found effect, but also provided
a bit of anxiety for some participants. “It was interesting. Gameplayers shaved off the most
phone-usage time: around twenty
minutes per day.” That can be correlated to the fact that games are
designed specifically to be addictive and time-consuming; particularly the online varieties that monetize elements of the gameplay.
Losing that much time of phone
use, it can be interpreted, is equal
to the time lost when a gameplayer gets too entrenched in the
game, something Zomorodi knew
first-hand. “One of the challenges
of the project was called Delete
That App. I deleted the app that
had been driving me bananas: a
game called Two Dots. I had been
spending ridiculous amounts of
time on it.”
“I have not reinstalled it, I’m happy to say...but like a smoker misses
cigarettes, I miss my game,” Zomorodi admits. “I know it’s not the
best use of my time or my brain,
and so I’m resisting, but it’s kind of
a constant struggle! I’m shocked
by how often the parallels and
metaphors relate to addiction, and
also relate to healthy living.”
Since its debut in late 2012, the
New Tech City podcast has undergone a slight tonal shift. While
technology is still transformative
and disruptive, as business gurus
might say, those transformations
and disruptions can go either
way. Zomorodi noted that the first
flush of tech exploration promised much, delivered much, but
changed more than just how we
as users do things. The tone of the
show had to change, slightly, because we were changing too. This
was something the Bored and Brilliant project illustrated very clearly.
“We’re at a point where we’ve
had this portable, personal technology around us for a while. The
iPhone came out in 2007, so the
euphoria hasn’t completely worn
March 2015
Next Article
Article Index
Events
33