The Upcoming Age of Digital Communities

We all enjoy an escape from reality from time to time. Let’s face it, work, schooling and drama filled relationships can drain us. This has led to parts of society getting involved in the gaming world, in particular, the fad of social games. It is an escape that sends you into an alternative reality. It feels fun and exciting, but is it healthy? Is the violence featured in World of Warcraft, Eve Online and other violent social games fueling the gamers for real life violence?

Eve Online, a violent massively multiplayer online game (MMOG), based upon spaceships, has been known to have players participating in scam or theft within the game (de Zwart & Humpreys 2014, p. 77; Drain 2010). This has been so severe, that in reality, the game should be banned (Drain 2010). There has been countless Eve online scams that have occurred, where some of the scams have been labelled as ‘The ISK Doubling Scam’ or the ‘Contract scam’ (Worldshatter 2015). These scams are based upon outsmarting the gamers, where their minds have been played (Worldshatter 2015). In addition, Eve Online has encountered fraud, corporate raiding and ponzi schemes as well (de Zwart & Humpreys 2014, p. 78). It sounds to me like the constant usage of this game is making people lose touch with reality, where they can break the rules in virtual world, with real world consequences.

Furthermore, should social violent games be banned altogether? The debate of violence in social games contributing to real life violence is very serious and should be taken under high consideration. Eve Online experiences 10 people blowing up a minute, which showcases the violence these gamers experience (de Zwart & Humpreys 2014, p. 77). World of Warcraft has been known to have effects of a drug addiction to the gamer, without the use of drugs, which leads the gamer at risk of being violent in real life (Independent 2008). Without these social violent games, gamers would not have the seed of violence planted into their minds, and therefore, violence in society would decrease. Sounds like a terrific idea, which unfortunately would be difficult to implement. However, the rate of hacking and scams amongst these games need to drastically drop. It’s a shame more people aren’t gravitated to innocent social games, such as Farmville.

References

de Zwart, M & Humphreys, S 2014,' The Lawless Frontier of Deep Space: Code as Law in EVE Online', Cultural Studies Review, vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 77-78.

Drain, B 2011, Biggest EVE Online scam ever recorded nets over a trillion ISK, Engadget, viewed 7 February 2016,

<http://www.engadget.com/2011/08/12/biggest-eve-online-scam-ever-recorded-nets-over-a-trillion-isk/>.

Drain, B 2012, EVE Evolved: Top ten ganks, scams, heists and events, Engadget, viewed 30 January 2016,

<http://www.engadget.com/2012/10/28/eve-evolved-top-ten-ganks-scams-heists-and-events/>.

Drain, B 2010, Eve Online player steals $45,000 worth of ISK in massive investment scam, Engadget, viewed 30 January 2016,

<http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/11/eve-online-player-steals-45-000-worth-of-isk-in-massive-investm/>.

Independent 2008, Is World of Warcraft just mindless violence?, Independent, viewed 30 January 2016,

<http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/features/is-world-of-warcraft-just-mindless-violence-1024311.html>.

Worldshatter 2015, A new player’s guide to Eve’s most common scams, The Mittani Dot Com, viewed 30 January 2016,

<https://www.themittani.com/features/new-players-guide-eves-most-common-scams?nopaging=1>.

Images

Eve Online n.d., ‘Eve Online’ [image], Real Life Science Fiction, Eve Online, viewed 30 January 2016,

<http://www.eveonline.com/>.

Franznick, K 2007, ‘World of Warcraft’ [image], Participatory Design in World of Warcraft, Blink, viewed 30 January 2016,

The selfie has taken over the 21st century, and now I struggle to remember a time when it didn’t exist. It has taken over all forms of social media, where it is now highly common to find a selfie as a profile picture. The selfie was also the foundation for the app, Snapchat, which is based upon sending a photo with a caption, which can only be viewed for a certain amount of time. Selfies have turned into an everyday phenomenon, which has set the atmosphere for the digital communities.

Selfies have turned into a worldwide sensation, where everyone from politicians, to celebrities, to astronauts are getting involved in the craze. Kim Kardashian, known for uploading her fair share of selfies to social media, released a book dedicated to selfies, named Selfish (Stern 2015). Is this really all just an action of feeling vain? I have been face to face with hundreds of selfies on social media, where it was obvious some males and females just like the way they look. However, as the selfie has evolved, it has become so much more then showing off good looks, but a way to communicate feelings, an activity or a place. Hence why this phenomenon has been a global success, where a large part of society is getting involved. Moreover, selfies have created imaging communities, which is the communication we have through images on our media devices (Hjorth 2011, p. 51). It is clear to me that selfies have had an enormous impact on society.

Furthermore, I often consider selfies the glue that keeps social media together. Without selfies, Snapchat might not exist, and Instagram, Facebook and Twitter would be lacking in personalised content. Snapchat has become successful from their image messaging idea, which lead the app to drastically grow from 10 million in 2012, to 100 million in 2015 (Piwek & Joinson 2016, p. 358). Perhaps the selfie is gaining these apps further financial income. Selfies showcase your identity on social media, and has been a vital contribution to the social networks since the start. Snapchat has even included selfie lenses to their app, where certain animation filters appear, but only when you are taking a selfie (Constine 2015). In my opinion, it sounds like Snapchat is using the phenomenon of selfies and letting it shape their app, which is most likely the main reason why Snapchat has become so successful.

References

Constine, J 2015, ‘Snapchat Starts Charging $0.99 For 3 Replays, Adds Face effect “Lenses”’,  TechCrunch.

Hauser, S 2015, What the Selfie Stick Revolution Means for Marketers, Livefyre Blog, viewed 24 January 2016,

<http://blog.livefyre.com/selfie-stick-revolution-means-marketers/>.

Hjorth, L 2011, ‘Mobile spectres of intimacy: the gendered role of mobile technologies in love – past, present and future’, in R, Ling & S, Campbell (eds) The Mobile Communication Research Series: Volume II, Mobile Communication: Bringing Us Together or Tearing Us Apart? Transaction Books Edison, NJ, pp. 51.

Keepin it Karl 2015, 25 Most Dangerous Selfies Ever!, 12 February, viewed 24 January 2016,

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_aPgPq6hMM>.

Piwek, L & Joinaon, A 2016, ‘What do they snapchat about?” Patterns of use in time-limited instant messaging service’, Computers in Human Behaviour, vol. 54, no. 10, p. 358.

Stern, C 2015, Keep them to yourselfie! Kim Kardashian’s selfie book, Selfish, sells just 32,000 copies in three months, Daily Mail Australia, viewed 24 January 2016,

<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3185027/Keep-yourselfie-Kim-Kardashian-s-selfie-book-Selfish-sells-just-32-000-copies-three-months-despite-reality-star-boasting-41-4-million-Instagram-followers.html>.

Image

LaSane, A 2015, ‘Kim Kardashian West: Selfish’ [image], Gilt Has an Exclusive Limited-Edition Version of Kim Kardashian’s Selfie Book Dropping Today, Complex, viewed 24 January 2016,

Crowdsourcing within social media has become more evident, as crisis situations increase. It has been considered as a useful platform to source information from users within a crisis (Johnson 2013, p. 51). This has become beneficial as users are often the first to post information regarding a crisis, and elements such as the hashtag has become a highly effective search engine on social media. However, how credible is this information that is being crowdsourced? As much as I applaud social media for enabling us this effective tool, I can only question the negative aspects and the impact they have on crowdsourcing.

Moreover, the media has always been a great platform to receive information through regarding a crisis, as we can guarantee it is the most reliable source. However since crowdsourcing has been birthed, the media has been overtaken with information that could potentially be false. This can be a concern, due to a crisis usually being the time society needs the accurate information, as lives could be at risk. Crisis information is most effective when sorted by a gatekeeper (such as a journalist), who sorts through and prepares the information for the media (Victoria441 2013). Furthermore, crowdsourcing then creates gatewatching instead, where users source information for themselves from social media (Victoria441 2013). As social media is a large platform, we are too much at risk of sourcing information from a fake account, and therefore we need to make sure we are also referring to official emergency services and media accounts for accurate information (Bruns et al 2012). Within a time of crisis it is vital that as a society, we are aware of the exact events that take place, who has been harmed and how we can we assist.

Furthermore, I have personally found that crisis crowdsourcing usually creates a hype over one crisis, when another major crisis is also happening. This starts up controversy amongst social media users, and often offends people who are in the region of another big crisis that receives very little social media attention. For instance, during the Paris attacks in 2015, a pray for Paris hashtag went viral, which lead to global support, however there were also attacks happening in Beirut and Baghdad during the same time (Laurent 2015; Mckernan 2015). The other attacks received noticeably less support and very little crowdsourcing. This diminishes potential help that those crises could have received. As a society, we should not be selective in the crisis that we crowdsource, but unfortunately this is not the case.

References

Bruns, A, Burgess, J, Crawford, K & Shaw, F 2012, #qldfloods and @QPSMedia: Crisis Communication on Twitter in the 2011 South East Queensland Floods, Arc Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation, pp. 9, viewed 17 January 2016,

<http://www.cci.edu.au/floodsreport.pdf>.

Johnson, N 2013, ‘Crowdsourcing’, Choice Reviews Online, vol. 51, no. 4, pp. 51.

Laurent, O 2015, 70 Million People Shared Their Prayers for Paris on Instagram This Weekend, TIME, viewed 17 January 2016,

<http://time.com/4114288/paris-instagram/>.

Mckernan, B 2015, Beirut, Baghdad and Paris: how 24 hours of Isis terror unfolded around the world, i100 from Independent, viewed 17 January 2016,

<http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/beirut-baghdad-and-paris-how-24-hours-of-isis-terror-unfolded-around-the-world--ZkWjxFkREFe>.

Mills, J 2015, Paris attacks: Outpouring of support on Twitter as people #prayforparis and say they are #notafraid, Metro, viewed 17 January 2016,

<http://metro.co.uk/2015/11/14/paris-attacks-outpouring-of-support-on-twitter-as-people-prayforparis-and-say-they-are-notafraid-5501045/>.

Victoria441 2013, Gatekeeping vs Gatewatching in the Media, Media and Marketing, viewed 17 January 2016,

<https://mangosrj.wordpress.com/2013/04/04/gatekeeping-vs-gatewatching-in-the-media/>.

Image

Belosic, J 2013, ‘Crowdsourcing’ [image], 3 Unconventional Ways to Boost Your Facebook Engagement, Social Media Examiner, viewed 17 January 2016,