June 17, 2005
Taiwan Gamers
I’m at DIGRA 2005, and listening to HoLin Lin, a Taiwanese sociologist at National Taiwan University.
Lin and her team interviewed almost 60 players in internet cafes. She notes how much parents have control over children’s and teen’s gaming. In fact, she notes that the most common complaint of children living at home was surveillance. In addition, boys generally enjoy priority of computer access.
Lin discussed the social stigma in ‘netcafes’, In fact, many netcafes do not even have word processors or other simple programs. Netcafes have becoming notorious, because most visitors to netcafes are online gamers, causing a ‘moral panic’. Lin then detailed ‘urban legends’ surrounding such cafes, such as that they are ‘bad for girls, becuase girls will end up with babies.’ Its a compelling study. Read more on the research in her paper.