The Social Path

Could video game addiction help save the world?

Here's yet another incredible presentation from the folks at TED, this time from video game designer Jane McGonigal. It highlights the untapped potential for the world's most popular online social activity: video games.

A few stats that jumped out at me:

• World of Warcraft players have racked up more than 5.93 million years of total gametime.

• Young people now spend as many hours playing video games (10,000 hours) as they do in school.

• The World of Warcraft Wiki is second only to Wikipedia as the most-used Wikis on Earth.

• There are currently an estimated 500 million gamers on Earth, with another billion on the way in the next decade.

Most adults (especially parents) probably consider these stats "scary," but I think this video helps express how that mindset is changing under Generation Y.

For example, when McGonigal says that the average World of Warcraft player puts in 22 hours of game time a week, your first reaction might be, "What a waste of time!" But compare it to the average American's TV viewing habit of 38 hours a week.

Is it better to spend 20-40 hours a week in a fun, collaborative, interactive environment such as a video game, or just staring passively at a glowing television while you veg out on the couch?

(Full disclosure: I've never played World of Warcraft, nor do I subscribe to cable or satellite TV. My wife and I probably average 8 hours of video game time a week, versus 4 hours of TV via Netflix.)

So what do you think? Does McGonigal make a compelling case for the social potential of video games? Or is she simply trying to find a silver lining in the fact that people are hopelessly addicted to entertainment?

Why teens aren't blogging.

This week, the Pew Internet & American Life Project released the results of its fall 2009 survey focusing on the internet habits of teenagers (defined as 12 to 17) and Millennials (18 to 29).

While it's not necessarily news that teens haven't jumped on the Twitter train yet, what is interesting is the drop in teen activity on blogs. The study found that 14% of online teens were blogging, compared to 28% just in 2006. Additionally the number of teens commenting on blogs has dropped from 76% to 52% since 2006.

But this report isn't about changes in teen attitudes over the past few years. What it's highlighting is the result of drastic changes in the social media landscape.

In 2006, college-oriented Facebook was just two years old when it changed the social media game by opening up to high school students. Soon after, the city and regional networks would open it up to the entire world (and their cats).

Until then, blogging had been the best option for teens who wanted to express themselves and share with their friends. The problem is that blogging is a largely open form of communication and teens are a notoriously private bunch. Teenagers blogged because it was one of the only social channels available to them, not because it was necessarily the best fit.

Outside of LiveJournal, few blogging sites provided the level of privacy and security that teenagers want.  So it’s not surprising that, as soon as they had the option, teenagers retreated from the blogosphere and embraced Facebook, with its privacy settings, networks, friend requests, pictures, status updates, and so many groups, pages, and apps your head could explode with opportunities for self-expression.

Kammie Avant is a social media planner for Luckie & Company. You can contact her by e-mail or follow @KammieAvant on Twitter.

Photo Credit: CakeFace Originals on Flickr