Computer shooter games as a space of socialization: What patterns of social behaviour do child players internalize?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33910/2687-0223-2024-6-2-96-105Keywords:
child socialization, computer games, social learning theory, aggressive behaviour, gaming communityAbstract
Increasingly more children have access to a computer or have a personal computer of their own through which they can easily download a shooter game — even a game with an age restriction of 18+. The popular shooter game CS:GO attracts many younger players who want to join the gaming community. When playing CS:GO, younger players encounter aggressive behaviour patterns and may adopt such patterns as a reference for both gaming and real life. Further, the social learning theory suggests that gamers adopt the traits of those in-game characters who repeatedly receive in-game benefits for aggressive actions: this may encourage gamers to use aggression to achieve their goals in real life. This study aims to determine the mechanism of socialization activated when playing CS:GO and to identify the attitudes internalized by child players during the game. The respondents included 15 boys aged 10–15 who took part in in-depth semi-structured interviews. The interviews sought to examine the changes in the subjectivity of child players related to the internalization of aggressive gaming strategies and their transfer to real life. It was found that successful socialization of a child player in the aggressive atmosphere of CS:GO, which is characterized by a toxic community, leads to a tendency to transfer aggression from the game to life in the form of verbal expressions, emotions or physical aggressive actions. The short-term effect of the game on the child is that the child’s susceptibility to aggression and inability to abstract from the game, in conjunction with the situational variable in the form of toxic community of the game, influence the child’s internal state, making this state aggressive and physiologically aroused. The long-term effect of playing CS:GO with its toxic community can manifest itself in the form of negative attributional bias in child players towards not only other players, but also towards people in the real world.
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Wei, R. (2007) Effects of playing violent videogames on Chinese adolescents’ prо-violence attitudes, attitudes toward others, and aggressive behavior. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 371–380. https://doi.org/10.1089/cpb.2006.9942 (In English)
Wright, T., Boria, E., Breidenbach, P. (2002) Creative player actions in FPS online video games — playing Counter- Strike. Game Studies, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 1–12. (In English)
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