Online Gaming

Online gaming has become prevalent in the American culture as a severe hobby and past time for many people, both male and female.  Williams et. al. conducted research on World of Warcraft and described their findings in "From Treehouse to Barracks", noting the power of games to create a system of social support and leadership opportunities for players.  These are of course easy to consider positive results from playing on line games.  However, it cannot be overlooked that gaming is not always a healthy hobby.

Playing a game, especially in a competition format or collaborative with other people, creates a sense of community.  This simply facet is enough to draw people in and keep them playing again.  

Even more so when players have the ability to create a character, like in WoW, that represents their virtual persona.  As more time and effort is put into something, it will become more valuable to the person behind it.  This is clearly apparent and it is what gives online games a way to build their success.

Jason Tanz showed through his article "The Curse of Cowclicker" that truth behind what playing online games to a point that it consumes your time and seemingly brainwashes you from becoming obsessed in the world and happenings of the game.  A player stated about the Cowclicker game, "It is very interesting, clicking nothing," Scriven says. "But then, we were clicking nothing the whole time. It just looked like we were clicking cows."  This statement appears to sum up the way gaming can affect a person.