Kind of a place holder...

So over the last few weeks my blogging has dwindled. Yet I feel like I'm forgetting more and more things. Perhaps I should combine blogging with trying to remember stuff! Good plan I think...

1) Lately I've been thinking about Anthropology again. This is probably because I very nearly almost took a scholarship to do my PhD last week, and I've been thinking about possible topics and ideas for when I eventually do jump into the PhD world. At work the other day I was thinking about the way that people justify eating for pleasure. Working at a quality chocolate shop, Haigh's, I often come across people who come in and justify why (or why not) they are going to eat chocolate. Most of the time people just go with the "treat yourself" line. Sometimes they say "I'm going to be naughty" or "I shouldn't but I will" and some people go on about the health benefits of chocolate in general and particularly dark chocolate. Of course there are some people who don't care about justifying they just want to talk chocolate. They LOVE chocolate, and damned if anyone tells them its not "proper" food (which, oddly enough, my boyfriend tells me constantly). So wouldn't it be interesting to see how people view eating for pleasure. I wonder if Bourdieu has anything to say? ... Hm. Probably but I'm not going to read him to find out (I'll let someone who has give me a general idea... I can't penetrate his text!)

2) Online culture sensationalism! Geeeeeeeesh it drives me batty. I read the transcript for an interview with a respected academic or researcher or something who was going on about the way the online or screen cultures are very much "here and now"/"no consequences" experiences, and that they as such alter our way of behaving and thinking. She compared saving the princess in a computer game, to reading about the princess in a book. She said that when you save the princess in the computer game, you don't care about who the princess is, how she feels and why you are saving her. You just want to complete the objective. And if you die, or she dies, you just start again - no big consequences. However if you were reading a book, you care very much about who this princess is, why she needs saving, how she relates to people and whether or not she dies.

Now sure, for some people this may be true. But she really needs to get some field work in because, as any one who has spent a great deal of time playing online games would know, there are many consequences for actions. Sure if you die, you can come to life again very quickly. But if you piss people off, you will face the consequences. If you don't save the princess, you won't progress. And if you are interested enough, you can read the back story and find some very intricate often moving or even amusing stories about the people involved in your quests, especially in the mega populare World of Warcraft.

You can argue all you like that this is different to reading. That you can ignore all the back story just to get to the "end" (really, there is no end in MMORPGs), but that is VERY different to there being no consequences. These people who can't be bothered with the back story or the consequences are equally as unlikely to be bothered with reading a book, so how is that changing behaviour? Isn't it more catering for it?

Furthermore this woman suggested that there was a link between screen culture and the threefold increase in the prescription of drugs used to treat ADHD. WHAT?! One of her arguments against screen culture relies heavily on the nature of online culture/computer based activities being based in "sound byte" information. Here and now or here and RIGHT now. Therefore the inability of people to sustain their attention over long periods of time in contexts outside the "screen culture" must be linked to the increase in the prescription of drugs used to treat ADHD. (Might I add that she doesn't say the "increase in the diagnosis of ADHD" or the "increase in the instances of ADHD" but focuses on the drugs... Odd huh? Does she not believe in the disorder?)

According to my research (which, admittedly I did 2 years ago), the increase in ADHD diagnosis across the board is linked to the increased information available about diagnosable behavioural disorders. When no one knew about ADHD, no one was diagnosed with it. That doesn't mean that no child in the 20's 30's or even 1800's had the symptoms that would today be classified as ADHD. It means that no one knew that there was such a label for these sets of issues, and no one knew that these problems could be handled by administering a drug. Now I do NOT beleive that drugs are the answer for ADHD affected kids or adults. I'm just saying that I find it very difficult to believe that there is a link between methylphenidate prescription and increased use of computers/tvs/screens in general.

If our culture is now catering for people with short attention spans, and not encouraging people to try to extend them, then I can see how we might diagnose that as an attention deficit. But I don't see how we can assume causation.

I'm struggling very hard at the moment not to off on a rant about ADHD. I will say though that ADHD is a western disorder, and I believe that it is a handy diagnostic label that can be applied to kids who think differently, and don't fit in with the normal expectations that children will behave all in a similar fashion. Just because some one is different does not mean that they are disordered. Our society needs to learn to cater for difference within a paradigm other than medicine and disorder.

/END RANT.

Wow. That went on for a lot longer than I intended. And I'm sure when I read it back I could add a lot more on. You know, qualify this or show another opinion there... But I won't. Save that for the thesis eh? Haha.

Anyway I think I'm going to go away and read some more blogs now. There are some REALLY good ones about at the moment that deal with some of the things I'm interested in studying for my PhD (social media, online networking, online role playing, online culture and community etc.). Email me if you are interested in where to find good thinkers about these topics!

xo