Hearthstone and the age of limited social connectivity.

Smoke rises from a hexagonal hut draped in red cloth proudly displaying the Horde coat of arms with large tusks protruding from every corner. In the center, a tan-colored stone that shows wear from battle. I move my minion into an attacking position.

The number “-2” floats on the screen as my Sunnfury Protector delivers damage leaving my opponent Gul’dan the Warlock weak. I quickly glance at the cards in my hand and find my killing blow. I summon the fireball.

WOOSH!

 

“-4” is now floating.

Gul’dan turns grey and starts to shake from side to side. Soon white lightening engulfs Gul’dan.

CRACK!

BOOM!

 

 

The heroic Warlock Gul’dan is nothing more than an impact crater. Victory music blares from my tiny iPad speaker. I’ve unlocked another hero and deck of cards. I start to wonder what are we losing with these intangible items and lack of immediate social connection, unlike the Collectible Card Games of yesteryear.

With the relatively recent release of Blizzard’s Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft and its expansion Curse of Naxxramas. I find myself falling down yet another Blizzard k-hole, I question my choice forgoing social interaction in analog collectible card games for the convenience of a digital one.

My younger self would obsessively ponder over the few meticulously painted Magic cards I could barely afford. Looking at them would transport you to distant lands. From the tree covered city of Ravnica and its blue aurora light, the brown fish scale demon horns of Tombstalker, or the majestic white fire of Kargan Dragonlord. As I grew older Friday nights of slurping on Mountain Dew, and protecting my deck from the cold stare of my opponent became less frequent.

During my formative years, summers were spent biking to the local bookstore to buy Comic Books or a new Magic Deck, with what little money I made from completing chores around my parent’s house. With the release Quake and AOL’s unlimited Internet for $20 a month, I started to spend my time scouring Mplayer.com for Death Match Quake games. Soon followed Quake 3 Arena, and Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II each one requiring a computer upgrade. I would blindly accept any new technology so long as I was able to keep gaming.

Like everyone else, I embraced E-books, digital Comics, iPhone, iPad, Netflix streaming, and Social Networking with no questions asked. The convenience and price of these technologies led Borders Bookstores, Blockbuster, and possibly in the near future GameStop to close its doors. The financial effects of these technologies are immediate; on the other hand the societal implications have only begun to emerge.

MIT psychologist Sherry Turkle is one of the leading researchers studying how technology affects they way we think, see ourselves, and interact with others. Throughout her 15 years of research she observed behavior she calls the Goldilocks effect, “Across the generations, I see that people cannot get enough of each other, if and only if they can have each other at a distance, in amounts they can control. I call it the Goldilocks effect: not too close, not too far, just right.” Why the later generations adapted technology into their lives the younger ones are brought up with it and are forgoing face-to-face communication, “An 18-year-old boy who uses texting for almost everything says to me wistfully, “Someday, someday, but certainly not now, I’d like to learn how to have a conversation.”

Technology allows us to filter and cleanse the messiness of human relationships and interaction. Working through the messiness to a mutual understanding of each other makes them real. Excess filtering will stunt social growth and lead us to screen centric society such as the adults in the film Wall-E. As this new generation of game consoles attempts to make gaming a more social experience lets remember, it is not a replacement for physical human interaction and relationships.

Find more Rich McGrath’s writing and creative pursuits at www.rwmcgrath.com