Technology and Future Time Wasters

Was wasting time as prevalent in the previous generations or have the methods simply changed? When I think back on stories of old times, it makes me think of hard work and good ethics. It reminds me of grandpa, an old ranch hand, working from dawn until dusk, not wasting time on meaningless things. But then I also recall stories of the youngest child on the farm shirking his chores and doing his best to avoid his responsibilities. Again this comes back to the theme of coming up with things to do to avoid doing what you have to do. Wasting time back then might involve wandering around the woods shooting squirrels or sitting on the front porch in a rocking chair. As times have approached modern day, we have become so accustomed to wasting time that we have begun to cherish it. Technology has had a huge impact on this process. We have started to develop new ways to more efficiently waste our time. Websites for social networking, streaming videos, and online gaming use the technology of the internet to provide endless hours of distractions. All around us technology is constantly evolving to create more and more innovative time wasters. The world of video games is a great example of this. Video games first started off with games like Pacman, Galaga, and Asteroids. These took the form of big box arcade games. They later progressed into Nintendo home game systems. This way instead of going to a mall arcade to play, you could spend all day at home immersed in the game. These were followed eventually by handheld Gameboy mini game systems to allow you the portability to waste time in any situation wherever you want. More recently video games have incorporated the internet to allow online play. This is one step further to creating an addictive mode of wasting time. When I was in high school, calculator games were a big hit. This allowed you to play mindless games during class or during homework instead of having to focus on mathematics. You can see that these time wasters are becoming progressively smarter in creating games in disguise out of a tool that is normally used for math. With the invention of the iPhone, time wasting is made even more portable, convenient, and subtle with popular games like Angry Birds right on your handheld device that is carried with you everywhere. The following video takes a look following technology from the inception of the computer, to the internet, and continues on to different devices that may occur in the future such as a game using brainwaves to move a ball around a an obstacle course. It is interesting to hypothesize where technology will take us in the future. It is for certain that many time wasters will arise as technology continues to develop.