"War Is Fun" by Farhad Manjoo

Manjoo, Farhad. “War Is Fun.” Slate. November 15, 2011.

In this review, Manjoo reviews the new game Modern Warfare 3. He discusses how it applies for regular gamers vs. occasional gamers. He also discusses a bit of what it does to you while you play, his most interesting points if you ask me. Being wrapped up in a pop culture sensation is pretty common. Ask any number of frequent internet users, especially if they have a Facebook. This idea is what Sullivan talks about in “Why I Blog.” In his essay he discusses how blogging is a way of expressing deep thought in a way that is freer then in a newspaper, also being a journalist, he would know. Both Manjoo and Sullivan discuss how the today’s electronic ways create a fake reality. In Sullivan’s right, it means the communications and friendships he created on his blog. Given he may talk to them but he wouldn’t have met them if it weren’t for his blogging. Manjoo would say it is because the game sucks you in, MW3 makes you feel like you are really in the game. I would use this idea in my paper about speech to text software. By immersing ourselves more and more into new technology we start to loose sight of things. If you play too much of a game, you feel like you are in it. If you use speech to text software, writing will become ore difficult, along with the deep thoughts that you get when it comes to writing. Perhaps it’s a stretch, but this article inspired a thought, that with enough connection with technology, we will begin to lack a lot of skills that we gain through interactions with real people or real life experiences. In the case of speech to text, will we eventually always talk to people not expecting a response back?