Chinese Gamer Dies in the Matrix and for Real

There is so little positive news from China these days and this is particularly true with regard to Web news. Censorship, hacking, prostitution issues and a host of other maladies seem to be plaguing China and its Internet. Just today it was reported that a man dropped dead in a Chinese cyber café after playing some online game for three days straight. According to the news a 30 year old man evidently died of exhaustion, but the particular game was not mentioned. I feel terrible for the man but it is difficult not to have a rather tongue in cheek visualization of Web 2.0 turning deadly.

Is Web 2.0 a Drug?

If I had to bet money on Web activities bordering on being purely addictive I would say categorically that most of the people I know are habitual offenders. Just last night a great friend and I were plotting the strategy for galvanizing Web 2.0 into some monumental tool for good when at length we both typed in total exhaustion and almost in unison: “I am bored, we need something new!” When I played online games a couple of years back it was not uncommon for a group of friends to interface for hours if not days on end either in game or in collaboration. Even now an article often keeps me awake past 3 AM after a day of research and sometimes as many as 4 IM sessions taking place simultaneously. Believe me, this is not outside the norm for any of the A list bloggers either.

Where is the Easy Button?

The thing about the Web - particularly Web 2.0 that is so compelling is the potential. I am not talking about just the potential to make money (which is enormous) but also about the potential to do good, make the world a better place or even to meet a lifelong friend. The speed and access this medium gives us all is beyond any communication tool ever devised. Any day one simply has to expect that something fantastic might come across their Web presence. People are wired into something here that we seldom even think about in that their lives can be changed significantly from one day to the next. The order of significance may be localized to particular venues but never the less nothing can act in the same way the Web does. This is both fantastic and dangerous as this news reflects. Web 2.0 is a big red easy button that we all wait to light up.

A World Within a World

The cool reality of our dual existence is that Web 2.0 is a separate reality that can affect our more concrete one. I can truthfully say that not one of my hometown relatively unwired friends sees any significance in being able to type: “Phil Butler blogger” into Google and getting 10 hits for this writer. Both here and in the physical world this narrow a search really means little in reality. However, in the the world we have built here it is fascinating. Such things symbolize presence and a small fragment of evidence that we are here. This is the blessing and the curse of the Internet, the dichotomy of dynamic that represents fantastic possibility and also massive wasted energy. For this poor Chinese man some potentiality ended rather needlessly. It is interesting how Web 2.0 and the Matrix seem so paralleled in that if you die on Web 2.0 - you also die for real. Perhaps we should all think a little more about what we need next from this medium.

Image Courtesy Yahoo! News