Digital Media Blog Entry #3

Topic: Virutality/Gaming

I find that through the addiction of living in a virtual world tends to take people from all different age groups away from the reality that we as humans are afraid of living in.

For example: When people create virtual images of themselves online, they create another identity for themselves and gives them the control to choose the physical features and formal characteristics of themselves that they don't have in reality.

Gaming:

With gaming, Henry Jenkins talked about the violence that can be seen in video games in general. Games such as Call of Duty requires you to kill people in a first-person perspective, which may influence children or teenagers to imitate what they see on screen to bring it to life. Violence in video games is probably not the only thing that is distracting the children, as the media is the source that decides the fate of video games status in society. For example, they can write reviews on video games with positive or negative comments that could reflect the opinion of people who buy and play the games they talk about. Another common idea towards gaming is that it creates another outlet of distraction, which makes it worse for society since we have digital media that already distracts the public already such as Facebook, Smart phones, etc.
 
Some positive looks on gaming is that it teaches you valuable learning habits such as working as a team and being able to figure out ways out of difficult situations. Games such as, World of Warcraft which is used by millions creates many social connections online that may allow people to meet others that share a common bond or goal through this game.