Earthblog

The road to activism today seems to have forked into the online world and the ‘real’ world. And while occupiers settle in or withdraw in the face of winter, impatient civic governments and a somewhat fatigued public, any discernible message that may have evoked real social change or even a discourse that went beyond the idea that the 99 per cent is broke and don’t enjoy it seems to have been lost among the cross talk that is Occupy.

If you have ever had the fortune of finding your parent’s childhood video game console, you can appreciate how spoiled we are. Games like pong and space invaders are laughed at by children today for their all around simplicity but in the early days of home consoles, that was it. Graphics? Yeah right. Special Controllers? A single joy-stick was as special as they came. As for sound effects, you’d be lucky to get a beep; forget about explosions, gunfire and actual words. It’s no secret that video games have advanced far beyond most entertainment sources but what do all these features and gadgets mean to society? Before we dive into the exploration of modern day consoles, here’s a little background information.

Technology’s affect on early childhood development leaves people on the fence.

With technology permeating almost every aspect of our daily lives, it is no surprise that children are being exposed to it at a younger and younger age. Mobile touch technology, made popular by Apple, is more prevalently found in the tiny hands of toddlers and elementary-school youth as they develop and learn to interact with the world.

The “Broadcast Tapes of Doctor Peter,” a compilation of video diaries from the late Peter Jepson-Young, a Vancouver “doctor in his 30's” dying of AIDS in the early 90s aired on both CBC and HBO. In it, the young doctor chronicled the decline of his body, ravaged by the little understood and highly stigmatized disease, for the entire world to see.