Online Gaming: The effect on Personal Relationships

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March 17, 2012
Online Gaming: The effect on Personal Relationships
 
Abstract
Online gaming has been a development built on the technology of the internet. The internet, being an innovation that allowed people to interact with other people globally created new ways of building relationships. The ability of the internet to build relationships allowed the resilience of online gaming to create a wide variety of audience amongst different cultures around the world. In respect, though online gaming allowed people to create new relationships, other relationships are bound to be affected by the new relationships that are created by online gaming. This paper will discuss the different factors that affect relationships that involve online gaming, whether with other gamers or with people who do not engage themselves into online gaming.
Keywords: Online Gaming, MMORPG, relationships
Globalization has caused major changes in how people interact with one another. In the age where the internet allows people to see and talk with different people in different areas while staying inside ones own domain have caused innovations that people have become inclined into. One of which that have been developed to harness the internet are the different online games. Online games are virtual environments in which people are able to create a new realm of social relationships; users are able to build their own groups, and organizations that share a common belief, goal or preference (Chiou & Wan, 2006). In the world of massive multi-player on-line role-playing games (MMORPGs), the environment can be equated to the real world in which the virtual environment does not stop when people go off-line, it continues even when people come and go which allows different people to interact with different people. The internet itself is said to be not addictive, but the different activities embedded within the system, such as online games, are the ones that can become addictive to people (Chiou & Wan, 2006). This paper will analyze how online games affect the different relationships of people who engage in the game with the people around them, such as their family and friends.
Previous researches have created results that illustrate that the excessive use of online games can result in negative outcomes, such as negative impacts on academic performances, increased anxiety, escape from reality, youth violence and crimes, and the deterioration of interpersonal relationships (Chiou & Wan, 2006). Online games, in a way create a whole new environment in which the users are nudged away from their "real" lives and become dislodged from the people they know. The effects of online games create an image in which people become aloof from their friends and family, that people who are into online games destroy their relationships with the people in their lives. Much research that have been done are based on quantitative research p...