ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the risks associated with new types of content that young people become interested in during pre-adolescence and adolescence. Boys, in particular, begin to use online games as a kind of social networking software, often preferring them to venues like Facebook or Instagram. This part of the chapter draws on my own unpublished ethnographic and experimental studies of play on various games, particularly League of Legends, and also the video-streaming platform Twitch. Themes include identity as a “gamer”, gender differences in gaming (and how these have diminished over time), and reactions to antisocial behavior in games. One issue that has been widely discussed in relation to gaming is whether violent video games can lead to real-world violence. I show that this is a classic example of a moral panic, though in isolated cases it may exacerbate the level of violence that someone engages in. A parallel worry is over widespread access to online pornography and whether this has negative effects on real-world sexual behavior. Risks to privacy from unwittingly sharing explicit (or otherwise sensitive) material are also reviewed. Finally, new technology brings new opportunities for acquiring knowledge and engaging with educational content online. The last part of the chapter draws on my own research with high school pupils in Colombia. While many people worry that time spent on social networks can detract from academic achievement, this is not what this project found. Instead, time spent online was balanced by a tendency for children with lower academic self-esteem to use WhatsApp and Facebook groups, and other resources, to gain relevant information from their more academically “able” peers.
