New intro and beginning of paper
Rumor has it that the very first video game was created in 1958 by a man named William Higinbotham. This game was called Tennis for Two and could only be played for twenty minutes at a time before it would blow up due to over heating. Back then, most people did not even know this game was even created because they had more important things to tend to. So of course this game did not have much of a social impact on society. Since then we have come a long way in the gaming industry and more and more people have turned there attention to their favorite game or system. From Pacman to Halo, Atari to Xbox 360 this industry is constantly changing and coming up with new ways to occupy the lives of many. There are several different aspects of life that can affect a human socially. Some can be minor and others can be major occurrences. Many people across the world spend a majority of their day in front of the TV screen, with a controller in their hand playing video games and blocking out what’s going on in the rest of the world for the time being. Can video games affect the social lives of humans? That is one of the main questions asked about these so called gamers. How are they affected from sitting in front of a screen playing the same game for 10 hours a day? This is another good point that many researchers and health care providers have been focusing on for a while now. What are the negative affects and are there any positives? These gamers only have one thing on their mind and that is how they are going to make it to the next level or how they can beat the computer. It takes some of the manufacturers years to create and come out with these games. Most of the companies put a majority of their money into graphics and new ideas that are becoming more advanced by the second. Then, it only takes the gamers a few days or hours to beat the entire game. Is this a good thing? More and more people become obsessed with video games each year and center their lives around this one little disc. Now a day you can even make a career out of gaming. Do you want your child growing up wanting to become a professional gamer? Is video game play socially isolating? This question is another one of the main focal points on this topic. Social expectations are reaffirmed through the social contract governing play, even as they are symbolically cast aside within the transgressive fantasies represented onscreen. Indeed the video game industry has become the most active and dynamic merchandisers of culture to the young and some elder. Some say that video games foster a healthy competitiveness, and, in their multi-player internet manifestations, contain vast new possibilities for community-building. Others see video games as isolating and damaging to both individuals and communities. Well what does the research suggest?