“The modern world is very wealthy, it's full of options. It's not like "This is the land I was born on and I have to make the most of it, and these are the people who are near me, and so they will become my family."” PeopleWorldBornModernLandMy FamilyWealthyModern World Author:Ian Bogost
“Play becomes a distraction, something you don't really need to do. It's not for serious people. They work hard, they don't play hard. Yes, you can say play hard, but that really means, keep working hard, right?” PeopleNeedsMeanHardPlaySeriousHard WorkDistractionReally MeanPlay HardYes You Can Author:Ian Bogost
“Generally speaking, when people use the word fun, it's like a placeholder. You know, "How was your evening?" "Oh it was fun."” PeopleKnowsUseFunKnow HowEvening Author:Ian Bogost
“Fun doesn't have anything to do with pleasure, necessarily. I think this will be terrifically unintuitive for people.” PeopleThinkingFunPleasure Author:Ian Bogost
“The more you're drowning in familiarity, the better the fun is. It requires less novelty to produce even more gratification. And it's something that didn't come from you. It was about the other thing - the thing you were experiencing, or the people you were with, or the mechanism you were operating, or whatever it might be.” PeopleMightFunProduceMechanismDrowningGratificationNoveltyFamiliarity Author:Ian Bogost
“Normally if you're dating, you're looking for compatibility, and then the moment that there's incompatibility, you're like, "Well, swipe left on that, let's just keep looking." In some ways I think the same lessons apply to people that apply to objects. It's just much easier to see that lesson in things because they're these fixed intangible lumps of stuff. People are not. They can change.” PeopleIfsThinkingWayWellsMomentsLeftStuffObjectsEasierLessonsDatingFixedLumpsIntangibleCompatibilityIncompatibility Author:Ian Bogost
“The idea of thinking of our relationships with people as also being structured by limitations and constraints can be useful.” PeopleThinkingIdeasLimitationOur RelationshipConstraints Author:Ian Bogost
“I think a lot of the misery that people experience comes from that sensation of boundlessness, of infinite possibility.” PeopleThinkingPossibilityInfiniteMiserySensationsInfinite Possibilities Author:Ian Bogost
“We're stuck in these situations with other people and our stuff and our jobs, and thinking that we can extract ourselves from those seems doomed to me. Instead, how can we live within those systems of constraints? We don't have to enjoy them, exactly, but at least acknowledge that those boundaries are real and that they structure our response to the world. And then once you do that, you allow yourself to say "I did my best given the circumstances."” PeopleThinkingWorldRealSeemsJobsGivenStuffEnjoySituationCircumstancesStructureResponseStuckBoundariesAcknowledgeDoomedConstraints Author:Ian Bogost
“Today, all our wives and husbands have Blackberries or iPhones or Android devices or whatever-the progeny of those original 950 and 957 models that put data in our pockets. Now we all check their email (or Twitter, or Facebook, or Instagram, or) compulsively at the dinner table, or the traffic light. Now we all stow our devices on the nightstand before bed, and check them first thing in the morning. We all do. It's not abnormal, and it's not just for business. It's just what people do. Like smoking in 1965, it's just life.” PeopleFirstsLightTodayMorningWifeBedHusbandModelsOriginalsTablesDinnerChecksDataSmokingPocketsDevicesTrafficEmailInstagramHusband And WifeIphoneAbnormalDinner TableBlackberriesAndroidsProgenyTraffic Light Author:Ian Bogost
