The term “boring” has been around in teen culture for sometime now. It seems to be the thing to avoid—after all it means the phenomenological experiencing of the slow passage of time, which is precisely what has been evacuated by VR technology. The computer can’t function fast enough for our liking. Teen multitasking is one way to remove this “boredom.”
The Pew Report on teenagers on-line (Lenhart et al. 2000, 13–14) quotes the following as a typical teen responses. A 15-year-old girl as part of the Greenfield Online group discussion said, “I do so many things at once. I’m always talking to people through instant messenger and then I’ll be check-ing email or docheck-ing homework or playcheck-ing games AND talkcheck-ing on the phone at the same time.” Another 17-year-old girl said, “I get bored if its not all going at once, because everything has gaps—waiting for someone to respond to an IM, waiting for a Website to come up, commercials on TV, etc.” Yet another 17-year-old girl said, “I don’t remember what I used to do when I did not go online. Sometimes I’m just so bored I’d probably be reading or bored out of my mind.” Richard Lanham (1993) pointed out that in the information-rich environments the limiting factor is not the speed of com-puters, nor is it the rates of transmission through fiber-optic cables; not even the amount of data that can be generated and stored. “The scare commod-ity is human attention” (in Hayles 1999, 287, emphasis added). While it is easy to float off into the abyss of “attention deficit disorder” and make claims that VR technology is “responsible” for the symptom of hyperactivity found in children in postmodern societies, this would be an error. What applies to the false causal link between violence and the media, applies equally to any sort of causality here as well. Rather, we take a different tact.
In consume-cultures of postindustrial technologically sophisticated coun-tries around the globe, it seems that the world-wide-web of the Internet has thwarted (perverted) desire as lack. When most things seem directly available for purchase on the Internet or through telemarketing, or are instantly acces-sible at our fingertips and on the computer screen (films, e-books, radio, music) they appear to lose their heightened value. The object no longer retains a special place in our lives. The “lived” time with objects (and peo-ple) seems to be progressively shorter and shorter. We are more likely to dis-card the object (divorce the object) and purchase a newer model (usually younger) than repair it (through counseling) so that our history with it fails to develop. Our libidinal relationship to both people and things begins to suffer with ironic consequences. Like Zizek’s example of Viagra, the avail-ability of cyberporn, phone-sex, lap-dancing, topless nightclubs, escort serv-ices, red-light districts have degraded the mystique of femininity as
“everything” becomes available. There is less and less need for “real sex”
since we can get it on-line daily, with a fresh crop of exciting images. Add to this mix the availability of birth control and future cloning, and it seems that sexual desire is waning despite its seeming ubiquity. Sex has been reduced to a drive, a form of entertainment to be satisfied. The birthrate in many postin-dustrial countries (Germany, Japan, Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, and Sweden) has been steadily decreasing while those 65 and older are living longer. In the United States the birthrate is well below replacement level. The present “baby boom echo” (Gen Y ) of the late 1980s and early 1990s, as discussed in the initial chapters, is a result of large-scale immigration into America, beginning in the early 1970s. Daughters of these early immigrants started having children of their own in the late 1980s.
“Their birth rates were still closer to those of their parents’ country of ori-gin than that of the United States,” suggesting that their familial lifestyles were shaped by a different value structure than that of the general popula-tion (The Economist 2001).
And so it is with teen experience. Boredom comes with the inability to stick with the task, to develop a history with it. The evacuation of time that becomes condensed into an “instant.” We see this phenomenon with per-sonal Web home pages. The paradoxical aspect about them is that they are
“automatically published.” While this is touted as a positive feature because it enables the teen to change it at his/her will (Chandler 1999), without going through a long approval to be published, the very impermanence of the document also cheapens it. The odd feature of its very availability, to be stored on a Web server and changed at will, can make it “boring” after the initial thrill of having it posted wears off. For desire to sustain itself, a prohi-bition has to be in place. Some “Thing” must prove unattainable, which puts an end to an unbearable anxiety of undecidablity—the addiction of never having enough, of wanting it ALL—for it enables an individual to live with his or her lack, with impossibility, rather than being instantly gratified. It is the ability to remain content while living with our limitations. Consumer
products that are “impossibly” priced—mansions, Ferraris, haute couture, jewelry, fine furniture for the adult market, and computer games, MP3, CDs, cell phones, fashion for the teen market—are not what is prohibited. On the contrary, it is precisely the high cost of such objects that late capitalism identifies as being possessed by those who do not lack; whose every desire has magically been satisfied—perverted. The superego of neoliberalist capitalism promotes just such an aggressive anxiety of failed satisfaction. The psychic structure is that of phallic mastery: narcissistic fantasies of unlimited power and authority, oneness, self-control over desire, and reason over emotion.
Desire is evacuated, while drive and the jouissance that comes with it becomes forwarded.
The instant gratification of VR signals an erosion of “transitional space” (Winnicott), a space where the object can be held so that a history can be established with it (Zizek 1996a, 190). There is an evacuation of the very “substance” that makes it “real”; that “substance” is the object’s fan-tasma, its objet a, that which establishes its subjectivated meaning, what gives it worth. Objects are hyped up and then drained of their desirability to make room for the next updated generation. Cyberspace, as Virilio maintains, eliminates mechanical time and collapses space. In a wireless world messages and images are brought to us instantly from a distance—the very meaning of telematic. Transitional space requires a “holding,” a time dimension that has become progressively eroded. That is the danger here. So as not to be mis-understood, this erosion of transitional space is not taking place because of “violent” video games. It is rather the delaying or “holding” of the subject that is being lost. A “glance aesthetic” replaces the aesthetics of dwelling within and with the object. We see this already with the way teens use IM (Instant Message) technology. In Pew report (Lenhart et al., 2000) the majority of the teens reported that IM, e-mail, and chat rooms increased the number of contacts they made, but they almost all agreed that making friends was not achieved through this form of communication. As one 17-year-old wrote, “The Internet has helped me socialize with more people, but at a very impersonal level.” The distancing effect of IM made it possible both to risk asking someone for a date (more so for boys than girls), but it also was most often used to cut off or end relationships, to tell one that the relationship was over, or to block communication from some-one the teen was mad at. Rather than facing up to the friend, IM enables unpleasant messages to be sent, yet another form of interpassivity: the IM machine “enjoys” delivering the castrating effects. IM becomes both a con-trolling device as well as a way to stay in touch. But it has little value as a form of communication that sustains a deep friendship. True, teens have buddy lists, an IM address book that is collected by the user. When one logs on, the user can find out how many buddies are on-line at the same time s/he is. The buddy list can include friends from school, teachers, family members, past friends, kids from other schools, and friends met during summer camps. However, such a buddy list is easily changed, and many on
the list easy forgotten or erased. The bottom line is that IM devices are most often used to consult and make plans with friends (more than 80 percent said so in the Pew Internet Report). Because of teens busy schedules, the IM-ing back and forth enables a group to agree on a meeting time, arrange an activ-ity together, ask each other if they are “free,” and so on. Such technology has made all of us walking cyborgs. So where is the “No!” to be found?