Social Media and Video Games

The article “Teenagers Leading Happy, Connected Lives Online” written by KJ Dell’Antonia, follows an interesting report titled, “Teens, Technology and Friendships” from the Pew Foundation. This study was geared toward social media, video games and any other messaging apps. This study is interesting because it is not about have video games or social media are a hindrance. Rather, this study focuses on how these platforms are strengthening teenagers’ relationships.

This study was done with teenagers between the ages of thirteen and seventeen. One of the major findings that stood out to me was the fact that only a small twenty five percent of teenagers reported that they see their friends outside of school every day. The article goes on to mention that teenagers may have less opportunities for hanging out in person than they did in the past. This fact stood out to me as the article itself was published back in 2015 when I was just graduating from high school myself. I personally did not obtain a license until I was around nineteen years old due to personal preference. Due to this, I did not have ample opportunities to see friends in person as I did not always have transportation. I can remember spending many nights in using social media such as Skype and FaceTime to hang out with my friends without having to physically be with them.

Going along with this, something that stood out to me was the statistic that more students meet friends online than in person. The statistic said that “57 percent of them say they have made a friend online, and 29 percent say they have made more than five friends that way rather than at malls or sporting events.” (Dell’Antonia 2) This stood out to me because I now live with my brother who is eight years younger than me at eighteen years old today and has always been an avid player. Almost every day, I witness this statistic first-hand as he chats away on his X-box. I don’t really pay attention to the conversations, but I can hear the joy and excitement with his laughter and screams.

This statistic is what led me to think it would be a wonderful idea to interview my brother firsthand on his opinion on video games. One of the first things I mentioned to him was this article and how it mentions the fact that most teenagers now a day meet friends from video games. He immediately said, “Oh my gosh, most of my friends I met from playing video games.” Almost all his friends he plays with are students from his high school. However, video games take any fixed awkwardness of walking up to someone and introducing yourself. Plus, you already know you have a common shared interest in video games. Video games are great because they are a safe platform where you can invite one friend to play and magically you’ve made seven new friends. I have never heard of my brother meeting a stranger from playing on the Xbox. Now and again, I have heard him mention a name of a friend I do not recognize however, when question who it is it is always this friend’s cousin or this friend's friend. Owing to this, in my opinion playing video games one of the safest ways to meet friends is through video game platforms such as Xbox.

Going along with the idea of video games and making friends, I further asked my brother if he believed video games were educative. As an avid lover of history, he mentioned that playing certain video games such as Red Dead Redemption are historically accurate and teach about history. He also mentioned that playing video games in his opinion helps with memory, teamwork, communication, and creativity. This response is so interesting to me because although this idea is only one teenagers' option, it brings up a point that many times video games are stereotyped as something of no value to children when in all reality they really teach a lot. =

Also, this article goes on to talk about how social media. Specifically, it mentions that social media often has the opposite effect on teenagers as video games. This is to say that social media can be more of a hindrance to teenagers. One of the reasons it mentions is the fact that anyone can post anything they want about you without your permission and future employers can potentially find it. My brother, as I mentioned is a teenager himself, however he does not indulge much in social media. I think social media is something more girls are involved in than boys. With the idea of posts, anyone can post a picture of you. There is no filter that asks the permission of the person in the photo before it is posted. Any employer in the future can do a quick google search and see potentially any photo that was ever posted with you in it. Therefore you always need to be careful what you post, just because something was posted three years ago doesn’t mean it can’t be found today.

Besides, social media can teach you when others are doing something fun that you were not invited to. I can relate to this idea so much as I fell into the same trap. I am not sure if I was ever intentionally excluded, however, there was a time where I lived in a college dorm and all my best friends stayed in my hometown. I am sure it was because I was at school I wasn’t invited however, I would see pictures posted of the fun things they were doing together, and it would make me sad. Back in the day when my parents were teenagers, they would’ve had no idea if their friends were doing things without them because social media didn’t exist. There are so many wonderful aspects to social media that we forget how it can also hinder us.

On the other hand, depending on how social media is used, it can be very educational. During module five, we were instructed to look through various social media platforms. To my surprise, social media can be very educational if you know the right ways to use it. One of my favorites I discovered was Instagram. Instagram to me as I was using it is not educational. However, if you find the right pages to follow you can learn so much from history to science. You can even receive recommendations on books to read as well as crafts for children. There are so many wonderful aspects to social media that are looked over because we don’t know how to properly engage in them.

Throughout my exploration this week, I learned so much about social media and video games. When I was a teenager video games consisted of the Nintendo DS and Nintendo WII. Although these were wonderful platforms, you had to physically be with your friends to play together. Today there are a multitude of different platforms where you can throw on a headset and chat directly with a bunch of friends at the same time. I did have a phone where I could call my friends however, it was for calling one friend, it certainly didn’t allow me to talk to nine friends at the same time. This day in age video games is a great way for teenagers to interact with each other when they are not able to physically be together. On the other hand, I did delve into social media and though I learned it can be a hindrance to teenagers, I also learned that it could have so many educational benefits if it is used the right way.

At the end of the day, the main question is whether video games and or social media should be adopted into the library. I believe that in my library one day I will adapt games into it. Whether it be having a physical X-Box or even just board games. Any type of game can promote conversation and encourage teenagers to interact with each other and make friends. Even more than that, I will be using social media to engage with my students. Specifically, a fun idea I saw going along with Instagram is sharing different books from the collection along with age recommendations and follow up lesson ideas. Surly before my explorations I never thought video games or social media were something of value to use in my library.

 

Dell’Antonia, Kj. “Teenagers Leading Happy, Connected Lives Online.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 6 Aug. 2015, https://archive.nytimes.com/parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/06/teenagers-leading-happy-connected-lives-online/?smid=pin-share.