THE IMPACT OF INTERNET AND SOCIAL MEDIA ON KIDS ’ AND PARENTS ’ GAME HABITS

Internet, already a part of our lives far surpassing its limits as a means of communication, seems to have shaped most fields in human life and changed most of our daily habits and as a consequence the digital natives are observed to be completely living in Internet culture. One of the reflections of this culture and arenas in the Internet, social media has substantial impacts on gaming habits of digital natives. Up to the period in which Internet has interfered in man’s life, the games played by parents were passed from older generations to the new ones as a tradition, so generations used to play the same games; when the children of a previous era became parents they described the games they used to play to their kids thus paving the way to the sustainability of this game tradition. While different generations used to play the same games, today with the dissemination of Internet and social media caused a change of format in the traditionally played games and street games started to give their places to those played on the computers. Therefore, children started to play games on the Internet, an endless space whether negative or positive. The fact that parents are alienated from this arena, enabled the children to play violent games without any boundaries and to take place in social media arenas that could have negative impact on children’s worldly and spiritual wellbeing. The study is highly important in the sense that it clarifies the extent to which Internet and social media, which is actually the agent of change in children’s gaming habits, environments changed parents’ gaming habits among themselves and with their children. Surveys are conducted to the parents of primary school students as a field work to identify the changes originating from Internet and social media. According to research results, social media and Internet are found to be altering gaming habits of parents with their children. It is identified that parents keep themselves away from online environments in which their kids take place thus possibly breaking off the communication relationships between kids and parents.


Introduction
Game, which is considered to be an amusing activity without any long-term goal or satisfaction, (TDK, 2013), is defined as a recreational activity with its own set of rules (www.buyukturkcesozluk.net, 2013).Game, an activity which has always co-existed in human life, is treated as the most appropriate "language" for a child to communicate his love, dreams, opinions, happiness, enmity, internal conflicts and to learn about the world outside (http://bote.hacettepe.edu.tr,2013).Whether it's an infant, or a kid, adolescent or an adult, there are lots of answers to the question why a person plays a game.We can gather these reasons under two titles (Duran, 2013): The first, draining the energy from the inside, the second one is helping the communication and sustainability of personal behaviors for a long time.Some examples of this might be the girls playing with a doll pretending a mother or boys playing with pot lids imitation the steering wheel in the hands of a driver.
It is possible to analyze kid's games, which are also called traditional games, in two main categories like "open-air games" and "in-house games".Lots of other groups of games might be listed such as those played with papers and pencils, sportive games, musical games.While these game groups are called kids games, people from all ages might be playing games like football, basketball or skittles.
Such games, which emerge traditionally and passed from one generation to another, have evolved since the stepping of ϲϱ ƉŝƉŚĂŶǇ͗ :ŽƵƌŶĂů ŽĨ dƌĂŶƐĚŝƐĐŝƉůŝŶĂƌǇ ^ƚƵĚŝĞƐ͕ sŽů͘ ϳ͘ EŽ͘ ϭ͕ ;ϮϬϭϰͿ Ξ &ĂĐƵůƚǇ ŽĨ ƌƚƐ ĂŶĚ ^ŽĐŝĂů ^ĐŝĞŶĐĞƐ Internet and especially social media into our lives and their format is continuously changing.While in traditional games the individual becomes a social being, in Internet and social media games this social aspect is brought to a different dimension.
Although they have the same names, their type of playing, rules and similar changes are submitted to the pleasure of new generations and most of them approve of such a new style.A game named Farmville provides the kids a chance to plough and harvest the farm, milk the cow and collect eggs with one click not even having any idea of what these are in real life.Unfortunately, the parents who are supposed to rescue for such a generation which get to know animals in their new formatted visions, took their place in this new world of change.Parents, who couldn't transfer their gaming habits to new generations and couldn't keep up with the new era, now cannot take their kids out of Internet and social media arena and stay indifferent to their traditional habits.
This study aims to observe to what extent the Internet and social media, the agent of change in playing habits of kids, have changed the habits of parents to play with their children.Surveys are conducted on parents who have kids in primary schools under the scope of field work and Internet and social media sourced changes are put forth.

Conceptual Framework
No matter what era or culture it is, wherever is a child, there is a game.Like love, game is one of the most fundamental ϲϲ ƉŝƉŚĂŶǇ͗ :ŽƵƌŶĂů ŽĨ dƌĂŶƐĚŝƐĐŝƉůŝŶĂƌǇ ^ƚƵĚŝĞƐ͕ sŽů͘ ϳ͘ EŽ͘ ϭ͕ ;ϮϬϭϰͿ Ξ &ĂĐƵůƚǇ ŽĨ ƌƚƐ ĂŶĚ ^ŽĐŝĂů ^ĐŝĞŶĐĞƐ needs of a child.Game, a means of understanding and trying the life for children, not only prepares them for life, but also reflects their experiences, feelings and desires.The children try to understand life, make empathy through games thus shaping identity through the roles they take.The knowledge they get through gaming is much effective and long-lasting.For children, game is thinking through trials and they gain experience through gaming (Eúsizer, 2013).They learn knowledge, skills and experiences for life in games by themselves.Therefore, the most influential way of educating children is through gaming.Games form the first step in children's learning by fun.
Games are also useful for kids to manage their feelings.
According to psychologists, it is possible to relieve the fear from doctor by making the children play with doctor equipments and similarly to comfort a child in fear of ghosts by playing with him in ghost costume.For this reason, it is important to let the children play their games.Children should be encouraged to play with all types of toys freely (Gencer, 2006).
15-20 year ago, streets were very convenient for children to play, but now this is not the case.As a result of rapid and widescale urbanization policies, people now have to live in flats and with roads full of cars rather than the peaceful houses with large fields; this resulted in limitations on children's playgrounds.This leads children to play games on the computer, Internet and social media.Having its stamp on the 21 st Century, providing the world with a network of communication, reporting, education, broadcasting, entertainment, the Internet has already become an alternative means for individuals to discuss, negotiate, chat, learn and shop whenever and wherever they want (Akgül, 1999:2).It's particularly a matter of concern when it comes to its wide-spread use among children and youth, (Ülger, 2012:286) the main group who are the most worried being the parents.
The opinions and behaviors of parents are of high importance when it comes to the use of each technology, not just the Internet (Odabaúı ve vd., 2007:71).In a research on parent's opinions about Internet use, it is found that families don't have any information on security, but they see this medium as a necessity of economical and modern life (Odabaúı, 2005:43).
Among the results of this research, is the fact that the society does not have sufficient knowledge about the dangers of Internet.
Parallel to the advancement of Internet technologies, social media has become so popular being one of the mostly invaded fields by children and nearly the most enthusiastic arenas of game for them.Social media is defined as web based applications providing participants to create and share videos, words and audios along with applications, actions and behaviors developed to share information and opinions through interactive media (Pelteko÷lu, 2012:4).
People, who lived in a rapid transformation of computer technology, the Internet and social media, can now make friends, ϲϴ ƉŝƉŚĂŶǇ͗ :ŽƵƌŶĂů ŽĨ dƌĂŶƐĚŝƐĐŝƉůŝŶĂƌǇ ^ƚƵĚŝĞƐ͕ sŽů͘ ϳ͘ EŽ͘ ϭ͕ ;ϮϬϭϰͿ Ξ &ĂĐƵůƚǇ ŽĨ ƌƚƐ ĂŶĚ ^ŽĐŝĂů ^ĐŝĞŶĐĞƐ share their photos, opinions and videos with those who they have never met or known but who have the same ideas, hobbies and fields of interests.They can make their voices heard simultaneously by everybody in the world; they can play games interactively, do shopping and work together in professional office environments.It is one of the most important responsibilities of parents to monitor how their kids communicate with whom and over which sites.This is important for their worldly and spiritual well-being and to ensure that they develop positive attitudes and behaviors (Güvenç, 1997:28).
It's crucially important that parents develop positive attitudes towards growing-up their children for the kids to improve their behaviors, form their personal identity and selfrespect, and identify their goals for the future and to have their decisive skills matured (Özyürek ve ùahin, 2010:38).Parents are the first source of interaction for children.The children of families in which tolerance is dominant, mutual feelings of love and respect are demonstrated, decisions are taken together, opening and discussing about their problems from time to time, avoiding from violent fights and quarrels, will surely complete their social and spiritual development more comfortably and in compliance with the needs of society (Çetinkaya, 2010:80).However advanced the technology might be, the children of those families with such a communicative environment will have a high level of self-respect and dependence and they will themselves much more valuable.Recently emerging communication environments and changes in habits in parallel with technological advancements have played crucial roles in the perception of childhood and the interaction between parents and kids with respect to its conclusions for family and social structures.By 1950, the increase in the variety of in house media caused the house environment, the source of happiness as the coral point of love, privacy, morality, freedom and etc., to have two types of changes.While the first change commenced with the introduction of various elements of entertainment into our households, the second alteration was seen in the free use of these entertainment elements by all family members in the house (Ülger, 2012:295).
It is possible to provide an example for the first alteration as the parents wanted to have their kids play inside home looking at the dangers on the streets (Hill ve Tisdall, 2007:178).Parents in fear of their kids getting into bad habits like drug addiction, gambling etc. and a bad environment outside can't be regarded as unjust in their desires.In addition, the scaling down of play grounds and increase in the number of vehicles on the roads justify parents in their worries about the security of their kids.The transformation causing children to prefer games at home particularly computer and Internet games rather than street games, triggered the second transformation environment at home and opened the way for privatization and personalization of entertainment means which were previously for common use at home (Livingstone, 2002:166).The privatization of entertainment ϳϬ ƉŝƉŚĂŶǇ͗ :ŽƵƌŶĂů ŽĨ dƌĂŶƐĚŝƐĐŝƉůŝŶĂƌǇ ^ƚƵĚŝĞƐ͕ sŽů͘ ϳ͘ EŽ͘ ϭ͕ ;ϮϬϭϰͿ Ξ &ĂĐƵůƚǇ ŽĨ ƌƚƐ ĂŶĚ ^ŽĐŝĂů ^ĐŝĞŶĐĞƐ accounts for a change in the place of entertainment devices such as television and computer from common places like living rooms and salons to private individual places like bedrooms or kids rooms.There was almost one TV for each room and this was the case with computers, as well.Today computer and Internet use is no longer a recreational niche, but an integral part of our colloquial lives.As a consequence of this privatization, the children could go to their rooms and use their computers and televisions for hours without any control from the parents side, entering to whatever sites they prefer and get to know so many people they don't know before without thinking who they actually are on the social media.
However, children can encounter so many harmful content and challenges for their cognitive and psychological well being on the Internet and social media from sexuality to terrorism, addiction, pirating, gambling and fraudulence.Leaving their kids alone on this arena without any control might lead their kids to contact with malevolent people out of curiosity and excitement or even exposure of their children to physical violence or death (Özsoy, 2010:263).Particularly parents in Turkey have to be very cautious about this (Özsoy, 2010:35).We are doubtful as to how children will complete their spiritual development upon watching this undesired and harmful content in front of their computers.
According to a different research conducted in Ankara, the mostly preferred games on the Internet are Counter-Strike, Knight  (Binark vd., 2009:214) This is the case with social media environment.According to a report, dated 5 th of June 2013 containing data on Facebook for Turkey, the list for mostly preferred games on social media goes like daily life games such as "Farmville 2" and "Pet Rescue Saga" chance games like "Okey" and "Okey Plus, MyNet Çanak Okey" and gambling games like "Texas HoldEm Poker" (MetricsMonk, 2013).According to the same report, the first line of Facebook applications is occupied by "Your daily horoscope" full of harmful content like fortune telling and videos that are harmful to children's cognitive development in "øzlesene" and "Mynet" apps.
Social media actually works like a casino and gaming house when it comes to games.Parents, who cannot tolerate their kids spending time in such places in real life, might remain indifferent to their kids' existence in such virtual environments.
It is up to parents and educators to protect kids from the harmful content on Internet and social media.It is up to the parents at home and educators at school to decide and check what is useful and convenient or not for kids.Below are some measures to be taken against harmful and inconvenient content which are likely to provide ease and help parents and educators (Odabaúı, 1999:321): • A filtering program might be applied to let them enter educational sites but not those with harmful and unwanted content.
• As families teach their kids how to cope with unexpected negative behaviors in life, they should do this for the Internet, as well.
• Schools or Internet cafes should inform the children to get out when they enter an inconvenient site or else they will clearly have some kind of sanctions.
• Site builders shouldn't forget that there are kids among users and filter their content in a way to make sure that kids are kept away from harmful content and materials.
• When educators take a child to an Internet café, they should have them sit in groups of three.By this way the screen control might be ensured.On the other hand, their behaviors and dialogues between themselves might give an idea on what they might be doing!
• The teacher might want to give the key words for a research to be conducted by students on the Internet on any subject to make sure which sites could come up in the search.
In addition, a time should be allocated for gaming between the parents and their kids, for 10-15 minutes not to keep parents for long.The children should be given the chance to choose what game will be played, the children should be observed carefully in a way that they can realize that they are given so much care, and their good acts and words should be rewarded with "well done" or similar phrases.No questions should be asked in order to let them direct themselves and inclusion in the game should be up to them and not intervening in the game structure (http://www.makaleler.com,2013).
When parents cannot educate and raise their children well, they shouldn't find the problem in computer or Internet games, but themselves (Tarhan, 2011, s. 92).When accurate methods are used computer games might be useful for time management, accurate message perception, critical thinking, improving visual skills and cognitive capacity, keeping cool in stress times.We should teach how to use computer games in a beneficial way rather than just restricting them.Getting your children to use the Internet in a careful way is highly crucial; however, this is also the case between the spouses.Online friendship sites and chatting rooms might be harmful for their relationships.Similarly, the researches conducted by the General Directorate of Family and Social Research (SAGEM), indicate that the Internet could be harmful for families particularly for children when enough care is not given (Sagem, 1998).

Methodology
The study aims to clarify the differences between generations, the parents and digital natives who were born to a world of Internet and social media, on the scale of Kayseri through comparative relational analysis on dependent and independent variables.Therefore, the study is limited to the scale of Kayseri, instead of taking the whole Turkey as universe, thus paving the way for a micro level detailed analysis.The reason to apply such a method is rather than having a macro level study devoid of necessary details with a focus on general, a study method is chosen which enables us to make healthy and satisfactory generalizations with a specific focus.
In order to prove the transformation the Internet has caused in gaming habits of children and their parents on the scale of social media, data were gathered on the basis of sociodemographical characteristics of research participants and a subsequent field study was conducted on parents of 4 th and 5 th graders at primary schools on the scale of Kayseri.
The surveys are applied to the parents of primary school students from randomly selected 15 schools (from different provinces under Kayseri Ministry of Education) in a way to reflect the whole central Kayseri.Both parent groups, 25 from 4 th graders and 25 from 5 th, , were applied a preliminary test to identify the intelligibility and convenience to prospective analyses before the conduction of survey form on the field.The final shape of the survey is given once the ambiguous and mistaken places are eliminated.Then the survey is applied to 650 people, to the parents of 4 th and 5 th graders in primary schools, throughout Kayseri by random sampling method.After the elimination of mistaken and ambiguous answers, 566 healthy surveys were left for analysis.
In the data analysis, the study uses some statistically descriptive methods like frequency breakdown and central tendency to identify the data respectively on socio-demographical characteristics of research participants, their game preferences in their childhoods and the times they spent for games, their relationships with their friends, which games their kids play today, whether they prefer street games or digital games, their use of computers, Internet and social media; their game preferences on Internet and social media; Internet connection methods; time they spend on games on social media; social media games which they play most; their reasons for choosing social media games; their preferences on game friendships.And chi-square method is ϳϱ ƉŝƉŚĂŶǇ͗ :ŽƵƌŶĂů ŽĨ dƌĂŶƐĚŝƐĐŝƉůŝŶĂƌǇ ^ƚƵĚŝĞƐ͕ sŽů͘ ϳ͘ EŽ͘ ϭ͕ ;ϮϬϭϰͿ Ξ &ĂĐƵůƚǇ ŽĨ ƌƚƐ ĂŶĚ ^ŽĐŝĂů ^ĐŝĞŶĐĞƐ applied to measure the difference among games in terms of socio*demographical characteristics.

The research objective
The main aim of the study is to identify whether the gaming habits of parents among themselves or with their kids have changed along with the expansion of Internet and social media use, whether their kids play the games they used to play, to what extent they play digital games, whether they spend more time on street games or digital games and whether they choose to play social media games or traditional street games.In addition, the study aims to observe the effects of social media on gaming along with its impacts on other habits.

Research Variables
Independent variables include gender, education, job and games.
Dependent variables: 1) Having a computer and Internet; 2) Frequency of traditional game and Internet and social media gaming ; 3) Use of new communication technologies.

Research Assumptions
Assumption 1: Kids do not play the games which their parents used to play when they were kids.
Assumption 2: Parents do not play games on the Internet.
Assumption 3: Parents prefer digital games to street games.
Assumption 4: Parents who play games on the Internet play these games to pass time.

Research Limitations
The fact that such a wide-scale issue about what kinds of games parents play with their kids is analyzed in such a limited Another limitation of the study originates from the content scope of the research.The concept of "gaming habits" including a rather vast scope is analyzed over the ownership of new communication technologies such as social media and whether the games are played over them or not leaving the psychological and sociological aspects out of analysis.The inductive reasoning method is applied in the research.

Research Universe and Samples
The research is conducted in Kayseri on the parents of 4 th and 5 th graders primary school students in Kayseri.It is essential that the sample represents the universe in research sampling.Sampling groups include the parents of students who get education in 15 primary schools in Kocasinan, Melikgazi and Talas districts with upper, middle and low economy.When it comes to sociodemographical characteristics of research participants, 58,2% are women and 41,8% are men (in valid percent).

Socio-Demographical Characteristics
Of 650 parents participating in the research, 566's data are found convenient for analysis.58% of participants are mothers, 41,7% are fathers with 0,4% unstated gender.

What games parents used to play in their childhood?
According to the research, parents used to lots of games including play hide and seek, skittles, ball games and playing house (Table 2).The most preferred ones were respectively hide and seek and skittles while to least are chess and checkers under the category of "Other".When the relationship between gender and the games played is analyzed 72,6% of those who used to play hide and seek and 96,4% of those who played playing house are women and 81% of fathers used to play ball games (Table 3).There is a significant difference between the type of game played and gender (P<0,05).According to the research data nearly half of parents used to play games for 2-4 hours a day (Table 4).Average period of playing is 3,1 hours.According to the results, with respect to gaming friendship, parents used to have more friends then their children do now (Table 5).The rate of those without any friends in their childhood is ‰5.Almost all of the children play the games their parents used to play in their childhoods (Table 6).In the line of mostly preferred games, ball games like football and basketball come first notwithstanding what parents think, the second in the line are hide and seek and playing house.43,4% of the kids play most of the other games as as those stated above.Today's children don't play games like chess and checkers under "Other" category as mush as their parents did.The eye-catching point here is the fact that some of the kids never played the games their parents did whether they are in minor rate like 1%.According to the above results the assumption numbered 1 wasn't verified stating "Kids do not play the games which their parents used to play when they were kids".

Digital Game Preferences of Parents
Parents prefer to play street games in spite of technological developments and their increasingly intense daily schedules (Table 7).Those who prefer to play digital games account for 25% of the total number.Those who do not want to play games are 9,8%.According to the research data, today parents use computer with a rate of 50% and 57,5% of these group prefer not to use Internet (Table 8).They reflect their negative attitude against social media use with a rate of 65,9%.They refuse to play Internet games with a rate of 82,2% and social media games with 82,1% (Table 9).Given their kids are addicted to computers games, are always online, even they form profiles on social media showing their ages more than normal and sharing private information about themselves and on the other hand, there are always fraudsters and malevolent people and violent and immoral games on this arenas; the fact that parents do not use these arenas will bring serious problems for communication in the family.According to this the second assumption is verified which states "Parents do not play games on the Internet".
Parents mostly prefer to get connected to the Internet at their homes, the second source of connection being smart phones and the third form of connection is Internet café.Those who go to their neighbors, relatives and shopping centers indicated their prefences under the category of "Other" (Table 10).Parents who state that they play games on social media are found to play "backgammon" and "okey" most (Table 13).These games are followed by daily life games like "Farmville" and "Bizim Çiftlik".Next come sports games like football and F1 racing; mind games like chess and war games.Parents indicated their reasons to pass time on social media as to pass time (%48,5) and entertainment (%39,8).Other reasons are competing with their friends, and getting frightened and worried under the category "Other" (Table 14).Therefore, it can be said that the fourth assumption stating that "Parents who play games on the Internet play these games to pass time" is verified.The parents who choose to play digital games with a high rate, find the friendships on the street much more sincere (95,9%) with respect to ones in digital environments (%95,9) and believe that digital environments are virtual and do not reflect reality (Table 15).Particularly the third assumption stating that "Parents prefer digital games to street games" wasn't verified.This assumption has its origins in the idea that parents would direct their kids towards digital media games thinking that the streets are insecure now.Parents prefer the street games and friendships there with a very high rate.

Evaluation and Conclusion
The parents of primary schools students at 4 th and 5 th grades participating in the research have played street games with their ϴϲ ƉŝƉŚĂŶǇ͗ :ŽƵƌŶĂů ŽĨ dƌĂŶƐĚŝƐĐŝƉůŝŶĂƌǇ ^ƚƵĚŝĞƐ͕ sŽů͘ ϳ͘ EŽ͘ ϭ͕ ;ϮϬϭϰͿ Ξ &ĂĐƵůƚǇ ŽĨ ƌƚƐ ĂŶĚ ^ŽĐŝĂů ^ĐŝĞŶĐĞƐ friends for so long hours in their childhoods.Today, the children of those who then played these traditional games spend a large amount of time playing these games even if their gaming preferences have changed a lot.
While the number of parents preferring street games is much higher than those preferring digital games, those who want to play both of these game types or just the digital games are at a really high rate.
It seems important that parent's time with their children online maybe playing games in order to prevent them from behaving in an uncontrolled way on the Internet and social media; and to maintain a system of control on their kids in order to take their hands off from those sites with negative and harmful content.
Experts provide similar recommendations for the sake of communication inside the family.However, research results indicate that parents do not take their places on the Internet and social media and the significantly high rates prove that they don't want to change their attitudes.
Parents spending time in the social media mostly stay logged on to Facebook.Social media user parents prefer to play games over this medium.51,1% of social media users play games like okay game or backgammon.Parents might seem to stick to experts' recommendations to be with their kids checking and monitoring them, however they indeed represent a bad sample to their kids playing such games on their online visits.All the same, it is good to see that parents don't spend time on gambling and similar sites with immoral content.
Most of the parents today, 95,9% of them, prefer those friendships they had on the streets of their times to the digital friendships of today.In terms of game friendship, given the online fraudulences and abuses, perhaps the most sagacious attitude of parents would be to choose the friendships of their times.Still, the existence of a 4.1% of people finding online friendships sincere and secure might be a reflection of an optimist point of view and enthusiasm towards Internet and technology.
In conclusion, even if the parents participating in the research want to keep away from Internet and social media, it seems adversely inconvenient for them to leave their children alone in this arena let alone encouraging them.One of the most important responsibilities of today's parents is to raise their children in a healthy way from worldly and spiritual respect as the society needs such generations.
Today it is very important for each child to make use of online media facilities, however the fact that they can reach all kinds of negative content without boundaries makes it necessary that parents take their place in these environments with their children in a controlled way.As today's generation, who live in a digital world, complain about, the only way to understand, evaluate and communicate with them is to dominate this arena.It may only be possible to ensure communication inside family by this way.

Table 1 .
Demographical characteristic of parents

Table 2 .
The most preferred games that parents used to play in their childhood

Table 3 .
Gender differences among games played during childhood

Table 4 .
Time allocated to playing by parents in their childhood

Table 5 .
The number of friends parents used to have in their childhood

Table 6 .
The games which kids play and their parents used to play

Table 7 .
Parents' preferences about street games and digital games

Table 8 .
Parents use of computer, Internet and Social Media

Table 9 .
Parent's choice of Internet or social media games

Table 10 .
How do parents connect to the Internet

Table 13 .
Games mostly played on social media by parents

Table 14 .
Parents' reasons for choosing social media to play games

Table 15 .
Parents' preferences on game friendship