Lost, in a good X

[andrewducker]

After someone being quoted saying "It doesn't matter how good the technology is, nothing's quite as immersive as a good book."
[Poll #1054920]

Comments

[pickwick.livejournal.com]

I said books, but some computer games can come a close second. Stuff like Civ or the Sims, that you can accidentally spend 6 hours or so in.

[johnbobshaun.livejournal.com]

Personally, I think few things are immersive as mid 1990's VR games. They sure knew how to render a triangle back then.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

Watching a film in a mostly empty cinema on your own, or watching something on TV alone in the dark is very different to a packed Friday night cinema filled with chatting neds and your mates telling rude jokes over the popcorn.

[khbrown.livejournal.com]

Missing options:

The Matrix
Reality
Dreams
The Society of the Spectacle

[robhu.livejournal.com]

Books win! Surprising, but then it shouldn't be as it's what I voted for.

[cx650.livejournal.com]

Most immersive: Definitely books, they involve both imaginations, the writer's and the reader's.

Least immersive: Comics, they involve too much 'suspension of disbelief'.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

The peak of my immersion scale is playing a tabletop RPG, but books come a close second, followed fairly distantly by movies. However, I suspect that full sensory VR, or even just believable audio-visual VR might well trump books.

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

There's no "Depends" setting.

It depends. Depends on the game, depends on the book, depends on the movie, depends on my mood, the surroundings, the people around, and so on.

[monocycle.livejournal.com]

http://void.printf.net/~morag/images/icons/book_power.jpg

[amberite.livejournal.com]

Depends on what you mean by immersive.

Books (including comic books) stimulate my mind to generate data to run through the unused brain cycles. Video games, as far as I can tell, simply use up most of the brain cycles.

If I'm depressed, a book isn't usually a good escape for me. They put me in contact with my subconscious mind. Video games usually don't, but they do generate random data that goes back in later.

If I were to only have access either to books or video games for a year, I'd pick books in a heartbeat. If I were to have access to only one book or one video game for a day or two, I'd pick a video game...

Television and movies are a third category. Most of the time these days I seem to be too hyperactive for non-interactive watchable media, but good television can be used to generate a form of gnosis; it's also inspiring in the same way books are.

And radio is just goddamn irritating here -- too many commercials, all targeted at suburban parasites who've got things I haven't -- kids, mortgages, cars, intestinal flus, none of which I want to hear about, so the ad spots are like having your really annoying neighbor's kvetching piped into your house. No thanks.

[wolflady26.livejournal.com]

I reluctantly picked movies, because an excellent book can be more engrossing than a movie, but a mediocre movie can be pretty darned engrossing. I have yet to dodge and duck in my seat because of anything I've read.

From that perspective, I'd have to put computer games next.

If you asked me which one I couldn't live without, I'd definitely take books, though.

[neferet.livejournal.com]

With the exception of radio, I would have to to say each of them have been either at some point. What I find most immersive today could change totally by tomorrow :) I think many people would find it difficult to give a definitive answer.