The Tetris effect is the ability of any activity to which people devote sufficient time and attention to begin to dominate their thoughts, mental images, and dreams. It is named after the video game Tetris. (From Tetris effect – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
Going to a school that is dominated by technology, it is easy for my classmates and I to be distracted by the twenty-four hour entertainment that can be had on the World Wide Web. For the first few years, we heard stories about people getting their accounts revoked for going on Myspace or describing to their parents (with visuals) exactly what was going on at the “mature” websites they chose to browse during humanities class. By senior year, the fear pretty much wore off. The school proxies have been tightened down and people are figuring out that if a site isn’t already blocked, there is not a very likely chance of them getting in trouble looking at it.
These were the set of circumstances that brought on the Tetris craze that is still going on at my school. A few months ago, all anybody would do when they got on a computer would be play Tetris. Rumors were going around of who had the top score and a mental scoreboard was kept of who the top three Tetris players in the school were. Teachers were having discussions in the hallways about how Tetris needed to be blocked and about how they wished they could partake in the fun.
It was at this peak of 8-bit popularity that some of the students in the senior class realized that there were some unexpected side effects of playing Tetris. I was among them. Whenever I closed my eyes, I could see the blocks falling. I would play out different scenarios in my head, always thinking about how my brain could not randomize the blocks enough for the game to be fair. Then I would mentally clear the board and then start all over again. I had trouble sleeping and woke up with the desire to top my high score.
I had to kick my habit. A group of us joked that we start a self help group like Alcoholics Anonymous, accept that we were powerless against our addiction and help others who had similar struggles. Then, I just lost the desire to play. It took so long to get a high score and I didn’t have the patience to try over and over. I didn’t quite go cold turkey, I occasionally play to help myself refocus but that is about it. I no longer dream in arrangements of four squares, no longer think about clearing rows and I hope my senioritis is more productive because of it.
What exactly was the Clinton campaign trying to say with this ad?
At first glance, Bluefields in Nicaragua looks like any other rum-soaked, Rastafarian-packed, hammock-infested Caribbean paradise. But Bluefields has a secret. People here don’t have to work. Every week, sometimes every day, 35kg sacks of cocaine drift in from the sea. [From Catch of the day: Cocaine - 09 Feb 2008 - Oceans news - NZ Herald]
In Voltaire’s Candide, the main character gets tossed about at night on a river and, at daybreak, awakens to find himself in a peculiar place. “The roads were covered, or rather adorned, with carriages of a glittering form and substance, in which were men and women of surprising beauty, drawn by large red sheep which surpassed in fleetness the finest coursers of Andalusia, Tetuan, and Mequinez.” What he had stumbled upon was the lost city of El Dorado. An almost utopian society, El Dorado had gold in such surplus that it was simply worthless to them.
In Bluefields, Nicaragua, there is a similar sort of treasure that is in excess supply. Ocean currents bring loads of cocaine, dumped by smugglers trying to evade American surveillance planes or other drug enforcement officials. These free narcotics have put Bluefields in an interesting situation. Local unemployment is above 80% and yet people live comfortably, even lavishly in this town where electricity is spotty. People rarely fight over a substance that has caused countless casualties around the world.
One wouldn’t initially think that a utopian society would result from illegal trafficking. In fact, the idea sounds almost paradoxical to most. However, the situation makes sense. This town has an excess of a highly prized (though prohibited) substance, giving them sway over almost all outsiders. The locals must not value the surplus of cocaine because they realize that they can be happier by selling it to others and spending the profits on improving their lives in meaningful ways. This will inevitably fail, though. By putting such little personal value in the cocaine, there will eventually be somebody strong enough to go in and take it by force. Until that happens, the citizens of Bluefields will continue living humanity’s dream of making free money.
Tomorrow is not a test. The emergency broadcast system works fine. Everything up until now has been preparation. All those times that I chose Abraham Lincoln over Thomas Jefferson, the hot dog over the hamburger were practice. This is the real deal. The first official step into my civic duties. I can’t wait. I’ve been counting the days. Who would’ve thought *this* is the part of adulthood that I am most excited for?