On Electronic Addictions

This is a placeholder, of sorts, to a tomorrow's editing of the conversation I am cutting this out from. The subject is basically how World of Warcraft creates an addiction-type effect.


Ever noticed, for one, that WoW is full of triangular shapes and upward-directed lines? As well as squares, which aren't uncommon? I'll try to find that triangle article stuff later, however, in the analysis of pictures in children's books, it's very commonly taken to analyse the shapes that the pictures have. It basically boils down to the fact that upward triangles are very strongly positive, downward triangles are negative, squares are pretty much "stable" positions, lines going up from left to right are positive, the other way around is "negative"

Furthermore, there's the size. The stuff around is generally larger than the avatars. Except the "significant" stuff like houses and carts that are out of proportion. Plus, there's the colours. Colours are all "full", "bright" and "colourful"

All these three features are QUITE common to what kids that can draw would draw. I mean - objects that kids draw are usually outta proportion. A toy car would be huge, while a house would be small

So, basically, the WoW imagery is aiming at the so-called "inner child", which reverts to childhood, which is omg carefree awesome time, which is something most would like to go back to - and therefore the subconscious addiction