Hello again everyone,

Week 2 has come and gone for New Communication Technologies, and part of this week's task was to find a video about a topic related to New Communication Technologies. I found this video on YouTube, about a story from Sunrise last year. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuwtSg4aKzE.

The video, as you would have figured out if you watched it, is about video game addiction and its affects on especially young people. I myself would call myself a gamer, although not to the extent of the people featured in the video (only leaving the game to eat and go to the toilet!). Video games have enjoyed a meteoric rise into people's lives since their humble beginnings a few decades ago. In some cases they are Old Communication Technologies, but in some they are New Communication Technologies (for example the integration of Internet capabilities to modern consoles, and games on actual computers). Some genres of games also encourage communication in some form or another between actual people. RPGs (Role-Playing Games) and First-Person Shooters like Battlefield are examples of this.Video game addiction interests me because I think when a person becomes 'addicted' to video games,  their personal communication breaks down, to a point where communication within the video game replaces communication within the real world. Their perception of reality is warped too, and the way they communicate changes, as mentioned earlier. Interestingly video game addiction is not classified as a legitimate mental disorder that can be diagnosed, but I'm sure that in the near future it will be, because the World Health Organisation estimates that 10-15% of the world's gamers meet their criteria for addiction (CRC, http://www.video-game-addiction.org/ ). There are millions of gamers in the world, so 10-15% is actually an alarming number.

The second part of this post was to find an application or website that would help you use an aspect of the web more effectively. Being a university student, we often come across databases during our search for information, so understanding how to use them properly is key. The UQ Library website (sorry Griffith!) provides an excellent 13 tips on searching for stuff on databases (http://www.library.uq.edu.au/how-to-guides/database-searching). Now most institutions provide guides to using databases, but UQ is such a prominent university that most of the stuff it provides is world-class (sorry again Griffith!). The tips are easy to read and understand, and after applying them to find some information, it is now a lot easier. Now I can be more specific with my search, and get to what I want quicker. 

Finally I will talk about my own experiences with New Communication Technologies, and what role they play in my life. My first experiences with New Communication Technologies were way back in the era of dial-up internet, and using the family computer to search for information (I still remember the dial-up sound!). It was only about 5 or so years ago that I expanded from computers and got my first mobile phone. It was a Nokia of some sort, and it was a brick. It was perfect for me, because I only used it for texting and calling and playing Snake. The first phone I chose to get was a Vodafone 858, a tiny little smartphone which looked cool in the catalogue. I hated that phone something shocking. The screen was really small and the battery life was terrible and I was more than happy to upgrade to my current phone, a Samsung Galaxy S3. 

I've never really thought about the issue of privacy and security over the Internet, and I've only become concerned recently (this subject has helped raise some key issues about security). I do check my security settings on social media every now and again, and take care with who I share information to. I think it's wrong that Facebook and Google use your information for their own devious purposes, but isn't it impossible to be fully private on the Internet? 

References: 

CRC Health Group, Date unknown, "Video Game Addiction", Retrieved from: http://www.video-game-addiction.org/, Viewed 3 August, 2013. 

The University of Queensland, 2011, "Database Searching", Retrieved from: http://www.library.uq.edu.au/how-to-guides/database-searching, Viewed 4 August, 2013.


Thanks everyone!
Josh