11/24/2008

Get off your Ashley furniture

I did not grow up with gaming systems in the house. So when I read the article by Steinkuehler and Williams called Where Everybody Knows Your (Screen) Name: Online Games as "Third Places" I was quite impartial to what they were discussing about the gaming world. I've always had a bit of an opinion about about gaming, but I often don't know what to think about online gaming where you connect with other people and play against them and interact with them.

Being someone who has been quite an active person her whole life, seeing people spend hour upon hour in front of the television playing video games. In my opinion I think online gaming is a poor excuse for socializing with others. I have a friend who is a complete "gamer" and I have to admit, he is quite socially awkward when it comes to public situations. I'm not basing my opinion on solely him, but I have seen this in many "gamers." In the article, Sennett states "people can be sociable only when they have some protection from each other." I find this to be a plausible statement to me. Maybe it's because I'm a sociable person that I'm bothered by the whole gamer lifestyle (I don't mean to offend any of you readers out there), but I feel that there are much better things that these people could be doing with their time to benefit their minds and health (those two even co-relate). How can anyone expect to get decent social skills when a majority of the interaction that hardcore gamers get it through online contact; there is no direct face to face interaction. Like Sennett said, there's protection there. Please realize that not everybody gets their dream job of being game testers, so you're going to have to get up and learn a thing or two to make ends meet, and gaming probably won't be one of the acceptable things on a resume.

I guess I just don't really know how to respond to these chat parties about games and such because I just am quite unfamiliar with it. I've just never been too gung-ho about it.

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