Old People are Not Old Old People Anymore....

This study was based on digital games and older adults. By older adults, I am not talking about your average 30 year old but more like your parents and grandparents. The study aimed ages 45-85 years of age and 124 individuals participated. The results of the study came out that most older people play digital games for the challenge and social interaction coming is as a predictor for the time actually spent playing digital games. It was also found that the older crowd preferred solitary game or casual pc games. Societal implications would mean that all the games that are family friendly are actually being put to use. This brings me the gratification and uses theory. While children are using digital games because they are fun, older people are using video games to challenge themselves.  The social interaction with your children or grandchildren is also important in play. This social interaction also matters because this proves the theory that everyone communicates through mediums and through interpersonal communication. Even older people are resulting to interaction on computer instead of face to face interaction. Technology is truly changing every aspect of our lives regardless of what generation you are a part of. This would also imply that if older people like digital games then they are not being technology laggards and are becoming ore apart of the early majority, late majority crowd when adopting a new technology. This is very interesting to me because my grandparents can barely work a computer and send an email. What this means for technology is that basically it is constantly a growing field in audience. However though older people are playing video games, they are still reluctant to play games like Call of Duty and action games and are till sticking to the basics. I wonder what that will mean for the future of production of games. So video game companies will start creating games targeted just to the older crowds. This niche has yet to come forth but if more studies prove this, there will b a lot of money to be made. Another thing this could mean to society is that PC games are becoming more popular, and maybe ore should be created to cater to the older crowd. What the study does not say however is how much time is actually being spent by digital gamers on computers or devices. The average child spends about 7 hours so it does make me curious how much on average does someone old older age spends.

http://gac.sagepub.com/content/6/2/155.abstract  

Lexi to The Rescue

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2011/11/14-year-old-girl-becomes-female-face-of-nhl-video-game/

The article struck m as very interesting. It is about a fourteen year old girl named Lexi who embarked on a journey to create change for all women video gamers. Lexi is your average fourteen year old and one of her biggest hobbies is that she loves to play hockey physically with her after school team and on video games. Her favorite games are NHL games by Electronic Arts. She noticed while playing there were no female players in the game that she could pick to represent herself as a player. She wrote the president of the company regarding the issue with her dad’s assistance. Not only did the fourteen year old receive a response but they actually asked to use her face as the female model face for the upcoming game that would hit the stores. The societal implications are creating a video game world where women too can fit in, as well as acknowledging that at a young age such as fourteen children are easily impressionable by technology. Lexi is a part of a generation now that depends on technology and now requires technology to be more personalized and interactive. Because Lexi decided to take that extra step to notify the company of her technology concerns in order for her to stay interested, thousands of other female gamers can now enjoy an added personalized luxury. Companies like Electronic Arts are big enough to cater to small niches like women hockey gamers, and are quick to do so one because they have the money and two because not many other companies are willing to cater to small niches which could give them a monopoly in that area. Another societal implication was how technology has advanced through computers. Just by sending pictures of herself through the computer at different angles the video game company was able to make an exact replica of Lexi don’t to her birthmark under her left eye. Technology has become so advanced that artist and programmers no longer even need physical subjects to recreate a person. If this technology was t follow the five phases of adoption not only would it make it to implementation and being accepted but I could see it later on down the line even being redone as technology progresses. Soon there will be hockey games that not only have Lexis face but a way to personalize your own face on the screen through picture taking technology or being able to pick facial features similar to yours and creating a character much like a Mii used for Nintendo Wii.