gaming. This is a clear sign that the generations that are growing up at the
same time as the development of virtuality are conceiving virtuality and
reality in a different way to previous generations. This is demonstrated by
the relevance that they give to what happens to them in the fictitious
dimensions created by the games, something that was difficult to conceive in
the past. It is actually by listening to children speaking about these games
that we may understand this phenomenon. Young videogames consumers
sometimes comment with the impetus of a ‘lived’ experience on what has
happened to them the day before: whilst in front of the computer, they have
conquered places that many of us have never heard of before. It can be
argued that the suggestion that these generations have developed a higher
imagination or superior capacity for creation than their predecessors is
possibly false, because children in preceding generations had other fictions
that engaged them. However, the important point is that these fictions were
not absolutely based in technology. In short, new generations have developed
a sense of virtuality and technological escape from reality that was not
granted in the past. This is a sign of how the world is changing. Indeed,
further evidence of the influence of technology in the creation of fictions
may be found in the fact that previous generations often lived the secondary
experiences of the characters of television’s Soap Operas, whilst today what
we find in new generations is the tendency to live the first person
experiences of virtual interactive environments. These new generations have
also replaced the physical environments where these collective, social
experiences were previously shared (the office, the staff room, the pub) with
virtual environments such as Messenger and Facebook, indicating the
distinctly technological nature of these fictions and their reception.
Nowadays, computer games also constitute a relevant source of
entertainment in adults’ leisure world, and the fact that many adults live the
virtual life that games provide with such intensity reinforces the theory of an
increasing necessity to escape the existing reality in which we live. The
classic argument often heard from games consumers, and substantiated by
personal observation of friends and work colleagues, is that it helps them to
‘disconnect’ from their life, and especially from their preoccupations and
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