Video Games and Identity
Video games are designed to have that medium of being difficult enough to present a challenge, while also allowing the player to attain small wins and want to keep playing. With graphics becoming more life-like, it is easier for players to develop an emotional attachment and consider their role as a character more strongly. In these virtual worlds, players are able to develop a sense of control over a challenge and build relationships with other players/characters that can ultimately boost self esteem and allow for the player to foster a sense of belonging. Ethnographer Sherry Turkle has been successful in using a psychoanalytic approach to conclude that video games can be a beneficial method for individuals to relax, mediate, and have the chance to feel complete control over their environment for once (Turkle 1984, 512).
On the contrary, these imaginative, “rule- governed worlds” (Turkle 1984, 508) tend to have a “holding power” (Turkle 1984, 501) that do not take the physical reality into consideration and can leave players feeling cut off from the real world. With video games presenting a utopic atmosphere, they can negatively impact players’ social experience with reality when they must return to society where their flaws are acknowledged or they are not as accepted by a peer group. This proves that relationships with simulated worlds can affect relationships with reality.
Sources:
Turkle, Sherry. “Video Games and Computer Holding Power”. 13 Nov 2015. Web.