Bored Gamers: Techno Savvy

Greg Marshall: technophobia vs. technophilia

It is frankly terrifying how dependent we have become, as a nation, on technology. There are many whose mobile phones seem like a freakish extension to their thumbs; distant cousins perhaps to those who share a creepily symbiotic relationship with Facebook. Of course for every technophile there is a technophobe. The cantankerous, often (but not necessarily) older being, offering such pearls of wisdom as; “I don’t need one of these smart–like phones with all this app nonsense, my old phone serves me fine,” and, “I remember when kids used to play outside, not spend their life on one of these Nintendo-X-Station gizmos”.

Thankfully I am not of the latter group. I love technology. I revel in technology. I just don’t trust technology. Though I consider myself fairly technologically savvy, I am convinced that technology instinctively knows the upper limits of my understanding, and exploits it frequently. Too add to my frustrations at the failing of all things electrical, there seems to always be some numpty on hand to suggest I “try turning it off and on again,” or “give it a smack”. Such ignorance and brutal savagery around delicate components, whilst making me feel better by comparison, does little to help the situation.

“Try turning it off and on again”

The uselessness of man when faced with technological tasks was beautifully highlighted in the last few weeks by two tasks integral to the filming of Bored Gamers. The first involved the wiring of a games console so it may be played live and simultaneously recorded for later broadcast. In reality, such a seemingly feasible feat requires more boxes, gadgets, gizmos and cables than I have ever seen. Even now I couldn’t tell you what these all did. I believe one box up-scales the signal whilst another down-scales it, but then I could be making this all up. I do know the day put aside for testing this was an unequivocal nightmare of technological failure. This nightmare was repeated when, shortly before filming our second episode, the mega drive (an integral part of the show) refused to turn on. All the aforementioned considered, it is embarrassing, and not without a smidgen of irony, that the first problem was eventually fixed by turning one of the connected boxes “off and on again” and the latter issue by punching the retro console. Still, after a week or two of being held hostage by circuit boards and components, all’s well that ends well… at least ’til next week!

Bored Gamers is an hour-long weekly show on all things gaming.

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