NYC Youth & Gaming, part 2: Managing Feelings, Shaping Identities

In this post we will look at how NYC teens use video games to manage their feelings and shape their identity. This is the second of four posts (the previous being Re-centering Around Agency).

5. GAMES THEY PLAY

The 20 youth in the Gaming Advisory were asked to list video games they play. They identified 69. We then asked a larger group of youth (including the G.A.) to select all played in the past year. We were surprised to learn that most were playing games not shared by the majority. In fact only two of those 69 games were played by a majority of the survey respondents (Among Us and Minecraft). That means most teens are playing games within a small niche.

List of the top ten games played. These results combine responses from members of the G.A, their peers in the high school SIA programs and host schools (N=51).

The respondents all engaged in a wide range of meta-gaming activities (like watching gaming videos on Youtube); in fact, the majority of them engaged with most of the activities listed. In other words, while they are playing different video games from one another, they are engaged in the same type of meta-game activities.

While they largely play different games from one another, the vast majority of these teens are engaged in the same diverse collection of video game-related activities. (N=51)

6. WHAT THEY SAY WHEN PLAYING GAMES

As we were preparing the research instruments for the G.A. I came across a quote in a New York Times’ interview with Richard Tyler Blevins, known as Ninja, an American Twitch streamer, YouTuber and professional gamer. Blevins said: “You want to know who your kid is? Listen to [them] when [they’re] playing video games when [they] think you’re not.” Perhaps nothing creates more anxiety for adults than imagining what their teens are up to when no one is watching. We made sure to work this into the program (and I wrote more earlier about what we learned on this topic here). 

We asked the G.A. to share sounds they make while playing video games when they thought their caregivers were not listening; their responses were turned into comic strips (by us) for discussion and analysis.

We tagged their responses by both tone (Aggressive/Mad/Negative vs. Friendly/Inquisitive) and audience (Opponents, Teammates/Friends, the Game, Themselves).

16 of the 25 comments (64%) were negative. Click for full view.

12 of the 30 responses were directed towards themselves (40%). The same number were directed towards other players. Click for full view.

We combined those two into an X/Y axis, and every box was filled. There was at least one comment for every possible combination. But the largest number of comments clearly fell into one box: negative comments directed towards themselves.

This led to an exploration with the G.A. of how youth use games to manage their feelings, often with intention. If they are feeling upset, they might choose to avoid highly competitive games. If they are feeling down, they might play a quirky game to perk themselves up.

Much of this, if not all, is occurring outside the awareness of the caregivers around them.

The following are some more examples:

Our conversation about the sounds they make when playing games took us in three general directions. First, below are some quotes about what they gain from gaming:

• “In video games… the fear of how I’ll be perceived isn’t a factor, so it’s easier to express myself more honestly and instinctively.”
• “Games amazes me [with] how they help the player connect with the story or others. It just makes me want to create something that helps others too.”
• “I used to play a lot of Kingdom Hearts, and there’s a lot of themes of friendships in there, right? This may sound corny, but like, that really helped me to really grab the concept of friendships and how important that is.”
• “For me games bring out determination… In games like Celeste or Hollow Knight, you keep dying and dying and then I always got to bounce back. And then it’s fun. It’s really fun struggling. Ah, that sounds really weird to say! But it’s fun to struggle and then you do well.”

Next, below are quotes about games and emotions:

• “I practically use games 24/7 to manage my emotional life.”
• “Difficulty in gaming is like a spice. And the spicier it is, is like: How much can you take before you burn out?”
• “Some games just make me so happy; those are the ones I want to play the most.”
• “Is very noticeable when you improve and that feeling is amazing.”
• “Some specific story games highlight insecurities in myself and have moving emotional narratives that provide insight into what I may be dealing with outside of the game.”
• “I use games to help me just vibe with the peace.”

Finally, below are quotes about games and violence or aggression:

• “I don’t play aggressive games like multiplayer FPS because it seems like a hostile environment.”
• “I’m a female and i try not to rage and control what i say XD”
• “Games are an outlet for many to vent or let out frustration… It gives us a reason/opportunity to release it.“
• “I don’t play those kinds of games for long because I feel like it damages me.”
• “I sort of like aggressive/frustrating games cause it kind of makes me wanna play until I win.”

8. HOW YOUTH USE GAMES TO BE WHO THEY WANT TO BE IN THE WORLD

To better understand the personal narratives youth construct using games, we asked the three youth focus groups and in the all-SIA student survey the following question:

How do games help you be who you want to be in the world?

The following are just a few examples of the many and diverse ways youth use games:

• “I’m quite introverted, so games help me connect and make friends with others.”
• “I personally want to work in the emergency room. So I feel like when you play games… you need critical thinking, you need to think fast before you lose the game. And those are some of the things that you need as a PA.”
• “Games are… where I learned how to think rationally before I act, how to interact socially with others, and ultimately builds both my mentality and physicality.”
• “Gaming has helped me be who I want to be by giving me the ‘drive’ to do the best that I can.”
• “Gaming lets me solve problems and legitimizes a sense of accomplishment that I use as motivation in my future endeavors.”
• “Games… have offered [me] a huge stepping stone in life that has made me who I am, and… the knowledge that I gained from them will assist in my career in STEM via problem solving, critical thinking, and most importantly creativity.”
• “Games help me be who I want to be in the world by allowing me to… express my true inner-self.”

To explore the same concept, but through a more constructivist approach, we invited the youth in the G.A. to build what we called Social Mechanic Ecosystems. To build their ecosystem, we asked them to pick one game they play and write its name in the middle circle. Next, they were asked to consider all the different things they do related to the game OTHER than play it. Each of those activities occupies one of the satellite circles, identifying what they were doing, where they were doing it, who it connected them with, and the goal of that activity. Each satellite circle then gets one word or phrase to describe what roles this activity allows them to occupy in the world. Finally, looking at all of the roles in a holistic way, they are asked to fill out the “Me & My Game” section” to learn if there is a narrative that emerges about how this game supports them to be or do something in the world. 

For example, in this one below, the student chose the game Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Loz). LoZ helps this student be an artist (drawing LoZ-related art) and a singer (of LoZ melodies), a consumer of LoZ gameplay videos and LoZ-music, and a “learner” of videos that use LoZ to teach game design. In “Me & My Game,” in the lower right, this teen summarizes this all by saying LoZ helps them be someone who can take inspiration, wonder and learning from one source then apply it somewhere else in order to better themselves and others.

In this next example, the student explores their relationship with Animal Crossing and identifies how it helps them to learn information they can later implement:

In the next post we will look at what NYC teens want from video games in their communities.