Final Essay: Dominic Marini

Games For The Mind, Body, & Soul is an essay focusing on the positive impacts of video games on a person's social, emotional, and physical aspects of life.

Essay Exhibit Discussion

During our final week of classes in Digital Humanities, the class was able to put there final essays on exhibit for everyone to view. I particularly enjoyed the Google Maps Essay exhibit that one of my classmates did. She included "Mr. Plimpton's Revenge" and that was one of the coolest things we looked at this semester. Google Maps essays allow people to tell location based stories by showing certain places on an actual map to the reader. They also allow the creator of the essay to input text and pictures to the maps to give the reader a fuller experience while reading the narrative.
I also really liked the exhibit on convergence, it was a really fascinating topic that caught my attention. Convergence is an interesting thing that says eventually all media will flow through one outlet - this is the black box fallacy. Henry Jenkins argued the theory, saying that media will eventually be everywhere, and will not flow through one "black box". Overall, all of the exhibits were really interesting and I thought that everyone did a great job in the class. Digital Humanities was definitely a thought provoking course that I'm glad that I took!

Final Essay by Jon Dicey

To conclude the excellent semester, my essay titled "Video Games: Growing Trend and New Form of Human Expression" touches on how video games have affected modern society and how it relates to Digital Humanities.

-Jon Dicey-University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown-Spring of 2017

Essay Exhibit Discussion

This past week in Digital Humanities we've been having an essay exhibit for everyone's final essay topics.  I decided to choose the affects of video games in modern society as my topic for the exhibit and final essay. I've also gathered quite a bit of information from other students from their exhibit pieces. Even though there was a lot of variety as far as topics go, but the majority of the topics were based off video games. Digital Humanities display many different forms of human expression in relation to the advancement of modern technology. But, after the essay exhibit, video games have had more of an impact on our generation based on research I have gathered and from what I have seen in other students exhibit pieces.
The piece that other students have created that will help me with my essay is Hunter Graham's piece on video games and religion. Another piece that I found interesting that I will definitely incorporate into my essay is video games and the military. When I first looked at both of these pieces I was shocked that video games have had such an affect on religion and military. Religion really opened my eyes because I thought video games had nothing to do with religion. The military, however, made a lot of sense to me due to the amount of war games that are growing in popularity today.

My essay will cover all the affects video games have had on modern society and how the trend will continue to grow in future generations. Religion and the military will also be referenced in my essay. I hope to continue to see more innovative and exciting breakthroughs in the gaming industry.

Final Essay

To wrap up our Digital Humanities course we were asked to write a final research essay. I was initially inspired to write my essay on the self generating text poem "Camel Tail" by Sonny Rae Tempest. Obviously, I needed to expand my subject to be able write a 5 page essay, so I chose the issue of authorship and who really owns "Camel Tail" as a whole. In my essay, I take a look at the analog age and digital age. I also look at how society has come to accept remix culture as a norm. You can find my essay "The Question of Authorship in the Digital Age" here.
-Chelsea Furnari ~ The University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, Digital Humanities Spring 2017

Essay Exhibit Discussion

     There is a big array of different topics seen in our class of Digital Humanities. However most of the essay exhibits that I have looked at, have to do with video games. Video games are a very popular subject. There can be many things to say when i

t comes to video games, and I figured that out today. Members of my class talked about all different aspects of them from religion to violence to virtual reality.
    One of my classmates talked about religion in video games. It is a very interesting topic. He focused on the two religions, Christianity and Hinduism. He first started out with talking about the different misconceptions about video games. He talked about how some people think that video games are only catered to the youth. This is not true. There are some video games that are better catered to an older audience. He also talked about how some people think that video games have an "unreal" environment. There are many games that have a real environment. One of those games is Grand Theft Auto. It is set in a city, which is very real. Some of the video games that he talked about were Zelda and Journey. In Zelda, there is a cross that is used to see ghosts. There is also three goddesses in the game. These goddesses are representations of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Another video game that he talked about was Journey. This video game represents the "journey" that one takes after they die, on their way to heaven. I really like this project. It was interesting to think about a video game from a religious stand point.
   Another classmate talked about violence in video games. There is a lot of misconception when it comes to violence in video games. Some claim that playing an excess amount of violent video games can have an effect on the gamer. My classmate provided an example of a research study that proved this to be false. An excess amount of violent video games do not make a person violent. It is a myth. He also talked about social media and empathy. My classmate claimed that an excess of time on

social media can cause a person to loss empathy. I believe that this is true. When hiding behind a screen, it is easy to forget that there are people behind each social media account. I like this project very much. It brings light to the misconceptions about violence and video games.

Essay Exhibit Discussion

During our final week of class, my classmates and I had the chance to present our final projects and view others projects. I found this activity very helpful and beneficial, it allowed me to get more ideas about my topic and to assist others in their topics. I viewed several different topics that I found eye opening.
One of the projects that I viewed was on the idea of technological convergence. I am familiar with this topic and find it rather interesting. My classmate brought up the theory that humans today thirst for technology and that it is almost a necessity to daily life. Convergence deals with transforming  old forms of media into new and more efficient forms.  She stated that technology has a massive effect on communication, which is true. Also she stated that there is less face to face communication, also that there is a bigger emphasis on texting, phone calling, and emailing. Although this is true in today's society I still believe humans are still very involved in each other and thrive in communication. There is a common belief amongst older generations that younger people do not communicate with others well, I highly disagree with this belief. The communication is enhanced with the powers of technology. Phones and tablets can allow for more communication then ever before. I am excited to see how my classmate expands on this topic in her final paper.
Another project that I viewed was the relationship between video games and religion. I have played video games for many years now, but never really thought about this overlap. For the purposes of his essay, he is focusing on Christianity and Buddhism in video games. This idea is prevalent in games that have endings which demands for reaching a higher place. For example, a game called "Journey" which entails its user to go through a series of events in order to reach the top of a mountain. The top of the mountain represents heaven. I think this idea is marvelous and can really shed a light on spiritual feelings inside video games. Video games have the potential to be more than just entertainment. They can be used as tools for many different aspects of humanity, such as religion.