‘Mediated experiences increasingly dominate our lives. Movies and television already confuse the real and the mediated. New technology is blurring the line further. Video games and virtual reality are becoming increasingly realistic. “Augmented reality” technology is on its way to the public. Wearable computers will allow people to enter a news story and see and feel the events the way the journalist who was there did and no doubt eventually we’ll be able to experience the events live. As the line between real and mediated gets harder to see, presence increases. An important and overlooked consequence of this trend is an increasing confusion from the other direction, in which “real life” seems to be mediated. People will have more and more trouble distinguishing reality, and some may not even appreciate that there is a difference. It will get harder for people to trust their own senses and judgment and it will be more difficult to impress people with non-mediated experiences. Some people may see themselves as being at the mercy of larger forces, like a character in a video game who can only do as the player directs. And some may feel they can act as they please because they or someone can push a game reset button or start the movie over, so their actions will have no lasting consequences.’
When “Real” Seems Mediated: Inverse Presence by Lydia Reeves Timmins
