The sociality of gaming : A mixed methods approach to understanding digital gaming as a social leisure activity

Playing digital games, video- and computer games, is one of the fastest
growing contemporary leisure activities; today engaging a wide variety
of users. This thesis is about taking part in digital games together with
others. Lina Eklund, in four different yet related studies, explores who
plays digital games together and why. Studying individuals involved
in gaming she analyses digital gaming as a social and mainstream
activity. She shows how gamers play with family members, friends
and individuals they met online and do so for a wide range of reasons
in search of fun and meaningful leisure.
This thesis takes an in-depth look at this new and widespread
technology and tries to understand an activity that has been called
both revolutionary and at the same time a danger to social order. It
is about the joy of gamers and the dif culties they face; as well as the
context and structure of the activity and how it ts into the everyday
lives of its users.