Entertainment in the Information Age

The entertainment industry has been greatly affected by the Information Age, long gone are the days of board games and jigsaws; games consoles and handheld devices are the future of entertainment. The latest devices can vary in size and function from the biggest 60 inch plasma 3D TV’s to the smallest handheld devices.

Games

There are many different platforms that offer the consumer gaming, the most popular are the devices which are solely dedicated to gaming such as PlayStation (Sony), Xbox (Microsoft) and Nintendo these three different consoles dominate the gaming world and I can’t see them being challenged any time soon. People use different consoles depending on what they plan to use them for. For example, the Nintendo Wii is great for any age and everyone can get involved where as consoles such as Playstation’s and Xbox’s are targeted more at serious gamers. Different types of games also dominate the entertainment industry. Multiplayer games are usually the most popular such as Call of Duty, FIFA and Guitar Hero – these games give gaming a whole new dimension of playing with or against your friends. All these consoles and games offer online options but I believe that this ruins the meaning of the game; I think they are put to better use playing against friends or family. Games have now found their way onto handheld devices such as Apple’s iPhones and iPads these games are usually simple and easy to play, but extremely addictive! These games give people gaming on the move and are great for long or short distance travelling. I believe that games are rapidly changing for the better.

Music

Music, much liking gaming, has come on leaps and bounds in the 20^th Century. The introduction of Apple’s iPod was the first real leap forward from the days of tapes and CD’s. Music is one of the most popular sources of entertainment – before the introduction of the iPod handheld CD players could be carried around with a maximum of around 10-15 songs on them. This was all changed with the introduction of the iPod on the 23^rd October 2001 and since then they have sold over 300’000’000 iPod’s worldwide. You can now get iPod’s with a memory capacity of up to 160GB which can hold 40’000 songs!

Truly portable music players has transformed the way we listen to music, in my opinion the for the better! It is rare now-a-days for someone to sit down and just listen to music, in such a dynamic world everything must be done on the move. I store all of my music on my iPhone and I really couldn’t imagine carrying around a portable CD player and a case of CD’s. I cannot think of any disadvantages of the iPod or any portable music players; however they are quite desirable items so they could be targets for stealing.

Digital Cameras

Digital Cameras and photography in general properly wouldn’t be the top of most people’s lists if you ask them want they find entertaining, but I believe that cameras offer entertainment that no other devices can. The majority of people now carry cameras on them most of the time; whether it be a camera phone or a high detail digital SLR. Digital cameras have a huge advantage over disposals cameras – they allow you to view the photo you have taken as soon as you’ve taken it on a screen (usually about 3 inches). As digital cameras have advanced as have the editing software that allows you to re-touch and improve your photos.

eBooks

Books have always been and always will be a good source of entertainment but they are on the decline with the release and sales of ‘e-books’. eBooks are handheld devices which can hold hundreds and even thousands of books in a device about the same size as a small paperback. Kindle from Amazon and the iPad from Apple are seen as the biggest players in the eBook industry. My family own a kindle and I find it much better than the iPad, I think the biggest advantage it has over the iPad is the ‘e-ink’ feature. e-Ink doesn’t require a backlight which means it is easier on the readers eyes and has a longer battery life. Another advantage the Kindle has over the iPad is the price. The bog standard Kindle costs only £89 which is an absolute bargain for the product and services it provides. The iPad, although it offers many other uses other than reading is way to over prices at £399 and the reader will start to develop a headache after around 30 minutes of use.