Virtuella lekkamrater

Abstract

Do computer games constitute something new in the world of children? Yes, there are certain elements in computer games, both as phenomenon and in their contents, that make them unique to our times and that interact with tendencies in the rest of our culture. In the computer games, children play with today's increased possibilities for choice, possibilities that also can be experienced as compulsion. Further, the games leave room for involvement and intense experience at the same time as taking place in a fantasy world where actions do not have consequences in the real world. In addition the children, with the aid of the computer games, train the communicative competency increasingly necessary in society today. This they do both in the social activities surrounding the playing of computer games, as well as in the games themselves, where it is often about quickly perceiving, interpreting, and acting based on a stream of concurrent information ⁠— this in turn leads to children of today learning a new form of reading skill. Finally, children can, in the apparent reality that computer technology offers, develop a partially new attitude to physical matter which will set fewer limits as the children learn to create, in cyberspace, a reality by their thoughts alone.