The stereotype of the solitary, unsociable and outwardly uninterested gamer has been around since the beginning and it is both as true and false today as it ever was. What is new is that with the massive growth in gaming at all levels and demographics over the last several years, gaming is actually beginning to be seen in some quarters not only as something of a means of important, if indirect socialization, but possibly one of citizen-building as well.

The socialization aspects of this are simple enough to see by anyone who has played online or simply walked into a room where a multiplayer game was going on. Sure that's usually going to be a dudefest, but at least there is usually a dialog going on and in a general sense this is not unlike the socialization function once widely assigned to primary education. The case for citizen-building takes a little more focus to see though. Of course nobody is saying, and hopefully never will, that meaningful high school civics courses should be taught via a rousing game of Civilization or Sim City--well, maybe later--but according to a survey and analysis by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, some particular qualities of game play have a strong and consistent positive relationship to a range of civic outcomes of young people. Findings were based on a survey of 1,102 youth, ages 12-17 (presumably in the US). A few pertinent baseline findings included:

• "Game playing is universal, with almost all teens playing games and at least half playing games on a given day. Game playing experiences are diverse, with the most popular games falling into the racing, puzzle, sports, action and adventure categories."
• "Game playing is also social, with most teens playing games with others at least some of the time and can incorporate many aspects of civic and political life."
• Although the "Quantity of game play is not strongly related to teens’ interest or engagement in civic and political activity," the "characteristics of game play and the contexts in which teens play games are strongly related to teens’ interest and engagement in civic and political activities."

So, moms, dads, girlfriends and boyfriends out there, does this mean that your kid/significant other may not end up living in the basement, uh playing games until he/she is approaching mid-life after all? The folks over at Pew Internet aren't ready to make that kind of claim, but what they are apparently saying is that with the overwhelming number of kids playing games on a regular basis, what they take away from the gaming they do could very well have an impact on the skills they develop for interacting with the segments and duties of society they will eventually face and/or seek out. The survey addresses a number of talking points that feed into this, but since it is an election year and civic duties are the focus of this post, here are a some particularly relevant results:

'Civic gaming experiences' are defined in the study as "a set of learning opportunities such as simulations of civic or political activities, helping others and debating ethical issues."

Decision making and their consequences are of course the linchpin of the modern gaming experience, both in single and multiplayer scenarios. Most of the time this is just seen as life or death in the game or whether your virtual neighbors in the lounges, chat rooms and on the fields of your MMO of choice see you as worth the time of day. It's nice to think that when consoles are allowed to cool down and computers to slip back into sleep mode that gamers may have improved more than gamer scores and levels achieved; they may actually have improved themselves and by way of that the world around them. There you go citizens. Now get to button-mashing!

See an overview of the survey and the link to the full analysis here.

--Hobson's Choice

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