My, how we've changed

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Well, that's interesting. It is true that when you are bound up in real life and pursuing other interests you lose your interest in childish things. There is a certain dichotomy in the posting on this board, especially in SimCity General Discussion. There have been some very naive posts there, and many from the now generation who don't understand the idea of a "game" that takes considerable time to get anything done. It is a great exercise in diplomacy and generally being nice to kids who think they should be able to build a metropolis right out of the box. The idea of a learning curve seems to be foreign to them.

Then there is the old guard, who hang around out of interest, like myself. I still play, but I've only been retired now for 9 years and it is most of the lifetime of the game. Second childhood, I guess, if you want to look at it that way. Among the old guard are also the people who work hard on improving the extended capabilities of the game by upgrading things like the NAM and some of the other specialty environments, for example the ones created by Pegasus Productions.

The very open-endedness of this program is a challenge to many people, and provides a creative outlet. Will Wright and the gang at Maxis started a revolution in computer gaming, and I am not sure that this was what they expected or not. Hindsight will always say yes, but what were they thinking in the late 1990s when this got off the ground? I think they built better than they could ever imagine.

Since I am partially shut-in, I use the game as a time-consumer, and I still find it entertaining. I recently did a total restart by dropping my user folder and letting the game build me a new one. I am now building a set of villages and towns on a region of 64 medium tiles. The program is generally an exercise in solving problems you create for yourself.

[Duke87 1,070]

There is a certain dichotomy in the posting on this board, especially in SimCity General Discussion. There have been some very naive posts there, and many from the now generation who don't understand the idea of a "game" that takes considerable time to get anything done. It is a great exercise in diplomacy and generally being nice to kids who think they should be able to build a metropolis right out of the box. The idea of a learning curve seems to be foreign to them.

Which is why I call it "The ADD generation". Teens (and under) these days have a notorious inability to stay focused on one thing for very long. Young minds demand constant stimulation and demand for the nature of that stimulation to constantly change. If something can't get done in five minutes, they lose interest and don't finish it. Things move too fast for too much time to be devoted to one thing.

When My father and I were at the Reds game a couple weeks ago, we found ourselves quite taken aback at the quantity and frequency of distractions from the game at the ballpark. Two "first pitches", a kid getting to deliver the ball to the mound, a contest of some sort between every inning, shooting T-shirts into the stands, mini-movies and mini-games on the jumbotron, etc... and in the ballpark were provided a playground and several other "activities" for kids. To the point where it started to feel more like being at a circus than at a ball game.

But, that's just the way things are going... when I was a kid and I went to a baseball game, I sat there and watched a baseball game. Now, reasonably expecting a kid to stay interested in one thing for three hours straight has become impossible.

Also noticeable in music (and I blame portable mp3 players and the dreaded shuffle function for this as well). Nobody can listen to an album anymore. Now the sequence is one song by band A, one song by band B, the first 45 seconds of a song by band C, then a different song by band C, etc... quite jarring and quite tiresome.

Which all then leaves people like me wondering... how does everyone tolerate having their focus constantly jerked all over the place like this? I can't handle it, I need to stay focused on one thing for a more appreciable period of time before I can shift gears. Otherwise it wears me out.

[DuskTrooper 314]

Haha, I posted something along these lines of conversation in the "Leaving/Returning Thread"...as copypasta'd below:

Yeah, it never is the same....memories are constructs in our memory of ideas and experiences gathered through the years. Over time, bits and pieces of them are replaced, or lost. This is why nostalgic events in dreams or stories told are always off; sometimes, you can't quite put your finger on it, but something has changed.

Of course, there's also the point when you have to leave home for a while, and you change alongside the place you used to frequent; this causes a sense of conflict and even dissonance upon one's return. The presence of strong reminders, artifacts, and remnants of the past seem like a mirage, or an untouchable, unalterable portal into the past. But alas; one can't always reconnect, particularly if any sort of connection was never maintained between the parties involved. There have been multiple times that I wanted to reconnect, but I just wasn't able to do it, for many reasons (time constraints, lack of connection to newcomers, other people I once knew who moved on, etc).

As for uni/university, it is just such a large part of my life, particularly since I went with an architecture major. The effort one has to put into it is all-encompassing, which may result in the detriment of one's health, social life, and participation in hobbies. In the process, new social connections and interactions are made, and many skills are sharpened and acquired, but at what cost? It may be a temporary phase in life, but the aftermath will affect the outcomes for pretty much the rest of one's life. And of course, perspectives also change...things that were once at the front of my mind are no longer an issue. Things I once enjoyed were eschewed due to their diminishing meaning, and the need to nurture various skills required to finish the assignments and projects. But once the projects are done, the outcome is an excellent testament to this hard work, and sacrifice.

Do I regret this? Maybe I do, maybe I don't, but it is still a thought of contention.

[airman15 4,111]

Popping in late into this thread, but we change as we age. Not necessarily physically but mentally, because we learn things as we mature. Yes we make mistakes, but we learn from them and we learn from others mistakes so that both sides would avoid making it again in the future. As Nonny pointed out, we lose interest in some things as we pursue new interests and we develop new priorities to benefit not only ourselves, but it may also benefit others as well. We as humans have made tremendous progress in technology, social standings and use of resources. Granted, there are some problems in these fields that exist but eventually these current problems will be resolved and since we will learn from what happened during those events and we will try to find a way to prevent it from happening again. I'm not sure if this is also linked to each generation (Generation B learns from the mistakes of Generation A and thus tries to prevent the same mistakes from happening) but we as a human race have advanced so much in a relatively short timespan.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Very true. Has anyone else notices the duration is shrinking effect of getting older? When you are young, summer seems long, and you run out of things to do. When you get older, months pass like hours or minutes, and the years just blink by.

I think this is a result of longer experience making events which seemed long at the time shrink by comparison with the duration of one's life. Looking back over my younger days, it seems like they were only yesterday and not fifty years ago.

[Duke87 1,070]

as copypasta'd below

*wonders if he should point out that it's improper to use "copypasta" as a verb*

(unfortunately, the proper verb form contains profanity and thus cannot be used here)

Has anyone else notices the duration is shrinking effect of getting older?

Yup. And you're spot on about the reason.

[Ocram's Razr 963]

I am on the autism spectrum so when I take interest in something, I really take interest in it and rarely focus on other hobbies. Eventually a hobby stops being interesting and a new, similar hobby replaces it. With music, I listen to songs all the way through and usually play albums or genre playlists. This new millennium is called the "Now Generation" because everything can be accessed near instantly so no one has any patience anymore. Job performance has been slipping to the point where multinational corporations no longer hire young Americans. Young Americans demand entertainment and by the time they have to live independently, they will be screwed. They will not get jobs, they will be poor and full of regret.

[Meg 368]

Which all then leaves people like me wondering... how does everyone tolerate having their focus constantly jerked all over the place like this? I can't handle it, I need to stay focused on one thing for a more appreciable period of time before I can shift gears. Otherwise it wears me out.

Same here. Most people don't seem to understand how tiring it can be to be in a place where activities are bouncing all over the place.

Very true. Has anyone else notices the duration is shrinking effect of getting older? When you are young, summer seems long, and you run out of things to do. When you get older, months pass like hours or minutes, and the years just blink by.

I've always thought that it was an issue of percentages. To a 5 year old, a year seems like a long time. That's because one-fifth of your life is a long time. To a 50 year old, one year is only one-fiftieth of your life. That's not nearly as much as one-fifth.

[Easy Bakes 253]

Which all then leaves people like me wondering... how does everyone tolerate having their focus constantly jerked all over the place like this? I can't handle it, I need to stay focused on one thing for a more appreciable period of time before I can shift gears. Otherwise it wears me out.

Same here. Most people don't seem to understand how tiring it can be to be in a place where activities are bouncing all over the place.

they are trying to turn baseball into the same "experince filled" event they have turned basket ball, hockey and NFL into. to me all that means is thier playing loud music or the anouncers are constantly

shouting Between plays, and reduces my enjoyment of these games.

the actual game itself is almost becomeing seceondary to the presentation.

As for "multi tasking" iv always had the opinion that those who say they multi task

are just doing many things poorly.

[Duke87 1,070]

Multitasking is less an age thing and more a gender thing. Women like to multitask, men do not.

Although the trend of younger people being more inclined to multitask does also exist.

[airman15 4,111]

Has anyone else notices the duration is shrinking effect of getting older? When you are young, summer seems long, and you run out of things to do. When you get older, months pass like hours or minutes, and the years just blink by.

Yes I have. For me, it's gotten to a point where I'd spend 3 or 4 hours online when to me it only felt like I've been on for 15 minutes

[simbuilder 1]

It's a matter of growing up and moving on. How many things does the average person still do in their 20's that they were doing as a teenager? People have different friends, more mature interests, careers instead of school, etc.

As much as I love the concept of "growing old is inevitable, growing up is optional" (I even have a T shirt that says it on the back), I haven't been immune to it either. Some things never change - I'm still here, I'm still reading online comics, I'm still collecting baseball cards, I'm still drawing maps - but other things do - I stopped playing SimCity years ago and have been finding myself losing interest in video games outright in the past year or so, I've stopped playing with Legos, I've stopped watching TV and listening to the radio.

But it's different for everyone. It's interesting how people's paths can can part ways and things can change. To think, simbuilder, that you used to have more posts than me.

I use to have more posts than pretty much anybody . At least I still got my 2003 award to look back at! But you are right, it is a matter of growing up and moving on. The only time I ever visit this place is when I start playing simcity again for fun(yes which I am doing now) But very soon I most likely won't have the time for it again. As much as I loved being a teenager, It's time to move on for me.

  Edited August 9, 2011 by simbuilder  

[simbuilder 1]

Has anyone else notices the duration is shrinking effect of getting older? When you are young, summer seems long, and you run out of things to do. When you get older, months pass like hours or minutes, and the years just blink by.

Yes I have. For me, it's gotten to a point where I'd spend 3 or 4 hours online when to me it only felt like I've been on for 15 minutes

This x2. Time was never even something I thought about when I was young, except for maybe "crap I am going back to school in a week!" But now-a-days, two weeks feels like two days, and time is something consistently pushing against you. I miss the innocence, and obliviousness that came with youth, but at the same time I enjoy the freedoms I have now.