Xbox Kinect - What's Not Cool (Tyler)

    While the Xbox Kinect has a wide variety of uses, it ultimately limits the user’s experience physically, mentally, and socially.  The Kinect can only receive signals in a certain area and needs to operate in an open space.  Many households simply cannot provide ample space around the users; an individual must stand eight feet from the device and have an additional six feet of free space on every side.  This is further complicated with the introduction of another player.
    Another problem with the Kinect is that while it promotes some physical activity, is it a substitute for natural outdoor activity?  Why limit yourself to a piece of carpet when we have the entire world to play on?  An open field does not present as many safety hazards as a confined space surrounded by furniture.  Individuals have more materials to interact with and a larger range of motion outdoors; they can engage in games of soccer, swim in a pool, or jog around a block.  One can certainly expend more energy outdoors and burn more calories, a standard measure of exercise for many people.
    The Kinect only allows two users to interact with it at one time.  Even in the presence of others at a social event, users are engaged in the game and have little social interaction with others.  This takes away from the social connectedness of a group or family, a consequence of many forms of modern technology.  The book Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam shows strong correlation between the use of technology and the decline of social groups.  Socially, individuals might benefit more if they were members of a fitness club, soccer team, or community organization, all of which provide similar entertainment to that of the Kinect.  People should be “kinected” to others, not a camera or microphone.
    Finally, the current age of media and technology has heightened some functions of our brains, but dulls others.  No longer can we focus on an activity for an extensive period of time.  No longer can we read a book cover to cover with the same level of comprehension, even if we do finish it.  In Maryanne Wolf’s book Proust and the Squid, she claims that the rush of information and accelerated thought processes caused by technology isn’t necessarily a good thing (213).  Her book takes a look at the reading brain, how we engage and process information, and the continuing development of our mental systems and structure.  The brain is set up with dedicated “‘delay neurons’ whose sole function is to slow neuronal transmission by other neurons for mere milliseconds” (Wolf 214).  This allows us time to make inferences and compose new knowledge.  With the wealth of signals we are receiving from the Kinect and other sources, has technology injected itself into these moments, limiting our ability to think and comprehend?  Have the Kinect, and all of technology, created “a society of decoders of information, whose false sense of knowing distracts them from a deeper development of their intellectual potential" (Wolf 226)?  The Xbox Kinect limits us in more ways than one.