Research On Game-playing As Leisure Of Young And Middle-aged People In Urban Dalian

Games are a common phenomenon in the human society as well as a basic activity in human life. Human games not only reveal the traits of animal instincts, but also, as higher animals, they have created a variety of games to suit their self-development. Games are the most interesting and joyful activities for children and are also a good companion for the entire human life. Games can bring game players unforgettable joy and endless pleasure, but on the other hand they record the development of history, culture and society. Hence they are not only a recreational activity but also have historical, cultural and social significance. Games are a way to achieve human beings' self-worth and are a cultural activity. With the growing popularity of the Chinese culture, more attention has been given to various cultures, such as folk custom and entertainment. As a branch of culture, games have received more attention and a leisure style characterized by game playing has enjoyed increasing popularity.Many forms of the currently popular games in China originated from some intense and serious labor activities, which aimed at satisfying the physical needs of the people. As the development of social production and the improvement of productivity created a surplus of labor in later period, it was unnecessary to put all the labor into production on a daily basis. People began to have some free time and did not participate in production. Gradually some forms of labor evolved into recreational game activities. The earliest games emerged in the form of sports and were the origin of primitive human sports. In other words, primitive sports were basically game playing. A survey of the origin of China's ancient games shows that labor production of our ancestors, military wars among tribes and kingdoms, various social customs and other nationalities in the northwest contributed to the origination of ancient Chinese games. These factors determined the formation, development and evolvement of ancient games. When conditions necessary for prolonging life span and maintaining daily life were met, such activities as material production and military wars gradually lost their utilitarian features and began to take on a recreational nature.The development of games underwent two stages, the stage of traditional games and the state modern games. The development of traditional games lasted a long time. All the present forms of traditional games originated from different dynasties in imperial China. Generally speaking, the developement of ancient games consists of five periods:the primitive society, the Pre-Qin Period, the Han-Wei Dynasties, the Tang-Song Dynasties and the Ming-Qing Dynasties. In terms of the characteristics of game development, the primitive society was the embryonic form of game development, the Pre-Qin Period marked the beginning of game development, the Han-Wei Dynasties belonged to the development stage in China's game history, the Tang-Song Dynasties were the prime time in game development, and the Ming-Qing Dynasties witnessed a stagnation of game development. Modern games as leisure refer to games by means of electronic devices. Electronic games originated in America and Japan in the 1960s and later were introduced into China. Electronic games include computer games, TV games, arcade games and portable games. These games are played through electronic devices such as computers, TV and game machines. Electronic games are characterized by interactivity between humans and machines and by simulation. The formation and development of electronic games have to depend on game software. Traditional games and modern games differ in game media, places of play, restraints of rules, forms of participation, intimacy of participants as well as forms of emergence.The development of game playing as leisure has had a great impact on the style of leisure in Dalian. The people of Dalian not only enjoyed many forms of game playing that are common in the country, but also add their own innovation by creating a unique way of card playing, making contribution to the development of game playing as leisure.Games are a cultural phenomenon that has come into the present forms through hundreds, even thousands of years of constant historical development. Game activities are a kind of leisure activities. Leisure activities are highly inclusive. Active leisure activities include travel, exercise, collection, thinking, creation, gardening, pet breeding and game playing. Game playing is a leisure activity, which consists of both traditional way of game playing and modern way of electronic game playing. This dissertation studies the functions of leisure activities from the perspective of game playing, including attitudes towards game-playing, degree of participation in game playing, forms and contents of and interest in such activities as well as impediments to game playing. The subjects chosen for sample study include youths and middle-aged men and women aged from around 20 years old to about 50 years old covering civil servants, staff from governmental institutions, governmental, non-governmental and foreign-funded enterprises, teachers and researchers. However, the chosen subjects do not include children, non-local residents, the unemployed, retirees and seniors. In addition, this dissertation does not study game-playing activities beyond the scope of leisure such as learning-based children's game playing, meal-and-sleep-ignoring majiang playing, long-time Internet game addiction and money-oriented gambling. The dissertation differs from previous studies in two ways. In the first place, the area of research is unique. Most of the previous researches have been on leisure studies from an overall aspect, covering a large scope while few have focused on a specific aspect. This dissertation studies a specific aspect of leisure from the perspective of game playing activities. In the second place, a different research perspective is employed. Previous studies have been done purely on game playing such as the history of games, children's games and the development of Internet game-designing industries. This dissertation studies game playing by taking it as a leisure activity. This dissertation adopts traditional questionnaires and interviews as its research methodology. A total of 400 questionnaires have been distributed and altogether 305 have been effectively collected. In the process of research, a leisure model concerning game-playing has been designed aimed at explaining the relationship between personal background elements and leisure participation. Then the model is proved by surveys and analysis of current leisure situation of urban youths and middle-aged people. The following conclusions have been drawn. Personal background elements such as gender, age, marital status, income and education have a positive effect on leisure participation. Positive awareness of game-playing leads youths and middle-aged people to more participation in game playing while negative attitudes impedes participation. Age factor has a positive effect on game-playing leisure activity participation. For example, youths participate more than the middle-aged. Men and women also differ in such leisure involvement with men participating at a higher frequency than women and spending more time the women. Men and women also have different choice of types of games. Men have more choices than women. People in types of profession may also have different amount of time for leisure. Public servants, departmental heads, staff of private and foreign-funded enterprises work longer and have less free time. The amount of free time affects the degree of participation in leisure activities, particularly game-playing. The amount education one receives has some effect on the types of leisure activities one chooses. Generally speaking, youths and the middle-aged choose electronic game playing as their major leisure activities and occasionally turn to traditional game playing as their leisure activities. Computer game playing makes up a major part in electronic game playing. Leisure impediments are in reversion proportion to leisure participation. The more impediment, the less participation, and vice versa.This dissertation is composed of seven chapters. Chapter One is a general introduction to the whole paper, covering research background, research significance, research scope and studies at home and abroad. Chapter Two gives a detailed introduction of the creation and development of both traditional games and modern electronic games, providing a classification of both types of games and a contrast of the two types of game playing. Chapter Three presents research design for the next chapter, introducing research methodologies, questions to be studied, a concept model for game-playing leisure activities, questionnaire design and collection of the questionnaires. In Chapter Four a multi-angle analysis of current situation of game-playing leisure activities of youth and middle-aged men and women in Dalian is given concerning their free time distribution, cognition of game-playing and modes of game-playing. A survey is also done regarding the places young people like the best in Dalian. It is pointed out that places suitable for the young to enjoy their leisure activities, especially game-playing activities, are too few in number. At the end of the chapter is a proof of the correctness of the proposed concept model in Chapter Three. Chapter Five explains the reasons why young people choose game playing as a leisure activity from the perspectives of youth characteristics and charms of games. Chapter Six discusses the social functions of game-playing as a kind of leisure. Chapter Seven is the summary of the whole research, presenting research results and pointing out weaknesses of the dissertation writing.