Impact of Human Activities on Culture

One of the most distinctive traits is culture. One trait that distinguishes humans from other living things like animals is culture, along with intellect. A particular group of people’s shared values and expertise are referred to as their culture. It alludes to people’s general thought processes in a broader context. The Latin term “cultus,” which means “care,” is where the word “culture” originates. Culture encompasses a wide range of practices, including what people consume, wear, work, think, and play.

Previous studies have shown that a person’s upbringing shapes their society. For example, a man who is living in another country is additionally moulded by his or her social impacts and might look strange to us. The social impacts surrounding a person will have an impact on how a person thinks and conveys. Some researchers opine that the study of culture makes it possible for people in the society to understand the qualities, philosophies, standards, and convictions which drive the behaviours of people living in a society.

Impact of Human Activities on Culture

While, culture is one of the most defining characteristics of human beings, it is the people who create it. Not the other way around. When we travel abroad or watch a movie/TV Show made in a foreign language, it is commonly observable that people speak different languages which are not comprehensible, wear exotic looking clothing, and eat strange looking food. For example, people living in some African countries consume Cats and Dogs which are not preferred in the western countries. All the above mentioned differentiators constitute the culture of a person. It broadly refers to the practices and characteristics of a social group. The prestigious Centre for Advance Research on Language Acquisition formally defines culture as “shared patterns of behaviours and interactions, cognitive constructs and understanding that are learned by socialization”.

Arts and Culture

Communication and Arts can have an impact on one other. Some researchers even argue that Art forms can create culture. Many modern and popular art forms like music, movies, and video games have a profound impact on the way culture develops. One of the countries of the world where art is increasingly said to be having a major impact on culture is USA. Hollywood movies, Western Music forms like Rock and Roll have a deep impact on culture worldwide.

Art forms will not only influence the popular culture of a country or a place. But they also extend the soft power of a country. Soft power will help countries to influence people living in other countries and their governments without putting any kind of pressure on them.

Popular Culture and Participatory Culture

Culture generally forms over a long period of time basing on the food eaten by people, languages spoken by people, and even the characteristics of the geography they live in. From times immemorial, the culture of the elite sections of the society defined the culture of a society. The way of life of middle-class and poor people living in a society was not considered for the purpose of studying the culture of a society or country. During the early and mid-20th century, the ideas of ordinary people started taking centre stage in defining the culture of place. Fuelled by the emergence of mass media, these ideas permeated the lives of people every day. This idea of culture came to be known as ‘Pop Culture’ or ‘Pop Culture’. Popular culture was considered as the product of the ‘culture industry’. The culture industry includes Television, Pop Music, and Radio.

Another form of culture that is now being recognized by the anthropologists is participatory culture. Participatory culture is the exact opposite of consumer culture. In participatory culture, people are not meet spectators to the emergence of culture, they act as its prosumers (producers and contributors). Participatory culture came into popularity due to the spread of advanced technologies like personal computers, internet, and social media. These technologies have given power to people in a way that was never possible before. Using personal blogs and social media services, people could actively create and publish content on an unprecedented scale. The main difference between popular culture and participatory culture is that while the former tended to view people as passive consumers, the latter considered people as active contributors and producers.

From the times when the lifestyles and preferences of the elite sections of the society defined the culture of place, we have come a long way where ordinary people irrespective of their social and economic backgrounds can create culture. The creativity of ordinary people is unleashing a new kind of force where normal people can even define the mainstream culture of a place. In the age of Web 2.0, the participation of people is happening in many forms. It can range from pure ‘textual poaching’ (blogs) to submission and moderation of content (social media sharing). Many recent global event like major election campaigns and revolutions are ascribed to participatory culture. The revolutions of the Arab spring were aided by people actively creating and sharing on the Internet and popular social media tools ranging from Twitter to WhatsApp.

A number of popular cultural texts like TV and Music can convey the emergence of popular media. This text will focuses on the role of Video Games in the emergence of participatory culture during the current times.

Video Games

Video games are one of the most popular inventions of the Twentieth Century. It involves interaction with a user interface that will produce a feedback on different kinds of video devices like TV, Mobile Phones, and Computer Monitors. Video games have come a long way from time they were first introduced in the early 1950s to the current times. Many popular video games are now developed for the mobile phones. But gaming consoles are still popular with serious gamers.

The importance of the video game industry can be gauged from the fact that it is the second biggest entertainment industry in the world after Music.

Video Games and Participatory Culture

As the technology advanced, the video game industry started presenting a number of choices to the ordinary consumers. During the initial days, video games were passive and involved players interacting with the graphic characters on the screen. Gamers cannot interact with others and gaming was mostly done in one’s drawing rooms. With the advent of Internet, many gaming companies made it possible to share their scores online. Some games can even be played online. Later, Gaming companies made it possible for players to compete with other people sitting on the other side of the planet. These online versions of the conventional multi-user games facilitated remote playing of video games on the web. The release of iPhone in the year 2007 took gaming to the next level. People can play games on their mobile phones from anywhere and stay in touch with other gamers on the go.

Video games have also become participatory. Participation of gamers in video games started with the ability to select their own tools (cars, weapons, and dress). Now some popular video games even make it possible for the users to create their own characters. The roots of the ability to create characters and control them with their actions lie in the Role-playing video games like Dungeons & Dragons that were released in the early 1980s. Video game companies later went one step ahead and allowed the gamers to create their own characters. Ability to create characters will make the consumers more immersive in the game they are playing. Thus, the modern gamers are not mere couch potatoes devouring soap operas. They actively engage with the games they play (Chaplin).

Athletes playing basketball, first-person shooters, and imaginary creatures in an adventure can all be created by the gamers themselves. Some gaming companies even take advice from active gamers regarding the characters that can be included in a game and its features. The characters that are created by the gamers can be uploaded into the central databases and shared with others. My personal experience with video games also tells the same story. In my personal opinion, the popular cultural engagement that can best describe online video game play is participatory. I have seen gamers turning into active contributors and creators themselves.

In the popular online documentary ‘Second Skin’, the narrator explains how the ability of the gamers to create their own characters is changing the video gaming industry (Second Skin). The narrator describes that the ability to create characters is improving the levels of engagement that the gamers have with the game. The characters that are created by the gamers themselves are perceived as their own like their own songs or plants grown in their gardens. The narrator in the documentary explains that he had once seen his son and nephew got into an argument when his nephew had accidentally deleted one of the key character he created in a video game that was based on the Basketball. While quarrelling over the accidental deletion, my son was feeling like he lost an important belonging or asset. The narrator supposed that the character created his son might have been his top athlete in his league using whom he competes with his cousins in Chicago.

Recently, my son and nephew got into an argument because my nephew accidentally deleted the basketball player he created. Supposedly, he was the number one athlete in his league using whom he competes with his cousins in Chicago. These personal observations strengthen my idea that video games are getting more and more participatory which can have a deep impact on the culture. Some of the characters created by a popular gamer might end up becoming cultural icons. This can be similar to the way Beatles and other popular artists have become the icons of the last century. Characters created in video games might even come to attract fans. As fandom possesses specific forms of cultural production, aesthetic traditions and practices, some of the characters created in video games might even become cultural icons like the Barbie doll that have the potentiality to redefine our times (Jenkins 285).

Are the Games Really Participatory?

Amid all the hoopla regarding the role of video games in emerging as a specific cultural text, some critics question whether the modern video games are that participatory. According to these critics, video games do not allow the gamers to get that much creative. People are just tricked into believing that they can become prosumers where in reality they do not have much control over the plot. Another criticism is that gamers are cheated into creating value without getting any compensation for their efforts.

In my opinion, while there is some merit in these criticisms, the emergence of a most participatory genre of video games cannot be rule out completely. Since video games is a dynamic industry, gaming companies might give more options to the consumers to create and nurture their characters. Saying that the consumers are being duped into believing they can create and control their characters and plots is too pessimistic a view.

Ill Effects of Video Games as Participatory Culture

The documentary takes a balanced stance on videogames. On hand, it encourages the furthering of participatory culture through video games. On the other hand, it also condemns the ill effects of digital life in general and video games in particular. In the documentary, one person is seen saying that he had been friends with people online longer than with real people he has known all through his life. But another person met his future wife online. One of the persons states that video games does not allow him to concentrate on anything else. One player called Dan opined that video games have cost him many things he deems important in his life like business, personal relationships, and even his home. He suffered with depression and has even contemplated committing suicide. Watching the documentary it dawned upon that the addictive nature of video games can be highly dangerous.

As the games become more and more participatory, these negative effects might get amplified. People might get obsessed with their own creations. Any sense of the loss or damage to these creatures might throw the gamers into depression. The ill effects of increased participation in the playing of video games is an area that needs more focus from the researchers.

Conclusion

Participatory video games are unleashing a new era in the gaming industry. Some industry experts and academics are even of the view that participatory gaming can even have educational value as students can feel some of the characters they create as their own. We might expect more creativity by both the video gaming companies and gamers in developing new technologies and characters. In my view, video games will have the same level of impact on participatory culture as pop music had on the emergence of popular culture in the last century.

Given the way participatory have grown in the recent past, it is beyond doubt that they will have a significant impact on culture as we know it.

Works Cited

Aswathappa, K, & Dash, H. International Human Resource Management. Tata McGraw-Hill Pub, 2008.

Chaplin, Heather. ”Video Games and Participatory Culture.” NPR, 22 Dec. 2009. Web. 02 Apr. 2017.

Curtimolition95. ”Second Skin.” Online Video Clip. YouTube, 5 March 2011. Web. 2 May 2017.

Jenkins, Henry. ‘Get a Life!’: Fans, Poachers, Nomads. Routledge, 1992.