The other day I was speaking to a friend about the rise of recycled ideas making their way back into pop culture. TV shows like Hawaii five-O and movies like Batman, are making a comeback with a vengeance for an entirely new generation of viewers. But recycled ideas aren’t limited to plots and story lines; 3D technology has made a big comeback in the recent year. After the mind blowing effects and huge box-office success of Avatar, the media industry jumped into bed with 3D technology as a way to help increase revenue and provide audiences with something new and fresh. There is so much faith in the future of 3D technology that companies like AMC and Samsung have sunk hundreds of millions of dollars upgrading theaters and TVs to facilitate more 3D content. Sounds great right? Audiences get to be part of the action, no longer passively viewing, but actually being part of the movie itself. For studios and directors, this new technology offers a new way of conceiving the film and media experience. Everyone wins! Or maybe not…
As it turns out, audiences are going to the movies less but spending more. The average price of a 3D ticket is about $3 dollars more per seat, good news for the media industry, bad news for consumers, but the bad news doesn’t stop there. As of today there has been no large-scale studies done regarding how 3D technology affects human eyesight. There have been reports that people are experiencing headaches, nausea and in some extreme cases seizures and death. Sounds a bit dangerous just for a 90-minute visual orgy.
Clearly the industry thinks that 3D is the way of the future. Samsung predicts the sale of 6 million 3D TVs this year, up six fold from last year. Additionally, Nintendo, just released its new handheld device the 3DS, promising to let gamers experience 3D games without the help of special glasses and even has a camera allowing users to take 3D photos. But, interestingly, Nintendo did issue a warning saying that children under the age of 6 could experience stunted eye development and damage if using the 3D feature. Seizures, stunted eye development and damage, sounds like there needs to be more research, but as mentioned earlier, no large scale research has been done, except by the companies that created these devices and guess what, those findings aren’t public. What a surprise.
What a great idea, lets throw millions of dollars behind a rebooted technology without any understanding of how it affects human physiology. Why would companies be spending so much cash to push a technology that is untested and causes discomfort in its target audience? Perhaps its because they think they can get more money out of consumers for this “new and improved” technology regardless of the danger it poses. Or perhaps they are so impressed with themselves by reviving the corpse of this old, and quite frankly, cheesy technology that they don’t see the potential for harm. The quote from Dreamworks Animation CEO Jeff Katzenberg who calls 3D "the greatest innovation that's happened for the movie theaters and for moviegoers since color,” would definitely support the latter.
Not surprisingly, Nintendo later retracted its warning, under pressure from a New York Times article speculating that they did not have the creditability to issue such a warning because they are not scientists, and that playing 3D games and watching 3D TV probably isn’t all that bad for you. Though doctors all agree that limited time in front of these devices, no longer than an hour at a time, is the best way to avoid damage or discomfort. Ironically this comes on the heals of another study indicating that teens between the ages of 8 – 18 are consuming media at a rate of 10 hours and 45 minutes a day. More than a 1/2 of their waking hours in front of some kind of electronic device. So much for moderation. Check out the study here.
So, next time you spend 15 dollars to see the latest two and a half hour 3D smorgasbord of visual delights remember the Taiwanese man who suffered a brain aneurism and died last year from overstimulation after seeing James Camerons “Avatar”, it might you think twice about what an extra dimension is worth to you.
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