The New Community: MMORPGs and Social Networking Essay -- Social Netwo

Community is changing. As far back as the twentieth century, a social community was a group of real life acquaintances that had a common interest, goal, or career. Back then, to update one’s â€Å"status† might mean to attempt to improve a person’s social standing within a particular community or group of friends. Today, people don’t need to be told what online social networking is. It’s so engrained into the current culture that people almost can’t remember how they interacted before the internet came along. How did people keep in touch? How did they interact and socialize and play? Before social networking sites like Facebook existed, people had to rely on the email, now the cultural norm for written communication. And prior to that, people had to send letters, an ancient form of communication that, believe it or not, involved rubbing graphite on paper to create a message, and then paying a courier to take it to your intended recipient, sometimes taking days or even weeks. Communicating took a bit more effort, and, in fact, so did recreation. To play together people had to meet up in something called â€Å"real life† and interact. For example, there were fantasy role-playing groups that played games like Dungeons and Dragons back in the 1980s and 1990s, but those cultures too have moved to the internet and amassed a huge following. Massively multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPGs, or MMOs for short) are part of a new emerging subculture that has already swallowed millions of people into a relatively new social gaming experience. Fantasy and science fiction universes have been created by artists and programmers, and the subscribers (usually via monthly subscription fees) create an online avatar that exist in new, massi... ....org. Retrieved from http://socialnetworking.procon.org/#pro_con Rao, L. (2011, February 7). Comscore: Facebook keeps gobbling people's time. Tech Crunch, Retrieved from http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/07/comscore-facebook-keeps-gobbling-peoples-time/ Understanding, assessing and treating online role-playing game addiction. (2010, May 27). Counselor, Retrieved from http://www.counselormagazine.com/feature-articles-mainmenu-63/113 Van Grove, J. (2009). Study: Social media is for narcissists. Mashable Social Media, Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2009/08/25/gen-y-social-media-study/ Yee, N. (2006). The psychology of massively multi-user online role-playing games: motivations, emotional investment, relationships and problematic usage. In R. Schroeder & A. Axelsson (Eds.), Avatars at Work and Play: Collaboration and Interaction in Shared Video Environments London: