The Daily Telegraph, Sydney, 10 November 2000.
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HERE
SCREW the kids! What about me? I am the one who needs help�desperately. Just how sick I have become was all too obvious this week when I was left home alone, my girlfriend on assignment on the other side of the country. So, what does a youngish, virile, fairly well-to-do gentleman (I am still talking about me here) do while the little woman�s out of town? Perhaps call the guys up, go on a three-day bender? How about build a nest of left-over pizza bits and beer on the couch in front of the telly? No. What did I do? Spent every waking hour in front of my computer screen, that�s what. Yes world, it is official: Hello, my name is Dino, and I�m a fully-fledged geek. Actually, it was beyond every waking hour. There I was, at 3am the other day, struggling to keep my eyes open, still playing my stupid little motor racing game with my stupid little steering wheel and foot-pedals. (No, no�it�s not stupid at all. It�s the most wonderful game ever created!) Anyhow, it is not just my racing game that has kept me glued to my screen. Of course, there is work during the day, and guess what? I�ve got a computer here too. Then there is the Internet. Take Wednesday evening, for example. Hour after hour, I sat there in front of my machine at home, watching the votes come in for the US election. I had live audio from CNN, different boxes on the screen either constantly updating the count out of Florida or showing live pictures out of the Bush and Gore camps. Then there were a few CDs to burn off for my friends (all non-copyrighted material, of course). Then there were a couple of things to tweak on my personal webpage, pictures to scan, e-mails to answer, desktops to be cleaned up, another virtual motor race to run online against other geeks from around the world and, and, and ... arrrgh! Help me! A geek�s work is never done. Am I over-reacting? After all, I am having so much fun, and all by myself�doesn�t that sort of stuff make you go blind? Perhaps this should just read: Postcard from Geekdom. Having a great time. Wish you were here (or at least joining me online). But the thing that is concerning me is all this annoying research about tiny people and how their screen addictions are rotting their fragile little minds. Like a recent British survey that found two-thirds of parents who restrict their children�s screen doses to less than three hours a week consider their precious little bundles to be over-achievers in the classroom. Thankfully, the survey also found that most British kids�nicknamed screenagers�spent at least 25 hours of their free time chained to a moving picture box. Even more believable was an American survey that found little Yankee nippers, aged between two and 18, spent an average of five-and-a-half hours outside of school in front of some sort of screen (TV or computer). Ain�t nothing wrong with that: When I was a kid, I used to get up at six in the morning to get a good three hours of telly in before school, and I turned out all right. (I am all right, aren�t I mummy?) Mind you, the validity of this research is debatable since it also found that the same kids spent 44 minutes a day reading, and that doesn�t sound quite right. Yet another poll surmised that the average age of the 127 million Americans on-line is 41. That is encouraging�it suggests I�m only becoming decrepit slightly before my time. On the home games side of things, it says a lot about the realism of these state-of-the-art machines that an institution like Sega World can no longer pull a crowd. (This week the venue announced it was closing its doors.) Every other games arcade in the world must be sweating too. Over the past few weeks, I have been racing grand prix, flying sorties and dogfight, battling aliens, and the realism�all from the comfort of my little prison cell (i.e. home office) -- is breathtaking. I need my girlfriend to get back home, in a real hurry, lest I forget there is a real world outside my virtual one. And seriously, my eyesight ain�t what it used to be.
