Do we want to simplify interaction or complicate it?

Based on the reading material( the part I can understand) for this week as well as my personal daily experience, I find myself confused by human’s deep inside expectation of interaction. It sounds fair enough to say that people are looking for familiarities in it so that they could easily get access to new technologies with their life experience, however, paradoxically, to pursue familiarities too far becomes an imitation of real life therefore eliminate the necessity of the technology.

We seem desperate to save our time and energy from daily routine. Think back the advertising video Luke played for us last week promoting the concept of ubiquitous media: A lady sits by her bed interacting with different digital technologies to read books, video talk with her daughter and deal with official business. I understand that they are trying to display an extraordinary futuristic lifestyle, but the fact of sitting by the bed, simply waving your finger to do everything just appears weird to me. It makes me wonder how weak and out of shape we could be if we really lead a life like this.

While I’m almost convinced that someday there would only be our brains that are willing to interact with computers, I find that motion-sensing game is a credible opposite viewpoint. Since we already have invented gamepads covering all kinds of action orders that we may encounter in games, why are we still interested in jumping up and down and waving our arms to play a fake tennis game? Is it likely that game is the only form in which we are willing to endeavor more energy? And the choice between a digital ball game or a real one seems to be another question to ask. Apart from the physical conditions, like weather, limits of place, what is the psychological pattern that makes people prefer an embodiment rather the real game itself?