ticket officer on the train had to ask me three times to show my ticket.

However, when it comes to social media, I have the attention span of a goldfish. Longer than a paragraph long? I simply can’t be bothered. Thank god for 140 characters on twitter; bore me later with your “twitlonger”

If my auntie sends me an email, I know I have to set aside at least 30 minutes to read it. I wrack my brains for a lengthy reply to match hers but can honestly only write so much before my attention lies elsewhere; which is certainly out of character for an English Language student.

Do we feel that because of social media guidelines it has firmly set the belief within us that only temporary and short content is worthy of interest? Snapchats being a disposable 10 seconds long and Tweets only allowing for 140 characters reinforce this message exactly.

It subsequently diminishes the importance of meaningful content and encourages shallow reading. Although there are of course other platforms for longer content such as blogs and forums, the popular mediums for content sharing impose an ideal of “if you’ve got nothing short to say, don’t say it at all”

[hollysullivan]

Emoji’s

Emoji’s are a fairly recent phenomenon, and are essential to modern day texting. They are used to convey the meaning of a message in the correct light; without them, there could be potential carnage. They are used as contextualization ques and can be a serious make or break component within a text. Girls will ask their friends when texting a new flame “what emoji should I add to the end? Is 😏too suggestive? Or should I just put 🙂”. They are crucial for distinguishing the fine line between confidence and arrogance; happiness and sadness; flirty and just plain weird.

Emoji’s have also enabled us to reinvent the meanings of symbols that have previously had a totally different purpose.  🔥= burning fire, right? Wrong. If you see these flames commented under a person’s Instagram post, this ACTUALLY means that they are physically attractive. I know, are we cruelly confusing our parents generation on purpose? 

Where would we be without the sacred Emoji? We would have confused texters; vague messages; and one less terrible film to add to the collection that is Shrek 3, Teeth and Sharknado.

[hollysullivan]

Group Chats

Group chats. We’re all in one.  “English Lang Galz; House B*tchez; The Girls” you name it, there is a group chat for it. Why do we find it so necessary to gather in a cyber space to gossip about the most recent teenage mum reveal and other trivial aspects of life. Its indescribable, but the need is real. The most popular medium for group chats is Whatsapp. Which has now, much like Google, been changed from a noun into a verb. Group chats are so essential to modern culture that now “Whatsapping” is actually a verb. (Not officially, however) 

But where would we be without them? In this day and age it’s the only way that anything can get organised. Whether it be finding out how far people have come on completing their coursework, or sorting out peoples request for your dominos take away - they’re vital for order within large groups. Its baffling to think how people organised large events before. Did they have to face the horror of individual landline calls? Sending out actual paper invites? Carrier pigeons? It’s almost pre-historic.

Read the Buzzfeed article below for the best and worst aspects of being part of  a group chat:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/floperry/we-need-to-stick-to-one-thread?utm_term=.yg160M5wvp#.bv5rdl5QE2

[hollysullivan]

I’m not a puppet, I’m a real boy!

The face is arguably the most vulnerable and true part of yourself. Something that is always on show and cannot be hidden. This for me, is why the name “Facebook” is quite ironic.

A Facebook profile will not show the bad parts of a person; the parts you can’t hide in real life. You can make yourself into whoever you want to be, with the help of filters and the ‘remove tag’ button. In my personal opinion, this is dangerous for modern society as it imposes the ideal that perfection and a filtered state is something we should strive for.  Why is it that we feel the need to untag the photos taken of you where you have three chins and half shut eyes? 

It’s an interesting thought to think what Facebook profiles would be if we couldn’t filtrate what was on display. Or if we really wrote “What’s on our mind…” It makes me wonder who is really in control, you, or the unwritten ideals of Facebook?

[hollysullivan]

Internet Idiots

Above are the suggestions when you type in “why does” on the world’s biggest search engine; Google. Not “why does the earth rotate around the sun in exactly 365 days” or “why does racism still happen” instead, the public desperately want to know “why does my cat lick me.” Although this is a valid and fairly inquisitive question (that admittedly, I looked at the results for)- is it questions like these that are really going to better our knowledge of the issues that actually matter? 

Our collective searches are pretty trivial. This can be avoided however- but only if you are interested in these important matters in the first place. Every internet using individual has personal searches which are recorded and stored for the next time you search something similar. The first time you search “Donald Trump racist”, Google will store this in their archives and every time after this your Google results for “Donald Trump” will be dominated by negative articles that scorn him. This is due to algorithms and cookies stored within your internet software. Subsequently, this narrows our minds and we become brainwashed by our own ideologies and interests, trapping us in a filter bubble; making the dumb, dumber and the intelligent, more so.

The internet has a great power over its users, a power beyond our knowledge. Although used for a variety of reasons, mainly, the internet is used as a source to retrieve information and expand our worldly awareness but, does the internet itself discreetly hinder the diversity of our intelligence?