SkyMall Monday: Telekinetic Obstacle Course

by Mike Barish on

I considered sending this week’s SkyMall Monday directly to your brains rather than posting it here on Gadling. I mean, the human brain is so powerful that surely I can transmit messages to you directly by simply focusing my energy towards that goal. I bend all of my own spoons that way. However, I realized that I would never be able to “speak” with you telepathically through the foil helmet that I wear to keep other people’s messages from reaching me. It’s a bit of a Catch 22. So here I am writing SkyMall Monday yet again and wasting my brain power. Not that SkyMall and all of its goodness are in any way, shape or form a waste of our minds. But I do feel as if I am failing to utilize my brain’s full potential. Thankfully, SkyMall has stepped up to help us all harness the tremendous power of our most fantastic organ. No, we won’t be speaking telepathically or helping paraplegics to interact with the world around them using only their brains. No, SkyMall has eschewed those trivial matters and chosen to address the single greatest problem facing the world today: boredom. Finally, we can battle our free time by playing a game that requires only the sheer force of our brains. Because we now have the Telekinetic Obstacle Course.For centuries, man has confronted boredom with nothing more than our hands. We’ve had to play foolish games like Patty Cake, Cat’s Cradle and Hand Vagina (NSFW). These were foolish trifles that embarrassed us all. Were we not capable of more? Certainly, we were. But we didn’t know how to reach our true potential. So we idled away the time by convincing ourselves that slapping each other was amusing. And when that wasn’t enough, we created games that completely forbid the use of hands in a desperate attempt to consider ourselves as evolved. But now, we’ve finally solved the problem of how to kill time without using any of our appendages.

Think I’m exaggerating just how important this development is? Well, it’s a good thing that you can’t read my mind right now because I’m calling you all sorts of names. See if you can wrap your puny minds around the SkyMall product description:

This is the game that uses your focused brain waves to maneuver a ball through an obstacle course…As you relax and concentrate, the headband sends a wireless signal (based on your mental commands) to the game’s air fan, which increases or decreases its speed, suspending or lowering a foam ball through one of eight obstacles, including hoops, teeter-totters, baskets, or chutes.

Oh, this is the game that uses my focused brain waves. I thought that was Guess Who. And it’s about time someone created a game that involved chutes. Am I right?

So, seclude yourself in your all-white room, relax and concentrate. No need to use your hands or even invite over a friend. All you need is your mind. And that headband. And apparently a teeter-totter. We’ve evolved.

Check out all of the previous SkyMall Monday posts HERE.

Big in Japan: Strange mental disorder confines Japanese youths to their rooms

by Matthew Firestone on

If you’re anything like me, you’re awed by the power and capacity of the human mind.

Mankind’s greatest asset, the mind has enabled our species to develop society and technology, and to rise above and beyond even our closest primate ancestors.

If you’re anything like me, you’re also terrified by the power of the capacity of the human mind.

Especially when things start to go wrong…

In all of my time over here in Asia, one of the craziest things I’ve heard about is a uniquely Japanese mental disorder known as hikikomori (??????????), which literally translates as “pulling away, being confined.”

Referred to by Western experts as acute social withdrawal, hikikomori describes youths who choose to completely withdraw from society by shutting themselves inside their parent’s house for years on end.

According to the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, a case of hikikomori starts after a youth has remained inside a house for more than six months, though there have been recorded cases of self-imposed isolation extending for more than a decade.

At this point in the article, I am asking that you go outside for a minute, get some sun, and then come back to the computer when you’re ready. Trust me!

Are you back? Feeling a bit more relaxed and healthy? Good.

So, what exactly causes a young Japanese youth to voluntarily imprison themselves in their room for months on end.

(And no, the answer is not so they can play World of Warcraft in real-time!)

Often times, hikikomori start out when a child refuses to go to school, which is a common enough condition to warrant its own unique word in Japanese, namely tōkōkyohi (登校拒否).

As you’d imagine, the pressure to succeed in Japan can be intense, and few children are ready to leave the comfort of home for the angst-ridden classroom.

Japanese psychologists also point out that young adults may feel overwhelmed by Japanese society, and have difficult times fulfilling their expected social roles.

By confining themselves to the home, youths with hikikomori can set their own sleep schedules, and venture outdoors only at night when there is no one around.

Internet gaming has also become a popular escape from reality, especially since it allows for social contact without the pressure of spending face-to-face time with someone.

Needless to say, the stress on the family caused by a youth stricken with hikikomori is immeasurable. In a culture where parents are overprotective of their children, it can literally take months or even years before a family comes to term with the problem, and seeks out professional help.

In fact, most parents of hikikomori youths end up prolonging the inevitable by going out of their way to accommodate their children, either by sneaking their child food or hiding the severity of their child’s condition from family and friends. Sadly, few Japanese parents could ever imagine taking a stand against their children, and forcing them to reenter society.

On that note, I’ve been inside my apartment all day writing, so I think it’s time to take a quiet stroll through the park…