Hamlet also loves to be crazy - Philosophers in the Digital Study Room

From elementary school to junior high school, I was always chasing the top three in exams. Under the pressure of piles of textbooks, the comfort in life, apart from the complete set of Dragon Balls, was the pocket money I saved for dozens of dollars every day, the Super Nintendo game console I bought secretly behind my parents’ back, and a second-hand FinalFantasy (opens in a new tab) fifth-generation RPG game cartridge. After saving for a year or two, I finally bought the gaming device. In order to seize the time to play it secretly when my parents were not at home, my parents opened the door at 5:30 in the morning and went out to hike, which started my daily enjoyable video gaming time.

I played every profession to the highest level, flipped through every page of the guide book, and in my free time I thought more carefully: “How on earth can I find the legendary Moai statue in an airship (opens in a new tab).” I didn’t find it, but thinking about those precious 30 minutes of video gaming time every day is the deep beauty in my life.

After graduating from the high school entrance examination, the TV game accompanied me throughout the summer vacation, but the deep love in my heart was disturbed by the devil of greed. I was recommended by the store and bought the legendary “disk drive”. With the disk drive, I no longer had to save up for several months to buy a game cartridge. For only NT$25, I can buy any game, including Dragon Ball Budō Chronicles, which I have longed for.

From that day on, I only played each set of games once or twice and then didn’t want to play them anymore. As long as I couldn’t get started immediately, I immediately threw them aside. Since then, my soul has been unable to enjoy the depth of the game. It wasn’t until the launch of the SONY PlayStation that the enthusiasm for gaming resumed. Cruelly, I changed my PS again. Instead, I had a bunch of boring discs at home, and the depth of the game left me again.

Does the screen make you better?

“Has your screen made your work and thoughts better? Has it made you and your friends closer? Has it helped you find the distance and space you need? Do you rely on it to understand the world better? After using it, is your body, mind, and spirit better than before?”

This passage in the book “Hamlet Loves Crazy Too (opens in a new tab): Philosophers in the Digital Study Room” deeply hurt me. I shouted in my heart, “Yes, yes. When I got the first generation iPhone 2G, my whole mind and vision were opened up through this screen!” But I cried in my heart, “No, no, no. Ever since I switched to iPhone 3G and can be permanently connected to the Internet, I have been cut into nutritious pieces of information and fed every day. I have become a zombie-like slut, just a little bit more like a drug addict.”

Thanks to “Hamlet Loves Crazy: A Philosopher in the Digital Study Room”, I have a deep understanding that video games will not corrode people’s hearts, and smartphones never contain heroin. What really makes people lose their minds is that we have unlimited resources. When we have unlimited resources, we no longer cherish them, are unwilling to spend time and patience to understand the content, and are unwilling to take the time to judge what are good games and good information.

Start Network Sabbath to Retrieve Depth

The book also tells us that in past history, great people like Franklin were in the same turmoil at the time, but they regained the depth of their souls through positive self-control. I also followed the example of the author in the book and activated the “Internet Sabbath” at home, directly disconnecting both Radio 4 and the Internet at home.

I haven’t read the Bible for a long time and I actually read it again this year. It has been seven years since I last read the Book of Revelation. Since I can’t use the Internet full time, I cherish completing my work in a space with Internet access. Every night and early morning, I pull out my buried head from the TV and computer screens. The more limited the network resources available, the more I cherish every moment I can connect to the Internet. More addictive reading notes:

• Google headquarters revealed (opens in a new tab) *​​The “Facebook Effect” where crude idealism ultimately triumphs (opens in a new tab)
• Kevin Kelly is either a imaginative Zhou Botong, or a Darwin who has seen through the evolution of technology (opens in a new tab)