technoculture314-09

I am currently in the market for a new laptop. When before, my search priorities were weight, size, and design, now I spend endless hours comparing technical aspects such as memory, hard drive, video card, keyboard size, battery life, display resolution and operating temperature. Why the sudden change in searched qualities? Gaming. A few weeks back, lectures based on gaming emphasized the unbalanced gender playing field and stereotypes of women purport by gaming. Although this is possibly the most important issue in relation to gaming and gender, I think that it is also imperative to look at minor effects of gaming on women.
From personal experience and observations of other female gamers, it seems that most female gamers have a better understanding of and a more “fervent” interest in the technical aspects of technology. Although it is true that men are more interested in the actual functionality of the technology while women are more interested in the social aspects, women, especially women who play games, are slowly being immersed into the male side of things.
For me, it was my fascination for the game “The Sims” that got me interested in the technical aspects of my laptop. Upon playing the game, I noticed that sometimes the game would lag or crash. So I set upon finding a way to enhance my laptop, thus enhancing my gaming experience. Upon much Internet research, I found out that a larger RAM and a larger HDD would help with the lagging problem. Thus I bought a larger RAM and a larger HDD and upgraded my laptop myself. Now, I know that this isn’t much of a big feat for men, but how many women can say they have upgraded their own laptop RAM and HDD? While in search for the RAM and the HDD, I also learned the difference between DDR2 and DDR1, and SATA and PATA. Upon having to (or really just wanting to) upgrade the parts myself, I learned how to successfully open up my laptop without breaking everything, and the places of where everything was.
My interest in technology was furthered by my developing interest for The Sims. When the Sims 3 came out, I was dying to try it out. I was unsure about the system requirements so again, I searched around on the web and found a helpful website (http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/referrer/srtest) that determines if your computer is able to run specific games. From this I learned that I would need a better video card and processor (in which I learned about NVIDIA GeForce, ATI Radeon, Intel GMA and GHz), which is impossible because a video card is welded onto a laptop. Thus, I am back to my opening sentence, I have no other choice but to look for another laptop that will meet my requirements.
Although this blog post is primarily based on my own experience, I know that other women who are frequent gamers are also more technology savvy than most others because it is a requirement for gamers. From what I have observed, women who play more complex, competitive games such as WoW are especially more knowledgeable about technology. Thus the interest in gaming fuels interest in technology.

*Another piece of actual evidence is the growing number of websites dedicated to women interested in technology. A particularly useful one that I often visit (although it is void of information about laptops) is http://www.technologyforgirls.com/ , and the “Jargon Buster” section is especially helpful!

Although I tend to see the whole Male vs. Female FPS (first person shooter) argument as a little redundant (I think we're all aware that Men tend to ‘masculanise’ their hobbies, computer games being one of these). I am intrigued by the Female 'power user' tendencies to denounce other players online for lacking what the other might see as sufficient skill (noob), and as the research suggest, be less willing to help others to learn new skills within game-play. I reluctantly place myself in the 'power user' category, although just meeting the threshold of 'several' hours of gaming a week, and it is in my experience that men are far more competitive and less likely to help other players. I am speaking specifically about Counterstrike, where having played religiously as a teenager I found there to be little or no desire for teenage boys to dote on other players, secret tips or tactics. Perhaps it is my own stereotypes relating to gender but I see this research as being in direct contrast to my own personal experience. At the risk of sounding old fashioned or even chauvinistic, isn’t it Women whose instinct lends itself to caring and nurture? And if so, why once a new-media platform is introduced, do these presumed values go out with the bathwater? Perhaps there has been a shift since my days entrenched in the FPS online community (2001-2004), in male and female attitudes not towards games, but other gamers. Are there any Females out there who would agree/disagree and/or guys who have had a similar experience to me?

Tim W