Live data from Hacker News

The 'freaky and unpleasant' world when video games leak into the physical realm

bbc.com

21–30 of 56 posts

Re: The 'freaky and unpleasant' world when video games leak into the physical realm

#21
post #11

I remember this happening a lot when I was a child and teenager, mainly during and shortly after LAN parties, where we'd spend one or two entire days almost exclusively inside one or two virtual environments (like Action Quake or later, Day of Defeat), I remember how my brain "quantized" many of the sounds from physical environment into their closest equivalent of in-game sounds, such as footsteps, character sounds o…

if you spend a lot of time on photography or visual art it affects your visual perception quite a bit in a fun way constantly, nearly subconsciously looking for framing elements, or hard edges in a scene that is mostly lit by diffuse light, etc

Like the urge to zoom out or in when you look at sth :)

Re: The 'freaky and unpleasant' world when video games leak into the physical realm

#22
post #16
post #11

I remember this happening a lot when I was a child and teenager, mainly during and shortly after LAN parties, where we'd spend one or two entire days almost exclusively inside one or two virtual environments (like Action Quake or later, Day of Defeat), I remember how my brain "quantized" many of the sounds from physical environment into their closest equivalent of in-game sounds, such as footsteps, character sounds o…

Yup, I experienced this after both computer games physical sports and even programming (I tinkered with my algorithm for drawing 2d trees in a side project for like 20 hours over a long weekend and after that I've been seeing the details I obsessed over in every tree I looked at :) ). I think the effect was the strongest for me after that graphics programming actually - probably because I obsessed over such small det…

[deleted]

Re: The 'freaky and unpleasant' world when video games leak into the physical realm

#24
> While no-one has reported physical harm as a consequence of GTP to date – GTP could, in principle, endanger someone

This is a classic of how to write a moral panic article. It's fun to talk about GTP, but in order to be news it has to be made into a big threat so it can tie into pre-existing prejudices like "my kids are spending too much time playing video games".

(speaking as someone who had to consciously stop playing Factorio as it was affecting my sleep!)

Re: The 'freaky and unpleasant' world when video games leak into the physical realm

#25
This particular manifestation is interesting, although not surprising - it's just adaptation. I was in a psychology department in the mid 90s when people were experimenting with really basic VR, just a headset and a glove. When you pointed with the glove you moved that way in the virtual world. Even after a short time with the headset on, when people took the headset off, instead of walking out of the room their first move was often to point towards the door. The human brain is really prone to immersion.

Re: The 'freaky and unpleasant' world when video games leak into the physical realm

#26
post #17

I've experienced this before - not only with games such as Tetris (I could "feel" my brian working in a different way) - but also with looking at trees etc when engrossed in Lindenmayer Systems [1] that I was working with at the time. I assumed it was basically something along the lines of your brian adapting to a "new" reality/situation and engaging the pattern-matching parts that work best for the challenge at hand…

After I tweaked the tree outline drawing algorithm for this side-project for like 20 hours over 3 days ( https://ajuc.github.io/outdoorsBattlemapGenerator/ ) I've been seeing these outlines EVERYWHERE :)

Re: The 'freaky and unpleasant' world when video games leak into the physical realm

#27
I'm not really a gamer, but I experienced something maybe similar with the ipad. When I first got one, of course, I was reading news and swiping away and it was completely natural.

Then I'd go to a restaurant and when reading the menu, I'd start swiping at the paper or vinyl menus like it was a tablet. It's a curious phenomena to have that brand new tablet gesture overtake decades of behaviors and perceptions with real paper.

Kudos to Apple, I guess.

Re: The 'freaky and unpleasant' world when video games leak into the physical realm

#28
Hopkins-Brie Ontology Syndrome (usually just called Hopkins-Brie Syndrome) is a mental illness caused by overexposure to virtual reality, in which the sufferer becomes increasingly unable to distinguish between the real world and the virtual world.

Re: The 'freaky and unpleasant' world when video games leak into the physical realm

#29
post #27

I'm not really a gamer, but I experienced something maybe similar with the ipad. When I first got one, of course, I was reading news and swiping away and it was completely natural. Then I'd go to a restaurant and when reading the menu, I'd start swiping at the paper or vinyl menus like it was a tablet. It's a curious phenomena to have that brand new tablet gesture overtake decades of behaviors and perceptions with re…

My wife and I just completed a jigsaw puzzle. Last night, I caught her trying to use her forefinger and thumb to zoom in to the picture on the box.
Post reply on HN