Interpersonal Relationships & Gaming

While social communications through technology offer many benefits - such as keeping people connected in times of distance - too much social interaction through technology can prove to be counter active in adolescents' ability to form real interpersonal relationships. Writer and motivational speaker Simon Sinek, in an interview done with IQ radio in 2016, explains how technology has negatively affected adolescents’ ability to form deep, meaningful interpersonal relationships. He goes on to explain that the struggles adolescents' face in forming relationships roots from the lack of need to do so with the ease of forming connections through technology. "Deep meaningful relationships are not there because they never practice the skillset and worse, they don't have the coping mechanisms to deal with stress" ([David Crossman], 2016). He speaks from a perspective primarily focused on the effects of social applications such as Tinder, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. 

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Hi! My name is Sara Haynes. I'm a student at Syracuse University studying Information Technology. After hearing Sinek's points and reasoning over the struggles adolescents' face in forming relationships, I was curious to understand how factors apply in gaming. A large aspect of gaming for many users is the ability to communicate and partake in activities with other players. Much research is done on the relationships developed in videogame environments, but there is more that needs to be said on how relationship development in gaming effects adolescents' abilities to develop relationships in real-life. 

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In this academic blog, you will find a series of blog topics contributing to the big question: How does interpersonal relationship development in gaming translate into real-time interpersonal relationship development skills? 

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Blog topics were curated on the basis of synthesized findings from a variety of academic articles relating to video games and relationship development. 

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