Smartphone Culture

Smartphone had changed our daily life.

Most of us rely on smartphone for daily routine.

Let's see how smartphone affects our life.

Games and Gaming (virtual world and real world)

       Major advancements of technology have changed our culture and lifestyle in many aspects. Video games, for instance, have become global entertainment today which especially popular among the teenagers. Video games are internally diverse as it involve the using of consoles (eg: PS3 and XBOX) and handheld devices (eg: smartphone and personal computer). The broadly development of video games are not simply a games for entertainment, but also an opportunity for games industries to expand their business and make money.

       According to NIKO media research, the statistic of PC online gamers in Malaysia are increase from 7.62 million in 2012 to 9.9 million in 2014 (Figure 1). This indicates the growth of video games is significantly important. Refers to statistic of PC online gamers. 

Figure 1

      Do video games help in real world? In fact, video games are close to our reality but do not mean that it is helpful in real life. For instance, “The Sims” is a game that instructed by players to interact with others and achieve daily needs such as eating, build house, purchasing items and lots (Figure 2). Playing video games are undeniably brings to enjoyment and happiness. However, video games are provided virtual world but not the real world that we should focus on.

      

There are several factors boost the growing of video games. In particular, video games play actually provides cognitive, motivational, emotional and social benefits. In the cognitive dimension, video games able to strengthen the cognitive skills of players such as attention allocation, spatial navigation, reasoning and memory. A good example can be shown through shooter video games (Figure 3), which often violent in nature. The shooter video games tend to improve the thinking capability of players in more dimensions and enhance their mental rotation abilities. Also, video games are helping in emotional because children can learn emotional resilience through the failure in games. On the other hand, it connects the gamers to become virtual social communities and encourage cooperation among gamers to help each other.

Figure 2: "The Sims"

Figure 3: Shooter video games

Nevertheless, excessive gaming will lead to negative impacts which are violence, addiction and depression. An excessive attention of players on the games will cause players forget about the time and abandon their real life. Following, it will bring to many negative outcomes such as health problems, suffering relationships, increased aggression and poor performance. In the earlier of January of 2015, a 32-year old male gamer was found dead at Taiwanese Internet Café because non-stop three days gaming session. Later, another death case happened at Taipei because of five days gaming binge. What turns a hobby into health hazard (refers to gaming to death) ? 

Gaming is for fun and to spending spare time. It does not necessary to harmful our life because of playing game. Do differentiate the real world and virtual world!!!!