Meaningful Play @ MSU

Just a quick note for anyone in the East Lansing area who’s interested in video games: MSU is hosting a conference through Saturday titled Meaningful Play. I’ll be speaking today (Friday) at 2:30pm, offering a synopsis of Pew Internet’s recent report on teens’ gaming habits.

So come out and let’s talk about who has the bigger collection of original Nintendo games (I’ll bet it’s me!).

I’m baacckkkkk!

Okay, so I took a two-month break. Sue me. I was enjoying every precious second I had left in the glorious city of DC. Now I am living in the less-than-exciting state of Michigan (although it has yet to become the icy wasteland I previously predicted).

On the bright side, school has begun and I’m enjoying it so far. I’m studying social networks and online communities Michigan State’s Media & Information Studies PhD program. I cannot begin to express how amazing it is to work with experts in your field, where you no longer have to second-guess yourself because you have no one more knowledgeable about the subject matter than yourself. Now I am not only being taught by experts, but in some cases, by the people I cited most heavily during my thesis research (i.e., Joe Walther, Nicole Ellison, Cliff Lampe, Chip Steinfield, among others).

So keep your fingers crossed that Lansing grows on me like a dirty fungus and that I don’t crack under the pressures of “PhD paralysis.”
I’ll be trying to update this blog regularly with interesting posts related to my research.