New Media Exploration - Technology

The Intro

I've been interested in the communication and cultural effects of online gaming and virtual reality both academically and as a parent. I also happen to be a SciFi fan, seen or read many stories centered around this technology dating back to at least 1960. The idea of a holo-deck as presented in Star Trek is intriguing to say the least. There are definitely days... However, in this blog I want to focus specifically on the worlds of MMO (massively multi-player online) gaming, the communities involved in it, and the communication/cultural effects of the technology. I'll preface this by saying my particular focus is not the effect of game violence. I am interested in the less visible phenomena of young people almost 'checking out' of their lives in favor of involvement in an online community and virtual worlds. The effect of online gaming on offline relationships, life, and personal growth. These kids don't hurt other people, don't attract major media attention... they just go quietly into their rooms and computers and stay, hours a day, coming out to eat or do other essentials they can't avoid... only to return as soon as 'humanly' possible.

I have opinions about the cultural effects. I have developed these opinions from my experience raising children (I have two, now 17 and 19) and speaking with other parents (extensively) and professionals in a variety of fields. I will relate the 'condensed version' of my experience to give you some perspective. I am still involved in this, to a lessor degree now as my son is an adult and is living on his own. It will be some time, I believe, before the saga plays out for us. It certainly does not hurt to take a moment with this blog and do some research on the communication and cultural effects of online gaming and to delve into some of the worlds available myself. The last computer game I played avidly (and it wasn't that avidly) was 25+ years ago. It was an entirely text based game called 'Adventure', we played it on a PDP-11 computer (you may have seen something close to this type of computer if you ever saw the move 'War Games'). My new flash drive does more than that computer could *grin* and it nearly took up the room. We played the game by drawing maps of the world so we could recall where the various avenues went. After that, I watched from the outside as the games became more and more complex and the audio/video became more and more real. I didn't have a real urge to give them a try because I had too much else to do, the games were so complex as to require a significant amount of time just to get started. I wasn't that interested. Now... with technology progressing at the pace it is... online games with full VR experience are not simply a Star Trek phenomena. They're coming to our homes. My children will struggle someday with this issue when they decide to have their own families. I believe it will be MUCH more difficult as these virtual worlds become even more real.

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The Background Story

As a parent of late model teenagers, I have watched the effect of online gaming on my son (who is the eldest). He is quite literally addicted to Warcraft. I use that word with some reluctance because I fully acknowledge that his gaming is a choice, there is no physical addiction. I do, however, believe there is a strong psychological addiction. There is something he gets from playing this game he does not get in real life. I have quietly watched him playing this game, using a headset and VoiP voice services to interact with other players, fingers moving like lightening over the keyboard. Hmmmm...

He graduated from High School but struggled as he played every trick in the book to try and be online all night. Tired in school, falling asleep at his desk, failing to do homework... he didn't care. His father and I did, of course. I won't bore you with our efforts to limit this and encourage him in positive directions, sports... travel... community service. As a parent you often struggle with forcing a hard line vs. teaching the child that what they are doing is harmful... one would like to think you can teach a child so that when they are up against a different problem, they can think their way through it... His father and I are both engineers, still had the upper hand when it came to technology. We were able to 'out tech' him and limit or eliminate access at home while still allowing him to do needed work for school. The fact of the matter is that until you have been through this and look back, I don't believe you truly understand what you're up against.

ANYWAY, my son did graduate from high school and went off to technical college the next fall (to study game and simulation programming as a matter of fact) but bounced out as he still couldn't resist the virtual world he was involved so intimately in. He quite literally had no real friends, his 'friends' were all involved in the game. He is presently living on his own, working at a fast food restaurant... got himself a place to live but it is unclear that he will be able to pay the rent... and all he's interested in is spending his spare time gaming. He will have to learn the effect this is having on his life on his own. The effects don't hurt... yet. He's had multiple people tell him he might as well be on some illegal drug for the damage this is doing. He doesn't care. I have visited him and he was gaming when I arrived. I watched as he came to talk to me... his hands were literally shaking with desire to go back on the keyboard. He was seemingly unable to sit for more than a couple minutes, getting up to go back on the game and returning. If it hadn't worried me so I would have been fascinated watching him.

A teacher mentioned Warcraft in class one day, in somewhat of a positive light. He mentioned what great leadership experience it provided. Now, I do understand that computer gaming has had some positive effects. I recall there have been stories from the military about how much quicker and more accurate the new generation is with the weapons technology because of their involvement in computer games. However, what I see from my own experience and from talking with other parents is a significant portion of a generation (anecdotally for me this is largely the guys, this doesn't seem to capture the girls attention to the same degree however! in doing the research below it seems the actual numbers may be something like 55% male vs. 45% female) withdrawing from real society in favor of a virtual one. I do not agree with the teacher's comment because I believe the people who assume leadership roles in these online games cannot (painting with a broad brush here) translate that skill into the real world. Those are two very different places and they only feel comfortable in one.

With my son, I fully believe that this is a maturity issue. He is not yet capable of understanding the effects because he doesn't have the life experience to do that. His priorities and thinking processes just aren't all jelled yet. I spend a great deal of time simply keeping the lines of communication open in a positive manner with him. When possible, on those rare occasions I now have to get his full attention, I will try to talk to him, try to gain some insight, try to get him to think about what's going on with him... it's tough. He reacts just like an addicted person 'I don't care' 'it's not a problem'. He truly doesn't care right now. I'm not the only one struggling with this. Right now, society as a whole is not paying attention. Parents struggle with it alone or in small groups for the most part.

I will continue to do whatever positive things I can and to wait him out. It's hard waiting. He's never off my mind. I decided to write this blog to put my own thoughts in some semblance of order and to see what I could learn in a broader sense about this area... admittedly too, if there is any possibility that some young person sees themselves in this blog they may get some insight that they might not otherwise have gotten. I can always hope.

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The Delving

I am rather limiting my delving into the online worlds for the sake of limiting the length of this blog and giving myself time for other homework. However, I did explore several games I found in the Flash Forward Conference finalists in the game category. The first game was CDX. I didn't go very far, merely explored the room 'wheelchair guy' was in. The level of realism was fascinating. Personally, I have trouble with exploring the room long enough to discern what to do next. I poked around and made 'wheelchair guy' roll from one side of the room to another, picking up this and that and reading EMail and started to see some pattern to the information presented emerge. I have to admit, I rather liked the site by papervision.org under the 3D category better... but them I'm a scuba diver and I found the level of realism to this animation somewhat dizzying. Very cool... just like where I went diving off Moorea, minus the shark. However, admittedly since that was not a game it is of limited interest I just liked the content better. I also tried ESPN Bar Games, kinda boring. Bible Fight and Obon Star Racers were also kinda boring. Plus, with Obon the music made me want to throw my computer across the room. I find I have more affection for the more realistically rendered games, so for me... CDX was the most interesting of these (and the winner of the category). I actually could have hung around awhile and probed for the next step in the game. The quality of my monitor had a big effect. I've got a much nicer (larger, higher resolution) monitor now and yeah... made it much more interesting to get involved. My personality though, for me... just takes too long, I get impatient. Not that interested so I can see that I definitely am going to have trouble personally relating (not that I haven't had this difficulty all along).

SO, I decided to move over and examine my nemesis. Went to warcraft.com. Well, since I also love LOTRs... the storyline and art style in this game was appealing. MAN I am ignorant of these games... the modes to the game (normal, PvP, RP... learned some new acronyms... if you're also uninformed... you can play in normal mode where other players cannot attack you, player-vs-player mode where they can, and role playing where you have to be your character), the realism of the motion of the characters, the detail in them... I wasn't really prepared for that, it was fascinating. I tried to take advantage of the free 10-day trial but the sign up software wasn't quite working right. Perhaps I'll go back to it later. If I do, I may add to this section of my blog a bit.

I've also heard a lot about Second Life. I've also heard many spouses or significant others of a 'second lifer' repeat the now widely selling t-shirt phrase 'Get a First Life'. I looked at the website. Didn't do anything for me. Hummm... and I admit, if my spouse was online hours a day on any site... much less this one... I'd be considering looking for a new spouse. Not acceptable in personal relationships.

Bottom line - in spending just a bit of time looking at these games, I did find what I was guessing... if you were inclined to explore, the motion/audio and the storyline of something as complex as Warcraft lends a level of reality that is beyond what I personally have experienced in a computer game before. I can extrapolate what adding the 'remote human' interaction and role playing could add to the experience. Then you are no longer simply playing someone else's story line. You may still be in their world, but you are using it to create your own society. OK, yeah... my son is in there someplace leading campaigns. I can intellectually relate. Still not liking it, but yeah... I can start to see emotionally how he could become so involved. He feels important and valued here at a level that he doesn't feel outside in the 'real world'. Kinda scares me a bit.
*shaking it off* I think what goes along with this is that gamers feel an increased level of control in their virtual world as opposed to the real world. I also note the increased rate of action vs. result. In real life, often it can take many years of schooling to achieve a goal. In a virtual world, not so much. Lastly, what strikes me is that 'personal interaction' in these games is not personal which exceedingly lowers the 'threat level' if you will. Whatever happens there, it's not the real you... you are someone different there. That capability to recreate yourself, to be someone you are not in real life, is... attractive.

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The Research and Resources

Again, due to time and length constraints (yes, I know I've already exceeded a page...) and noting people get degrees researching this stuff, I skimmed rather than read in depth a number of articles and resources I found online. MOST of them were focused on the effects of violent games and the correlation of this type of game playing with school violence etc. Not my issue at the moment.

To give context, we now appear to be at a developmental focal point for the technology of interactive entertainment. Some describe it as the infancy of the industry and liken it to the dawn of television. The industry itself is a mere three decades old but it is now so pervasive in everyday life that it is "changing the way an entire generation sees itself in relation to the world, expanding popular storytelling beyond passive consumption to include involvement in the development and outcome of an experience". But what is so interesting is how the games themselves have a stake in how it evolves. The industry is experiencing explosive growth even while costs to develop a new game (I'm sure now well) exceed $10M [5]. The realism, capability, and flexibilty of the games has pushed beyond (simple?) MMO boundaries as 'mod' games appear [5]. "Short for modification, mod games are variations made by fans on existing games. These underline the spontaneous creativity in the vast online communities." Game companies rationalize that (quote from the Entertainment Software Association's Lowenstein, [5]) "Online games have the potential to transform entertainment into a global-community exercise, breaking down borders, cultural and language barriers, and even political prejudices."

Some newer articles [1] focused on the function of these multi-player games as informal social gathering places and support networks, calling them 'third places' (home and school/work being the first two). The articles all require some time to assimilate but there does seem to be a core debate about whether these 'third places' are positive areas of social interaction bridging racial and class divides, exposing the user to broader world views or whether they are a great 'displacer' enabling (otherwise useless) 'pseudo-communities'. They make mention of gamers playing 8-12 hours a day at times, but do not really delve into the effect of that level of 'checking out' on their lives. Article [1] examined rather the quality and composition of the relationships formed online.

One article got a bit into the area that I am interested in [7], citing a quote that "The opposition of real and virtual … misses the complexity and diversity of relationships that people may pursue through the communicative media that they embed into their ongoing social lives.” It went on to say that in surveying the players, they did not find a significant weakening of offline relationships due to online gaming. They were really focused on inter-personal relationships rather than the larger problem I'm seeing. I had trouble with this article, there is some truth to what they're saying but I believe their method of research was faulty. What I saw in my son was that online relationships did replace offline relationships, that was part of what bothered me... and given the amount of time that some of these gamers spend online, certainly... perhaps unquestionably in my mind, the depth of all relationships is sacrificed. This seemed to be coming out in a quote I found in a forum credited to a Carnegie Mellon study [8]. "The Carnegie Mellon researchers found that interpersonal communication – communication for social purposes – is the dominant use of the Internet at home. However, contrary to expectations, they also found that increased Internet use among the study’s participants 'led to their having, on balance, less social engagement and poorer psychological well-being' ." It's very interesting to read through the online discussion of this study.

In regards to my choice to reluctantly use the word 'addiction' a blog [9] referring to an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer states "As the sophistication of this technology increases, more people are sucked into this virtual world and begin to develop real psychological problems such as social isolation, depression, difficulty in work and relationships, and being disconnected from reality. Fortunately this article gets it right, this type of behavior is an impulse control disorder like pathological gambling not an “addiction” per se." Yeah, agreed. It goes on to say "I think for some people that MMORPGs can provide a valuable style of social interaction, but it can become problematic when more time is spent with this depersonalized interaction than real interaction with other people." TOTALLY dude. That's the problem I'm seeing, at least part of it.

There are a few articles discussing the differences in national and social values to new technologies such as online gaming. In particular [6], examines how Singapore reacts to gamers (my son should be glad he doesn't live in Singapore since we caught him doing the same thing). A snippet from this article relates: "In December 2006, the local Singapore newspaper, the Straits Times, reported that a teenager had been arrested and sentenced to early military service for illegally accessing a neighbour’s unsecured wireless network. The boy’s parents, concerned by their son’s moodiness and declining academic performance, had decided that he was spending far too much time on gaming. Enough was enough: they unplugged the household modem. The boy’s response was to take his laptop outside one evening, wandering round the neighbourhood until he found an unsecured wireless network to tap into. There he was discovered by a neighbour, who confronted him and then called the police after the boy allegedly became aggressive. Then on January 17 2007, the newspaper ran a follow-up story: ‘Is there a gaming addict in your home’? The way in which one family’s issue was used to feed existing concerns about online gaming in Singapore, and to create an impression of gaming as a runaway social issue, was telling."

Some additional resources available online:
[1] Games, Gamers and Gaming Culture This website contained links to university and IEEE and other reliable research organizations studies. Unfortunately, the material on the site is largely about five years or more old. The site does not appear to have been maintained after about 2001. Nevertheless, there was some interesting information there.
[2] "Where Everybody Knows Your (Screen) Name: Online Games as 'Third Places' " Steinkuehler, C., and Williams, D. (2006). from the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication This article examines the form and function of massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) in terms of social engagement.
[3] "Cultural Framing of Computer/Video Games" from the International Journal of Computer Game Research volume 2, issue 1 July 2002
[4] "Video game music: not just kid stuff" Matthew Belinkie (matthew.belinkie@yale.edu) 15 December 1999
[5] "Video-game industry mulls over the future beyond shoot-'em-ups" Computers & Technology, June 03, 2005 edition
[6] "Online-Gaming: Moral Panic in Singapore" Catherine Howell (University of Cambridge) on January 25, 2007
[7] Game Studies "Living a Virtual Life: Social Dynamics of Online Gaming" Castulus Kolo and Timo Baur, International Journal of Computer Game Research volume 4, issue 1 November 2004 This article studies players of Ultima Online.
[8] Forum booktalk.org > Science, Nature & Technology > The Problem of Technology -- Part II: The Internet postings from 2002
[9] "Online Gaming Addiction?" PsychCentral website archives Will Meek October 12, 2006
[10] "Negative Aspects of Online Gaming" seems to date around 2001 A lot of annocdotal accounts that are kinda interesting.

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Lastly, The Conclusion

Technology, particularly media technology, has always brought with it societal fears. The point of this blog is not to spread or even suggest that we should fear, rather to point out that there are definite, recognizable, effects around us today of this technology.

Are online games bad? Should we outlaw them? OH, get real. That's ridiculous. I fully stand behind freedom of personal choice. You cannot legislate maturity or intelligence.

Online games, like a number of other things, are only harmful to the person when the person involved in them steps over the threshold. The threshold is where they give up some level of fully functioning in society in favor of living in a virtual world. When this happens, society suffers. That person contributes to society at a lesser degree... certainly some extreme cases cease to contribute. There are effects on families, on personal relationships, on the person themselves as they limit their own personal growth. AA talks about how alcholics stop their personal growth during the time they are drinking, that is true here as well. When you don't deal with real life problems, you don't grow. I think describing what I referred to as an addiction as an impulse control disorder is tellingly more accurate and that, probably more than any other phrase I read changed the way I was viewing this problem. Looking at it more like a gambling problem than a drug or alcohol addiction puts it in another frame of reference entirely.

Do I have a solution? Well it is clear to me that education and personal growth are the only solutions (to a lot of problems). Society has to become more aware of what is going on, as a society. Pull this further out of the realm of research - talk about this, study it, debate it... find ways to guide young people without boxing them in. But outlaw or stop the growth of technology? I'm not in favor of that. I don't believe in limiting the human potential. But we have to evaluate the impact of each step and to make purposeful decisions... to be as aware as we can of the effects of our research, explorations and development. Always question, never assume or blindly accept. Society is starting to explore and debate the effects of violence games on the violence in society. What I am focused on, however, is a less visible somewhat silent repercussion. To the best of my ability to discern, what I'm focused on is still more in the area of an academic discussion than a broader viewed societal problem.

On a parenting level... if, as a parent, I was allowed a 'do over' with the knowledge and experience I have now I would not have allowed my children to play computer games from home, period. I would have spent more time involving them in sports and community service, finding ways to challenge and interest them in the world around them. My son has always been behind the maturity curve for his age. I do, however, believe that there would have been a reduced chance that he would have involved himself to this level had he not encountered it as early as he did.

At 18, all bets are off. However, making adults responsible for their own choices helps. We all rarely stop doing (whatever) until it hurts. Parents have to be brave enough to not get in the way of their adult children encountering this hurt. We cannot rush in and fix their problems. We have to stand back, offer love, information and encouragement but let them fix their problems themselves. Hard to do. Sure. Who cares? It's the right thing to do. If we look back to the time when WE were 18 and knew we were smarter than our parents... what else would have (or did) convince us? Nada, zip, nothing. That's it, experience.

I also fully back the idea of EVERYONE doing two years of service to their country out of high school - in the area of their choice - be that in the military, in Americorp or some other area of community service, in conservation... I'm completely open on that point, but doing SOMETHING would help us all at that age appreciate what we have, who we are, and what we can do when pressed. Having some real knowledge of that helps all of us focus and make better decisions.

I fully expect to see 'Gamers Anonymous' cropping up soon though. Probably wouldn't hurt.