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.