Unbelievably Real
Marion Thomas
In reality, life is not easy. To survive mentally, often we coccoon ourselves from the outside world, burying emotions, separating ourselves from anything real that makes us feel "whatever." To survive physically, we perform menial tasks that are often boring, monotonous, and perfunctory. Without an outlet, we have little chance of successfully coping with the everyday challenges and demands of life. We become overshadowed by our desperate need for a distraction. To break free of life's oppressive hold, we turn toward anything that makes us feel insouciant and carefree.
As a coping mechanism, we cling to whatever entertainment the media can offer us; television, video games, computers, or anything that we can use as a stress releaser and form of amusement. In doing so, we have not only become visual puppets dependent on what the media thinks we want to see, but we have become mentally unconscious, sleepwalking through life by accepting media "abstractions for the real thing" (96). Instead of using our common sense to separate fact from fiction or experience from media unreality, we have chosen to dwell in "synthetic environments," giving them life through our perceptions and perspectives (97).
According to Mark Slouka in "The Road to Unreality," we perceive the images we see on "television and [in] the print media" to be more credible than our own life experiences (95). Slouka believes that we are so absorbed in fictional dramas that we can no longer distinguish reality from unreality. Is his assumption valid? I believe it is. Reality simulation is the basis of our movies, television shows, and radio broadcasts. We judge our media outlets and define the digital quality of our videogames, computers, and Internet by how real the virtual simulation appears to us. If it did not seem real to us, why would we bother to incorporate it into our lives at all?
Slouka "makes it very clear that he is not against technology, but that he is against the lack of concern for how computers are changing the world" (95). He believes that the qualities that make us human get lost as we expeditiously move through life. We become emotionally deficient and mentally warped when we turn to "virtual systems to divorce us from the world" (101).
As part of the older generation, I understand Slouka's concerns. I also fear that the old ways of communicating will become obsolete as the computer permeates every facet of our life. All the violent, vulgar, and sexually explicit material that has become the foundation of our media world saddens me. What kind of world have we become?
Slouka, Mark. "The Road to Unreality." CyberReader. 2nd ed. Ed. Victor J. Vitanza. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon, 1999. 95-102.
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