at least 7 pages and ppt

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Introduction

Subreddit Name: Animal Crossing

Reddit is a website where users post pictures and stuff, which are then voted by the users, and in the case of the maximum votes, the post gets on the top of the feed. This is how Reddit works. Animal Crossing is an online game for children that offer to make friends online to have fun by creating a world of animal crossing series. It has been observed that people have been spending a lot of time on the internet which has caused depression among the group of people that are engaged in playing the game. However, the current pandemic has changed the overall course of life. This study will be designed in a way to examine the effects of ‘Animal Crossing’ in avoiding the stressful situations that are mainstreamed by typical online games. For that purpose, I have sorted out the following three scholarly articles that I would be used in this research.

Planned Academic Articles

Three scholarly articles that would be used in this study are as follows:

1. Zhu, L. (2020). The psychology behind video games during COVID‐19 pandemic: A case study of Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies.

This research will be employed in such a way that it would describe how the users have escaped from a free time during quarantine by playing this game and stopped themselves from getting into the depression. So, the research could help in formulating the suggestions to avoid the addictive behavior of online games to the extent that they may lead them to anxiety and depression.

2. Stetina, B. U., Kothgassner, O. D., Lehenbauer, M., & Kryspin-Exner, I. (2011). Beyond the fascination of online-games: Probing addictive behavior and depression in the world of online gaming. Computers in Human Behavior, 27(1), 473-479.

This study has explored the problematic behaviors and tendencies of depression among the people who play online games. So this would be employed in a manner to explore the tendencies of the users to go into depression while playing online games.

3. De Jong Gierveld, J., Van Tilburg, T., Dykstra, P. A., Vangelisti, A., & Perlman, D. (2006). Cambridge handbook of personal relationships. Loneliness and Social Isolation, 485-500.

This article reveals how people tend to engage themselves in online videos game by escaping from their social loneliness. It would be employed in this study by highlighting the positive impacts of animal crossing that how it has engaged different sections of the society on this platform.

Proposed Research Questions and Planned Data Collection

· RQ1: How frequently are people active in talking about cute animals online?

On this platform, people tend to share their thoughts in the form of image-based memes. By the end of 2018, it has been observed that there were more than 11 million active users on the game (Keza MacDonald). It implies that people were more engaged on Reddit than on Facebook and Twitter. There is a diverse user base, including 43 percent women population. In animal crossing, there were four different groups’ chats, where participants communicate and share their thoughts. Mostly, people have been seen to positively visiting each other islands upon invitations to share fruits and admire the beauty of islands and beaches. The data will be collected by the online surveys of how many users are accurately actively playing the game. 

· RQ2: What cute creatures are most frequently talked about?

So far, it has been observed that insects and reptiles do not get enough love on Reddit. Mostly the animals such as fishes, sea-animals, cats, and dogs are frequently talked about here. The game is meant to build ones’ own island of inhabiting animals, and then the users may invite each other to come and visit the other’s island. The users have responded that they spend a dozen hours in this game and do not feel exhausted; however, the rest of the time, they have been frustrating as they were bored of repeating the same routine. The data will be collected in the same manner; those online questionnaires will be designed to investigate the kinds of animal creatures that have fascinated the users more.

· RQ3: What tone is usually present in these interactions?

The community is divided into positive and negative posts. The interactions over Reddit are observed to be of a mixed kind because of the anonymous nature of the identities of users. So, the tone of interactions has remained varied; for example, reddits work under pseudonyms, and this is why most of the time, the users tend to rant more openly by exercising the right to freedom of speech. However, regarding the effects of the study of animal crossing, the data would be collected by online surveys, and questionnaires will be designed in an open-ended format to explore more about the interactions.

Data Visualization

I would present my data to the reader in the form of bar charts as it is an effective way to categories the data, and the audience could easily understand and interpret it. The data of different sections mentioned above will be represented in the form of tables also to describe the findings of the surveys more simply, and the reader could easily get to know about it without going to read the analysis part.

Work Cited

Keza MacDonald. "'It's Uniting People': Why 11 Million Are Playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons". The Guardian, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/games/2020/may/13/animal-crossing-new-horizons-nintendo-game-coronavirus. Accessed 3 Dec 2020.

Perlman, D. et al. "Cambridge Handbook Of Personal Relationships". Loneliness And Social Isolation, 2006, pp. 485-500., Accessed 3 Dec 2020.

Stetina, Birgit U. et al. "Beyond The Fascination Of Online-Games: Probing Addictive Behavior And Depression In The World Of Online-Gaming". Computers In Human Behavior, vol 27, no. 1, 2011, pp. 473-479. Elsevier BV, doi:10.1016/j.chb.2010.09.015. Accessed 3 Dec 2020.

Zhu, Lin. "The Psychology Behind Video Games During COVID ‐19 Pandemic: A Case Study Of Animal Crossing: New Horizons". Human Behavior And Emerging Technologies, 2020. Wiley, doi:10.1002/hbe2.221. Accessed 3 Dec 2020.