My Sifu used to tell us at training.
When you eat. Eat.
When you read. Read
When you walk. Walk ect.
This was as we were learning a new Kungfu form, we had learned the moves, and were just going through the motions, and not executing them with real intent.
He demonstrated to show us how we looked. He started our form and made a block and Fist smash move, then said outloud ” So what’s on tv tonight?” he moved his leg forward in a kick in to the next stance ” I wonder whats for dinner” Grab and pull ” I still need to pay my Telephone bill” Sweep and block ( he then made us do horse stance for 5 min as punishment )
He could tell we weren’t in the moment – and that our lazy motions, and lack of intent was being caused by us thinking of other things when we should have been thinking about the form. Our performance was not what it could have been – if we had been paying attention to the task at hand.
We go through the right motions when we aren’t paying complete attention to things – but we don’t do them with intent.
My Duel PC screens are a blessing and a distraction at the same time for gaming. Australians are already multitasking our TV viewing and Computer use we also listen to music, chat on msn, Psts in the middle of a boss fight, browsing web comics, news or web posts, mobile phone, home phone, friends, Write blog posts.. ( Sorry!) family distractions and so on.
How much of your gaming time is spent really in the moment.
Honestly. None. In raids I shutdown as many distractions as possible – if there is music it has to be on my cd /mp3 player in the lounge not in my earphone , I might go away or offline on msn, but more often I’m not. I once tried to have a msn voice conversation and a guild raid vent at the same time. ( just don’t push to talk the wrong thing ) I have a friend who keeps linking me Youtube videos while raiding. You know who you are! Then there are those “oh shiney” moments and my mouse has skipped over to my 2nd screen.
Is gaming meant to be about being in a gaming moment? Or only as a layer of activity or awareness. There are moments when 100% of your attention is needed – but more often not.
You have to wonder if that ugly facial expression on that grandslam tennis players face is because they are Im’ing in their brain – or concentrating on that moment the ball hits the racket.
Does the definition of playing a social game allow for these extra layers of activity and awareness – and does that contribute to a MMORPGs popularity and appeal?
In a raid with my guild someone made a comment about the other activities they were doing while they were interrupting. He wasn’t missing the interrupts – still doing awesome dps – but he also wasn’t paying 100% attention. This wasn’t necessary bad for his performance, or the raid. Just a fact that the activity allowed him to multitask meant that he wasn’t as engaged in the moment.