Content Engagement Is The Future

The future of convergence is different forms of technology eventually coming into one but it’s also about what those tools do to bring society together. As if it isn’t already happening, different devices and apps are able to do it all. A smartphone isn’t just a phone, it’s a computer, a television, a gaming platform, etc. These tools have changed our way of communicating with each other as a whole but also how we go about the little aspects of everyday life. Basically our lives will continue to revolve around technology.

Neil Postman’s 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death argues that media has become heavily image based and for the sole purpose of entertainment that we aren’t learning anything and initially dumbing ourselves down. Postman thinks that society isn’t questioning or analyzing the media and inactively consuming. However, Steven Johnson’s book in 2005 called, Everything Bad Is Good For You, argues that our culture is actually becoming more demanding and smarter in what he called the “Sleeper Curve.”

He compared the show 24 to an early 1980’s show called Dallas.

“To make sense of an episode of 24 you have to integrate far more information than you would have a few decades ago watching a comparable show. Beneath the violence and the ethnic stereotypes, another trend appears: to keep up with entertainment like 24, you have to pay attention, make inferences, track shifting social relationships.”

Transmedia storytelling is initially how we will educate ourselves better. I think by making content more complex and creating curiosity and encouraging us to do our own research, it allows us to analyze the content as well have a better understanding of the world around us through popular media.

            The evolution of technology and how we utilize it as a society is also changing the way we get an education. Tablets and computers are soon taking over textbooks. Quest to Learn, is a school in New York City with a video game technique of learning. Video games are no longer considered a nuisance or distraction to children, by changing up the content it's helping the children learn more in a way that's more natural and engaging to them. There's no better way to learn than to actually do something. Also, that method of teaching will be more useful to the child because while they're engaging in educational games they're also using and figuring out technology. In this day and age and especially once we move in the future, having skill in technology will not be valued but will be the norm.

            Since gaming is also so engaging, we could also change the world through it. While many would scratch their heads and wonder how does one do that by sitting around on their computer or game console, Jane McGonigal, a computer game designer thinks that if we all spent more time playing better games we could change the world around us in the process. Her argument is that most people use gaming as an escape and at the same time are stimulating their brain by solving problems in the virtual world. While many that do immerse themselves in these games may do so because they don’t think that they could reciprocate that in reality, she thinks they’re in fact making them more optimistic, productive, and gave meanings to their lives. She talks about a poor village that made games a part of their livelihood in order to distract them from famine and which allowed them to live years with a system of eating 2 or 3 days a week and playing games for the whole day the other days.

            Essentially, the future of convergence is not only through technology and platforms but the convergence of society to group together to solve problems and increase their knowledge.