Youth and Network Cultures: Between Moral Panic and Techno Romantic

The Swedish organisation Ungdomsstyrelsen (The Youth Foundation) has just released a report (totally in Swedish) into young people and computer games. Entitled Unga och nätverkskulturer – mellan moralpanik och teknikromantik (Youth and Network Cultures: Between Moral Panic and Techno Romantic), it looks like it contains many interesting suppositions. A total of 2 900 Swedes between the ages of 16 och 25 answered a series of questions about their computer game play, social habits, health and education. The result from the survey that has been making the news in Sweden since its release is that slightly fewer gamers drink alcohol (19%) than non-gamers (24%) in the age group. There is also found to be less stress and depression among gamers than non-games, although this seems a tentative connection it would be one I, from personal experience would expect. There was also found to be no higher incidence of obesity among gamers as compared to non-gamers. The report can be downloaded from the link. One section of particular interest is "Sharing is Caring" by Jessica Linde och Simon Lindgren which discusses file sharing culture, sub-politics and the new social movements associated with P2P file sharing.