Mozzeenet

Early this year, I started volunteering at a community computer centre in inner-city Sydney where local kids can drop in on Saturday mornings to surf the Internet, create videos and websites, take digital photos, listen to and make music and meet other kids and volunteers. The most popular activity by far, however, is playing computer games and as a result of volunteering there, I’ve become aware of an interesting debate about the positive and negative influence of gaming.

After reading the article Games ‘deserve a place in class’ on BBC World Edition: Technology recently as well as an article in the Sydney Morning Herald, I was motivated to write a few of my own observations on the topic from Saturday mornings.

Formerly, I may have switched off from a post such as this, writing off computer games as junk food for the mind. However, through sharing knowledge with other volunteers, some limited reading and my own experiences at the centre, I’ve become more open to the positive potential of computer games.

There are two areas I would like to focus on: firstly, positive and negative impacts of computer games from my own observations and secondly, some brief thoughts on the specific topic of gender as raised by the BBC article.

One view suggests that computer games are invariably characterized by gratuitous violence, drawing players into an addictive fantasy world and spitting them out as brainwashed misfits who end up embarking on shooting sprees in crowded shopping centres or less dramatically, dropping out or engaging in anti-social behaviour.

While I do agree that there is a risk of spending an unhealthy amount of time at the computer screen, I don’t think that computer games are necessarily completely isolating and alienating. On Saturdays, the kids usually interact together in some way while playing games. I notice they often share their triumphs and losses with each other; more experienced kids help less experienced; and there are multi-player games on separate computers in progress as well as kids playing games together on one computer.

What the games seem to bring out are a lot of responses: excitement, competitiveness, cooperation, a sense of fun, rivalry, sometimes frustration and anger, imagination and sharing. Yes, responses do sometimes err on the side of aggression and there is a fair amount of disrespectful, boundary-pushing and potentially destructive behaviour but having an outlet like this may be positive – one where there is a fair amount of freedom and flexibility. Kids can express frustrations and aggressions in a way that is less harmful than breaking windows, taking drugs or wandering the streets getting into trouble.

Playing computer games at the centre provides an alternative to controlled environments like school where there may not be time for such recreational activities and where the focus is on achieving and learning that which is deemed necessary for a formal education.

Many of the kids who come to the centre come from indigenous backgrounds - Redfern traditionally has been the home of a large indigenous community and has also had a fair amount of socio-economic problems, racial tensions and other issues. Many of the kids may experience difficult home lives and other conflicts in their lives so it is encouraging to see them enjoying computer games and escaping for a while into an imaginary world.

I do tend to agree with the argument that violence and stereotypes in computer games may be harmful and influence children’s development and ideas in a negative way but there also seems to be evidence that the kids can separate themselves from what happens in a game. When volunteers have discussed such ideas with the kids they have said that they know what happens in the game is not true. I get the sense sometimes that what the kids enjoy is pushing boundaries and overturning conventions in an imaginary and “safe” space.

The article in the Sydney Morning Herald suggested that there is some evidence of a correlation between violent computer games and violent acts in real-life in people who already have a psychological imbalance or a tendency towards social isolation.

On the topic of gender, the majority of kids who come to the centre are male. The girls who come to the centre also like playing games but there’s a tendency for more boys to play games like Age of Empires which involves building up civilizations and can involve extended multi-player sessions. Some reasons for this may be confidence levels, a case of majority rules and a tendency for the boys to be louder, stronger and more aggressive. I have heard that girls show greater confidence in single-sex classroom settings and schools.

I don’t know if girls would be more interested in games like Age of Empires if there were less males around but maybe they would be more likely to set their own agenda. Perhaps they would be drawn more to games such as these if the characters, settings or scenarios were different.