Do you think our growing dependance on instant gratification has brought about the present Hi Tech revolution?

It’s sound like the chicken and the egg paradox to me.

That only applies to me when working for trophies on PlayStation 3 games. And it’s not even instant gratification. Well sometimes. Sometimes the challenges are really easy, or story related…sometimes it’s just goddamn insane, the shit they ask you to do…Really just depends on the game itself and what kind of trophies the developers rigged for it. Yesterday while playing Dragon Age II I spent my whole evening fighting some guy that was really tough because I knew there was a trophy for me at the end, if I beat him.

And I did get him, but it was some work…well, until I figured out how to beat him. But I mean, it takes about 20 minutes to beat him since he’s so tough, but he can literally destroy you in less than 40 seconds if you’re not careful.
So you gotta work at it. His attacks, while being short range, graphic wise, have a 360 degree angle, they hit you from halfway across the room for some reason, fling your guy across the fucking battlefield, the attacks stun your character, you can’t move and then he just rapes your eyeballs…he can heal himself too, and you need to hit him like 4 times to cause ONE point of damage, and you barely have time to even hit him once…
And I got him, too. Basically by running away from all his attacks until he got sick of chasing after me and started charging, then you get out of his way and hit him like once or twice when he runs into walls. Takes forever…but I gots me my gratification. Bling!

And worse is? You don’t even NEED to fight this guy to go on with the game. When he challenges you, you can just go, up yours, jerk ass, and get on with the game…but I wanted that trophy!

Sorry, I didn’t answer nothing, but I really did want to brag about that fight, and this question was the perfect place to do it, short of just going on some video game forum where everyone there already beat this guy, anyways.

Thanks. :D

@Symbeline Haha! I understand your feeling. It’s just goddamned crazy when there are challenges in the game and you gain almost nothing from beating them and you can just skip them and you still win.

It happens to me from time to time. There used to be a challenge in a game I played, which involved using some special item for a certain amount of time. But that item cost “golds”, and the “golds” were very scarce. The only ways to earn the golds were to either be super patient and work for the gold in the game, or to pay for them using real money! And what was my price for passing that challenge? Just a goddamned trophy with no use except for decoration!

I think you have cause and effect confused.

Instant gratification is good throttle response.

The “Hi Tech Revolution” was coming anyway. Integrated circuits get faster and cheaper and start showing up in more places as they become more economical and capable. Look at your car and how many computers control its functions. Look at your camera, look at your TV and yes your phone. The equipment you owned 4 years are fossils. Smart marketers, business people, and engineers have tapped these advances and figured out how to make you open your wallet willingly. That is why games get better, equipment goes out of date, TVs get flatter,... They want you to spend more money.
The human brain did not have time to evolve that much is so short a time. We’ve always had short attention spans. There just weren’t so many choices and it was a lots more difficult to change our life channel. When you went to see a movie, you watched the movie. When you went out to a restaurant you spoke with your date. When you went to work or school, you worked. Everything else was called “a distraction.” And we tried to eliminate or reduce distractions so we could stay on task.
It is our changing culture that has made distractions into acceptable alternate points of interest.
Oooo shiny! Look a butterfly!

Credit has increased our ability to instantly gratify ourselves way more than technology.

It struck me as funny when you mention how many computers control its functions @LuckyGuy I chuckled thinking how we have all this Hi Tech in my car for it to only do just what it did back in the 60s when it was just good old physics making it go. And of course back then I could fix just about anything on my cars with a socket set, screw drivers and a pair of pliers (needle nose).

The phone’s advances are less than consequential to me. I was happy with a rotary dialer and being limited to the length of the phone’s cord.

You even inspired a new question.

And yet this kind of easy credit rip off which has allowed us greater ability to instant gratification is directly due to the Hi Tech Revolution, wouldn’t you say @CWMcCall ?

That was marvelous to read @Symbeline and I agree with you @Mimishu1995, those gamers got very good at tricking us out of our money to buy more golds to just win imaginary trophies!

@Dan_Lyons Not really. Credit cards bought instant gratification way before the tech revolution.

I haven’t yet read the previous posts. I think it’s the reverse. I think the high tech revolution has brought about the urge for instant gratification.

@Mimishu1995 Yeah, that’s what all my trophies are too, they’re online and you can see them in PSN profiles and websites, but other than bragging rights, they have no purpose. But I’m addicted.

I’ve heard of those games where you can use real money to pay for things other than DLC’s…like some Final Fantasy game on smart phones where if your character dies, you have to wait like an hour for them to be resurrected, but you can also pay one real life dollar to have them back right away.

I am in agreement with you, @jca I think Hi Tech is responsible for an incredible surge in the need for Instant Gratification over the last twenty years.

@Symbeline All those silly games on Facebook allow you to purchase extra powers with real money. I can’t believe anyone does but hey, whatever rocks their boat, eh?!

Yeah that’s not for me…I am, of course, willing to pay for a vidoe game, and its DLC’s, but other than that…I already paid the game. I shouldn’t have to shell out more dough for extra weapons, levels or characters.

@Symbeline hell, I even feel that way about free games. If it’s a matter of playing the game and unlocking stuff or paying money to get extra good stuff, I’ll just play the damn game. It is a shame that some games are set up to favor the wallet warriors though….

@Mimishu1995 The chicken and the egg isn’t a paradox. It’s a question of wither you believe in genesis or evolution.

Of course it’s a paradox @El_Cadejo, and has nothing to do with genesis nor evolution. It has to do with the paradox of how could you have the egg necessary to make the chicken needed to lay the egg which is itself needed to hatch the chicken who must lay the egg…

As for those free games geared towards looting our wallets, I agree with you and @Symbeline
I’ll play until they make it too hard to continue without buying lucky charms and then I just quit.

@Dan_Lyons You’re viewing the question from the wrong angle. In one sense if you say the chicken came first you are saying god created all creatures as they are today; in the other sense, if you believe the egg came first you are supporting the idea of evolution, as you believe some ancestor of the common chicken gave birth to something with genetic mutations that were successful and became the animal we call a chicken.

That is just too silly @El_Cadejo. Saying either came 1st has nothing to do with creationism vs. evolution. And of course, if the truth be known, all of life was created with the ability to evolve. Anyone who can’t see this isn’t yet illumined.