Video game characters are depicted as attractive and muscular men and women. Specifically, women in video games are more likely to be sexualized with small hips, large breasts, and likely to show more skin than their male counterparts. Stereotypes of lonely gamers and sexy game girls drive video game character designs.
The choice of creating an avatar for women who play computer games is one that is not taken lightly. According to Mateusz Woźniak, recent research on the neural activity of gamers in response to their World of Warcraft avatar also suggests that players tend to create their avatars based on how they want to look as oppose to how they actually look. This act further divides the virtual world of video games from reality since gamers are unleashing their deepest of fantasies.
Teen girls are likely to have low body-esteem after interacting with virtual characters
Current standards of beauty that gamers are interacting with do not agree with reality. Just like the media and the modeling industry have created an "ideal image"for women that is almost impossible for your average woman to imitate, the world of gaming is having the same effect on the younger generation of teen girls that cannot differentiate between reality and fantasy.
In this case, the use of photoshop and other marketing tools has been traded in for the wide range of options that give gamers the opportunity to create their ideal character. Recent video games give gamers the option to select features such as eye color, height, weight, and muscle tone among many other features.These realistic features have made it easy for gamers to become fully immersed in their character and therefore feel like they are part of this virtual world.
The action of immersing oneself in the virtual world is creating body image problems among teenage girls. A recent research study has found that teenage girls who play video games with virtual characters that embody the demeanor of small hips, large breasts, and toned bodies are likely to have a decrease in body-esteem.
This study is one that should be taken seriously since a negative body-image has been proven to be positively correlated
with depression, anxiety and other psychological conditions that can affect the development of a teenage girl. If girls are not taught to differentiate between the fantasy they have created and reality, we can be seeing more teens that are not happy with their body image.
Teen boys have also shown to be affected after interacting with virtual characters by wanting to improve their body image
The very same study showed that teen boys were also affected by the inaccurate representation of the ideal male body image depicted in the virtual characters.
Upon being interviewed, the teenage boys that played the video game that emphasized the ideal body as "muscular" showed signs of a decrease positive feeling towards their own body and an increase in their positive drive of muscularity. The study also showed that when the virtual character was not muscular, the male participants seemed to decrease their positive drive for muscularity. This shows that the image represented by the virtual character did impact the body perception of the individual even in those few minutes that the participant was playing the game.
The problem with this situation as highlighted by the article is that this urgency to look muscular and fit the demeanor of the male fictitious character can push teens to want to try substances such as steroids to reach their desired body image.
The rapid increase of teenagers that play video games is a wake up call for parents to step in a take action
Within the last couple of years, video game participation among teens has seen an increase in numbers. As shown in the chart, in all four categories, the numbers show a large percentage of teens that play video games. The information provided by the PEW Research Center is alarming since video games can have detrimental effects in the self-esteem of children especially during this age if they are not supervised.
If not educated on the topic by parents or another family member, children can easily lose sight of what is real and what is fantasy. This can cause problems not only with their body image but when it comes to the way they socialize and render academically.
Sources:
http://liminalities.net/11-1/stretching.pdf
http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/04/09/teens-social-media-technology-overview-2015/pi_2015-04-09_teensandtech_16/
http://web.b.ebscohost.com.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=eccb458f-0eef-427e-9f31-f4d81e2167b6%40sessionmgr114&vid=1&hid=116
Overall, I thought the writing was strong and conveyed the point well. There were a few typos where the author failed to pluralize words, such as boys in the first paragraph or breasts in the second.
ReplyDeleteThroughout the story, more sourcing would’ve added credibility to the information. For instance, when you write, “the use of photoshop and other marketing tools has been traded in for the wide range of options that give gamers the opportunity to create their ideal character,” backing that up with an article would be good.
The multimedia added a nice touch to the story and was paired well with the text. The image of the woman and man went with the correct sections and the data graphic met the class standards. The data doesn’t go with self-esteem, but it works well because it provides good strong insight into how prevalent video game playing is among teenagers. And separating it by gender was a good idea because of the rest of the story’s focus.
Before I read the entire story, I first glanced at the headline and subheads. While I believe all of them are explanatory, I don’t think the first two subheads advanced the story from the headline. It seemed to me like they were essentially restating the headline just separating boys and girls.
Perhaps one avenue you could have gone to advance the story further would have been to talk about video game addiction. You address the percentage of teens that play video games, but there is a difference in telling your reader this person plays video games and this person is addicted. Here is one story (http://www.video-game-addiction.org/boys-and-video-games.html) that may be good to look at it. It mentions a 15-year-old who collapsed after playing video games for 24 hours straight.
Being able to connect the impact of video games on body-image with how kids are becoming addicted may make this story even more compelling.
Here are a few other links on video game addiction, as well:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201202/video-game-addiction-does-it-occur-if-so-why
http://theweek.com/articles/451660/psychology-video-game-addiction