Blog Post 2

Yan Wing Yee  20034581

Blog Post 2

Watkins, S. C. (2009). We Play: The Allure of Social Games, Synthetic Worlds, and Second Lives. The Young and the Digital: What the Migration to Social-Network Sites, Games, and Anytime, Anywhere Media Means for Our Future. Boston: Beacon Press.

After reading this article, it is interesting to let me know what perception of the gamer’s life. The author was focused on how the video game has become the most solid of all the entertainment industry in this digital age. And showed that the digital migration from television to social networking sites and games, and this has had a significant impact on the identity and daily life of young people.

The author uses numerous examples to support their analysis, one of the survey shows that television has declined while young people are abandoning it for the games since watching television is too boring and too passive. As a female who is not nearly interested in the game, I do not entirely agree with this argument, decline in television because of media content is keep changing and young people today are not only consumers, but also creators and participants in the media. For example, the game “World of Warcraft” which is frequently mentioned is described as a participatory platform in which you can create your own content and build your own world.

Watkins proposes that online games as a “social connector”, and in opposition to traditional media participants, find out more engaging and entertaining meanwhile having the opportunity to gain new skills on the game.  Young people are most interested in online social networks that connect them to already existing friends, and only have an "unconcerned" interest in other virtual worlds and communities.

Did online games and social networking could be a “social connector” in our real life? In my opinion, playing online games and social networking are all lack of realism, and also bring out the problem about "The reduction of face to face interaction ", "The lack of network realism.” Such as Facebook become an important platform for users communicate with others, since it is able to quickly and easily to reach the purpose of communication and connection. When people reduce to use traditional face-to-face time-consuming way to communication, people would gradually deepen their dependence on Facebook, unfortunately, online-only communities do not consist of real people and real friendships.

Words: 351

Reference:

Dwyer, C., Hiltz, S. R. and Passerini, K. (2007), Trust and Privacy Concern Within Social Networking Sites: A Comparison of Facebook and MySpace. Computer and information science, 123.

Friedmann, R. and Fox, R. (1989), On the internal organization of consumers’ cognitive schemata, Psychological Reports, Vol. 65, pp. 115-126.

Watkins, S. C. (2009), The young and the digital: What the migration to social network sites, games, and anytime, anywhere media means for our future., Mass Beacon Press, Boston.