Exploring Cultural Anthropology

As a cultural anthropologist what might you propose to research? Why would you choose this culture and topic for research? What do you hope to discover, accomplish, or address by studying this culture? How could you prepare for culture shock?

Video games in the North American culture

I am very interested in the evolution of video games and their increasing role in our society. As a kid I grew up in the "trenches" as it were, when video games were really taking off. I saw the birth (and death) of the Atari 2600. We owned it's descendant the 5200. I played games on consoles from Collecovision, Intellivision and others. Weekends were often spent lurking around the local convenient store to play or watch others play the latest or most innovative stand-up machine. Then we got a Nintendo and then came our personal computer. The PC opened up a whole new element of video games. While my dad would talk with his friends after school about cars and hunting and fishing, my friends and brothers and I would talk about how to be more efficient in building a fortress or what policies would lead to a global nuclear war. Often times, we would sit around the dinner table and my mother, she told me years later, would think she were listening in on a UN meeting of heads of states or representatives as we discussed how our roles as national leaders would play out in the latest game we were playing. We did not grow up with the first person shooter (FPS) type of games. We grew up with games that stretched the imagination and required problem solving on a local, national or often international scale. Later, real time strategy (RTS) games came about requiring even more consideration to be taken on just how to carry out our strategies. But the most life impacting game I ever played was a simple and crude (by today's standards anyway) driving simulator. I spent $5 a week over a summer teaching myself how to drive a car because unlike my dad, the game didn't blow a gasket every time I crossed a line or went too fast or got too close to a car. At the time, driver's ed was not required so this was how I practiced in preparation for my driver's license.

These explanations/examples from my past I hope answer the other questions. I want to know where video games are taking us. Can our consumerism steer us down a path of entertainment that is actually providing training and life skills for the future (see Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card). What I would not be prepared for is a backlash from anti-video gamers that leads to the abolishment of video games or, as appears to be a growing trend in psychology and sociology, a vilianization of the video game industry and the negative effects of long hours or FPS gaming that teach very little. Only in a few cases do some FPS games teach sportsmanship and teamwork. Most of the time, FPS games are not much more than the version of football where one kid plays quarterback and everyone just runs long for a pass. If you don't run fast because your out of shape or shorter than the other players, you'll rarely touch the ball, if ever. But there are games out there that teach about history, politics, finance, transportation and logistics. Granted, many are based on war/battle scenarios but consumerism dictates that. As was pointed out in the non-animated version of 101 Dalmations by a kid tester of video games, what is important for kids is the ability to annihilate. Maybe if parents exerted more control on the video game industry, this desire could shift and video games could become an integral part of education.