Discussion: Impact of Game Players

Perhaps on of the largest impacts of ICT on the personal lives of young people has been the explosive growth of home game players or ‘play’ stations. An article in New Scientist (23 October 2004, p.26) stated that $3.8 thousand million of games were sold in 1995, rising to $6 thousand million in 1998 and $7 thousand million by 2003. It is estimated that 25% of these games were violent.
☻Computer games are so popular because they allow people to take themselves away from reality and immerse themselves in the world of the game. Many people enjoy playing these games because they have been well produced to engage the players.
☻Computer games make you more violent sometimes depending on what games you play. This is because some are violent and if people get used to this very a start to apply to real life situations, instead of the simulated ones in these games.
☻Computer games make you more isolated because you are less likely to wish to socialise with friends or family because you will have more enjoyment from playing with the console on your own. It may make you more social if it is networked.
☻Networked computer games make you more social because you are able to communicate with friends, where you may not usually, if you are use to playing on your own. However, there can be some disadvantages because you can sometimes be unsure who you are playing with.

Discussion: Pirated Entertainment

☻The advantages of paying a supplier such as Apple for a legal music download are that you know that you are not doing anything illegal. Also, you know that what you have bought online is what you are actually going to get and it will be a full quality version, because sometimes when you download files of other sites you are not always sure what you are downloading or whether it is the correct version that you want, (i.e. correct artist, live version).

☻The disadvantage of buying a pirate DVD from a market stall are that the quality if often poor, parts can be missed as the film has often been filmed in a cinema and if it does not work or is not the film you wished to buy you have no comeback, because it has not been bought from a shop and has been bought illegally and so you have no comeback.

☻The disadvantage of getting a pirate download of the latest Hollywood blockbuster before its UK release is it is not of a very high quality and can ruin your enjoyment of the film as pieces could be missing or it could be hard to interpret what is being said or happening.

☻The disadvantage to you of visiting an illicit music download site is that your IP address is logged and when you do download a site you cannot be sure what you have downloaded and you may have a feeling of guilt as you have not bought the file.

☻Widespread illicit downloading discourages the funding of new talent because it is too expensive for record companies to sign new talent because they know that the files will be distributed illegally where the company will not receive any income and so there is no point the company producing these songs if they are not going to make any profit from them.

Discussion: Access to Original Entertainment

It has never been easier to publish original entertainment, this is because many people have access to the internet, and on this vast interface people are able to share original entertainment on a variety of sites such as YouTube and MySpace. In addition, it has become much easier for people to record their own music at home without much specialist hardware or software; this is because of the advances and sophistication of sound cards. This has meant that users can use computerised drum kits and use software to enhance tracks etc. Also, mistakes can be edited very easily by using the software which allow you to edit very much like a work processing package allows you to.

It has never been harder to see and hear original entertainment online, this is because a lot of ‘rubbish’ is often published online which means that it can be very hard to find original entertainment online. Due to the high volume of rubbish posted on the internet, it means that users have to look through numerous pages to find some original entertainment which has been well produced.