COMPUTER GAMES AND NIGERIAN CHILDREN: THE EFFECT OF SOCIALIZATION
ON GIRLS' CHOICE OF CAREERS IN COMPUTERIZATION

Dr. T.T.Ulomata,
Dept. of English & Literature
University of Behin
P.M.B. 1154, Benin City,
Nigeria.

ABSTRACT 

In recent times, there has been a proliferation of computer games in urban centers in Nigeria. 
Many households,especially middle and upper class ones have one game or more. Most of the time, 
in addition to medium-sized electrical ones which are attached to televisions, 
many children also have
portable battery-operated ones. A casual observation supports the hypothesis that the 
games are played mostly by boys, either alone or with their brothers within the family 
and or also in neighbourhood groups. It would appear as if generally girls who join 
in these games are exceptions. We are interested in finding out why this iso possible 
influence of parental and societal attitude in this respect: possible effects of the 
content of the games themselves and the long-term effect of these on the choice of 
IT as a career by girls.

The focus is on children aged between 10 and 18 who reside in urban centers, the reason being that
Computer Games are still very much a urban phenomenon in Nigeria as most rural areas have no
electricity and generally people who reside in them are too poor to purchase computer games which
are considered a luxury. For  this reason, we have selected two of the most cosmopolitan Nigerian
cities of questionnaires, and group discussions. The research questions were determined on the basis
of the interviews. We then made suggestions on the way forward in building new forms.  

 1.    INTRODUCTION 

Nigeria, even though a developing country, has a consumption pattern which is very close to that of
developed countries especially in its urban centers. She pursues a free trade policy educated and her
doors open to imports from almost anywhere in the world. With a highly educated and traveled
middle class it is hardly surprising that computer games, cable television, satellite dishes, video games
and other such paraphenalia of sophisticated living are common in the urban centers where most of
such people live. The computer games are imported from America, Britain, Japan, and other places.
There is the additional African factor which makes children the focus of family and communal life.
Whereas parents may not be under too much pressure to own those IT technologies which may
significantly affect their own private lives, they would try as much as possible to acquire those which
they perceive as beneficial to their children or which would make the children happy. It is in such
light that one must view the proliferation of computer games among children in the urban centers
Nigeria. Some of the responses we elicited bear out this hypothesis.

In addition there is the ubiqitious influences of entrepreneurs who regularly introduce such items
(especially entertainment) into the eager market of children. Currently, cable television and computer
games are making the waves. Every child who knows about them wants to own one. Cable television is
gradually moving into other parts of the country after making its debut in Lagos, the commercial
capital of the country 

2. METHOD
2.1. Sample 
We chose as the focus of our study, children aged between 10-18 in Lagos and Benin. Their selection
was based on their area of normal abode. The children interviewed in Benin mostly live on a
university campus and the adjourning teaching hospital. The majority of the children attend the
university primary  and secondary schools. A few of them are school leavers. Generally, these
campuses operate as separate municipalities within their areas of location. The selection of children of
professionals in such an environment was deliberate to serve as a control and contrast to those from
Lagos who live in the middle of the sprawling city with its commerce and industrializaton. These
children attend schools scattered all over Lagos, even though the schools still tend to be among the
better ones as we focused on children in the middle class/highbrow areas of Victoria Island and Ikoyi.
In Lagos, the single commonest profession is that of entrepreneurs(businessmen and women). We
wanted to see whether the difference in family and societal backgrounds would significantly affected
the thinking of children especially where from Logos or Benin, live in areas where they have access to
computer games, so their attitudes to computer games are due to criteria. A significant difference
between the sets of children is that in Logos, they have games arcades where children can go and play
these games if they wish, wheras there are no such arcades on the university campus in Benin.

2.2     Personal Information 

We interviewed 273 children on the whole. Among them are 12(4.4%) aged 18 and above and who
are school leavers. We wanted to test whether age significantly affected childrenÕs attitudes. It is for
this same reason that we included a few nine-year-olds. On the whole, we interviewed 79 male and 63
female children from Benin, totaling 142; 70 male and 61 Female from Lagos, totaling 131.

 Table 1

Personal information Chart
=================================================================
			BENIN 		LAGOS          
AGE IN YEARS       BOYS      GIRLS     BOYS      GIRLS    TOTAL
9 -10             		 12         17           16       	15        60
11-13           		 26        19 	     20        	36       101
14-17            		 37        23	     31        	  9       100
18 and above    	  4         4 	       3         	  1         12
TOTAL            	79        63	     70		61       273
==================================================================

Educational levels correspond to age so that in all cases, those aged between 9 - 10 are in primary
school, those aged between 11-13 are in junior secondary, those aged 14-17 in senior secondary
school and those aged 18 and above are school leavers.

Religion, we found, proved not to be significant as Benin is predominantly Christian. 97%(n= 138)
respondents are Christian, 2%(n=3) Muslim and 0.7% (n=1) traditional religion practitioners. In
Logos, 88.8% (n=116) are Christian, 11.4%(n = 15) Muslim and 0.7% (n=1) traditional religion
practioners.

2.3  Social Background of the Children 

The children interviewed in Benin do not have computers in their schools. The university is still in the
process of acquiring some for them. In Logos, 38.2%(n=50) claim to have computers in their
schools.

All the children, boys and girls, engage in one from of recreation or more, apart from playing
computer games. The most popular ones being watching television, playing football (boys), reading
(more girls than boys), basketball and swimming.

Nearly all their homes have televisions (82.8%) and radios(82.05%). Several (66.3%) have video
machines, many (38.1%), especially in Lagos, have cable television, while a few (5.9%) have satellite
dishes.

We looked at the occupation of their parents to gain further insight into the social backgrounds of the
children. The result show interesting cross-sexual differences. While only 4.5%of fathers are school
teachers, a whopping 32.8% of mothers are.Teaching in Nigeria is a poor status job.  While most
parents in Benin are professionals-61.8% are University lectures, 20.3% medical doctors and
18.2% are medical Doctors. Obviously the situation would have been different if we had focussed on
the University of Logos campus. We also noticed a wider diversity in types of professions in
Logos.Under the category "other", in Benin there are mainly lawyers, accountants and administrators
while in Logos there are lawyers, accountants, administrators, architects, designers, civil servants,
soldiers etc

2.4   Procedure and instrument 

The design of our investigation was around questionnaires, personal interviews and group discussions.
Research questions were determined on the basis of preliminary discussions/interviews. Questionnaires
were designed to be easily understood by our age range reside. These questionnaires were designed
to be easily understood by children and to be quite detailed. They were designed to elicit information
on family and social background, religious and parental background, parental and social attitudes to
computer games, effects of the contents of the games and the long-term effect on the choice of IT as
a career. Open-ended questions threw the greatest light on the childrenÕs attitude of computer games
and gender stereotyping. Questionnaires were administered individually to each child. After that we
asked questions generally around the issue of computer games and gender differences in the pattern
of play. We then held group discussion with about ten children at a time. We took down notes at the
these discussions. They were separate groups of boys and girls. We asked about the content of the
games, how they affect childrenÕs attitude and other related matters. These discussions were recorded
on cassette. In Logos, we had the opportunity of visiting games arcades and chatting with the
children. We notices that only  boys frequent these arcades. We ask them why they think girls don't
come to these places and some of their answer are recorded under findings and discussion. They
generally correspond with the answers already given in the questionnaires.


 3.    FINDING AND DISCUSSION 

Our results and findings are discussed under relevant subheadings in the following sections.

3.1  The Children, computer games and gender stereotyping 

Asked if they own computer games, 85 children (i.e 59.9%)in Benin said  "yes", while 60 (45.8%)
said "yes" in Logos.

93 children (34) claim to have been introduced to computer games by friends in the neighbourhood;
53(19.4%) were introduced to the games by friends at school, 21 (7.7%) by parents; 25(9.15)%by
relations; 15(5.5%) learnt of them through the mass media; 7 (2.56%) through their teachers;
31(11.35%) from their brothers and only 2(0.73%) through their sisters.

When we questioned the children on how they came to own computer games, we discovered that while
59 children claimed their fathers bought for them; 31 said their mothers bought for them while 39
said their parents jointly bought for them. Other acquired theirs through other means.

Asked who they play with most of the time, we found that most boys with brothers (28.2%) or male
friends (34.9%) while only 2.7% play with their sisters. Girls played most often with their female
friends (29.8%) or their sisters(12.9). Interestingly more girls  play with their brothers (16.1%) than
sisters. Among boys who have no brothers, 71.4% play with male friends, as against 28.6% who play
with their sister; whereas among girls who have no sisters, 57.2% play with male friends while 42.8%
play with female friends. All in all, the statics point to the fact that more boys play computer games
most of the time. These support the childrenÕs own observations.

When asked,  ÔIn your experience who play computer games most? there was near unanimity among
children of both sexes on the answer. Almost with out exception, they believe that boys play most.
Among the reasons given, the most important ones are those which involve differentiation on the
basis of gender, both at home and society. They include the following, listed in order to frequency:

- Boys are more interested.

- Boys have a lot of time to spare because they have no  work to do.

- Girls are always busy in the kitchen or with housework.

- Computer games are designed for boys.

- Boys like action games.

- Boys like violence.

ÑBoys are more adventurous.

- The games have mostly male characters. Only boys and men are heroes.

- Boys  understand more easily.

- Mostly boys are found in computer clubs. Girls are scared if such places. 

As we can see, the content of the games themselves present a barrier to girls. Many of the children
believe that the games are designed for boys who supposedly like fighting games, violence and
action, and most of the characters are male.

The children believe there are intrinsic differences between boys and girls. Boys are considered more
active and adventurous. We found no significant differences between the answers given by the boys
and the girls.

There is general agreement on the fact that only boys go to computer clubs and arcades as it is
considered not very nice for girls to be seen around such places. Here indeed we see evidence of
socialization and parental attitude and gender sterotyping in hindering girlsÕ access to computer
games while boys are allowed free access to them. This is bound to have an effect on the readiness of
girls to enter into careers which include computers.

However, when asked the subjective question of who should play computer games, the majority of the
children (84% in Logos; 82.4% in Benin) believe that  boys and girls should play computer games.
While 12.2% in Logos and 15.5% in Benin believe that only boys should play computer games. No
boys believe that nobody should play but 1.64% of the girls in Benin and 1.6% of the girls in Logos
believe that nobody should play but 1.64% of the girls in Benin and 1.6% of the girls in Logos
believe that nobody should play computer games. Their answers here are very interesting, when
compared with the responses for the previous question which sought to know who actually play most.
The answer given by the children, male and female coverage. They all emphasize the notions of
fairness and justice. The most common answers given are listed below in order of frequency:
- They are made for everybody.

ÑBoth boys and girls should play because it increases knowledge.

- Everyone has a right to play the games, it wonÕt be fair for only one sex to play  
- It is beneficial to all.

- God created both boys and girls. All are equal.

- They are bought for the whole family.

It is interesting that when the question of what should be(who should play) and not what is (who
actually plays) is raised, the children, boys and girls, refer to justice, fair play to prove that with
sharpened awareness, people do change their attitudes and perception, especially as these attitudes are
learnt.

On reason why they think people own computer games, the children gave among their answers the
fact that:

- Parents can afford them (most popular answer)

- Computer games are very good.

- Children like them.

- They develop the mind.

- They cure boredom and also show off wealth.

- Many own computer games because it is an indoor form of  recreation.

- It is the latest form of entertainment for children.

- Because friends have them.

- It is fashionable to own one and they can afford it.

- We are in the age of computers.

- It is a macho game.

- All the people I know have games.

- Computers are educative.

The main reason those who do not give is the question of cost. Many think computer games are too
scarce and expensive, while some don't want to waste money, so they borrow. Some children also
claim that their parents don't like computers because they can be addictive and some parents think
computer games would their children's studies.

3.2    Frequency of Play 

The pattern was found to be the same for both Logos and Benin, so the table below is one comparing
the frequency of play between boys and girls their siblings.

 Table 2

Pattern of frequency of play between boys and girls
==================================================================FREQUENCY  %OFPLAY

			BOYS 	BROS SISTERS    GIRLS     BROS    SISTERS    

VERY OFTEN         	 27.5 	 30.9  	  7.4             18.5    	46.8  	16.13
ONCE IN A WHILE   	 57    	 40.3    34.3             58.9    	 30.6  	 31.5
HARDLY EVER 	  8.1   	   7.4  	24.8             10.5      	   4.03   25
NEVER        		  6.04    12.75  24.2             12.09 	 12.09   18.55
NO RESPONSE 	  1.3 	   8.05    6.71             0        	   7.2	 68.87 

The table shows once again that boys play computer games more frequently than girls. The girls
claim the 46.8% of their brothers as against 16.13% of their sisters play very often. Boys claim that
30.9% of their brothers, as against 7.4% of their sisters play most of the time. The figure for those
who never play are higher for females in all cases.

3.3 Contents of the games 

As earlier stated, most of the homes under review have one computer game, although there is a lot of
exchange, especially between boys. The commonest types are Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Saga and
Game Boy. None of them are made in Nigeria. Most of the games involve adventures, combat, space
adventures, sports etc. The adventure stories usually are have as their aim to rescue a princess or a
clan; the combat games are usually for honour and revenge; while the space adventures are usually to
save a planet. The games on sports are aimed at winning. There are hardly any games seemingly
designed for girls. Most of the games have option for single or double players, although most
children would rather play with friends. The games played in games arcades are almost the same as
those played at home, the most  popular one being "Mortal Kombat" "Street Fighter", "Super Mario
world", "Sonic the Hedgehog" etc.

When asked about the sex of characters in the games, a majority of the children (58.2%) think the
characters are mostly male; 2.6% think they are mostly female while 35.2% think they are both male
and female. The children think that where there are female characters, most are there to be saved by
men.

We went further to probe into gender stereotyping in the computer games by asking the children
believe there are mostly heroes and heroines in these games. 69.7% of the children believe there are
mostly heroes; while 4.5% believe they are mostly heroines; 23% believe however there are both
heroes; while 4.5% believe they are mostly heroines; 23% believe however there are both heroes and
heroines.

From their responses, it is clear also that while they think that both male and female can be heroes, the
distribution is more weighted in favour of the male.

Finally, we asked them who they think the games are designed for 28.2%(n = 7) of the children think
they are designed mostly for boys; 1.8% (n = 5) think they are designed for both; while the vast
majority, 68.1%(n = 186) think they are designed for both boys and girls.

In order to further test their impression of the content of computer games, we asked the children what
improvements they will like to see in computer games. The question was open-ended. 

Those who thought the games need improvement made the following suggestion:

 Suggestions from Boys

- Better graphics (commonest suggestion).

- Computer Games should be cheaper and easier to understand.

- There should be life- like movement.

- There should be fewer characters like demons and satin.

-  There should be more real life adventures.

- More games that girls can enjoy.

- Improvement in colour quality.

- Cartridges that can be played on any machine.

- The games should be made more educative.

- They should be made longer and more difficult.

- The game should be less scary.

- There should be less radiation.

 Suggestion from Girls 

- They should be made easier for children.

- Nice if the characters could talk like in cartoons.

- More female actors and heroines.

- More feminine games because females donÕt like violence.

- Manufactures should introduce a female series.

- They should stop being violent and be more scientific.

- They should stop doing film tricks.

3.4 Effect on Choice of IT as a  career

We asked the children what they would like to be when they grow up. Irrespective of location (Logos
or Benin) the most popular choice of profession is Medicine. And this applies to both boys and girls.
It is interesting that even the children spoken to Benin, who are mostly children of University lectures,
hardly chose academics as a career. Many boys, (n= 35), especially those in Logos, would like to be
engineers. More girls than boys would like to be scientists, while hardly any of the children ( male
and female) want to be school teachers or nurses. Understandably, more boys from Logos want to be
businessmen. Among the particular children interviewed, there does not seem to be too much gender
stereotyping in choice of careers. 5.9% want to be computer experts when they grow up. Asked if
they will like to work with computers, 79.9%(n = 119) of the boys and 77.4%of the (n = 96) girls
said ÔyesÕ; while 16.1%(n = 24) boys and 17.7% (n = 22) of the girls said ÔnoÕ. 4.3% (n =12)
children did not respond.

We wanted to know why those who said "yes" would like to work with computers. They game the
following as reasons:

- My parents work with computers.

- To increase my knowledge and simplify my work.

- It is interesting.

- Computers are intriguing, an asset to modern society.

- The country is computerizing.

- Most jobs now require computer knowledge.

- Computers can store information.

- Knowledge of Computers will be computerized.

- By the year 2000, the world will be computerized.

-  It is relevant to my ambition.

- It makes things more accurate.

- They help to develop and find out things.

- They bring in a lot of money.

- Computers develop morals.

Those who would not like to work with computers gave the following as their reasons.

- I don't like  computers.

- Being a lawyer is more important to me.

- They are for boys, not for girls.

- I prefer to use my brain than a computer.

- I have more interesting things to do.

- No again in it.

- Engineers donÕt use computers.

- Computers have nothing to do with mechanics. 

-  I don't have time and energy for computers.

- I think it will be difficult.

- I want to be an accountant.

- Computers are for lazy people.

4. CONCLUSION

It is quite clear that computer games are played mostly by boys Nigerian. It is also clear that for the
children interviewed, the games are within reach of both sexes. That girls do not play as much as boys
is a result of attitude - parental attitude when girls are kept busy while boys are allowed to play;
sibling attitude when boys think that girls cannot really play and would rather play with dolls; innate
attitude when girls are just not interested. Many girls think these things are a waste of time and only
boys, who are jobless anyway, have time for them. Or they think perhaps that the games are ÔmachoÕ.
In addition, nice girls are not supposed to frequent computer clubs and arcades, so they never go to
such places.

A very important factor also is the content of the games themselves. They seem designed for boys
with the preponderance of fighting, shooting and violence. Most have heroes. The few heroines are
there to be saved by male heroes. The open-ended questions supply the greatest insights to the
childrenÕs perception of gender stereotyping in the games and in the society generally.

The way forward? A positive by-product  of this research is the finding that parental occupation does
not necessarily influence the choice of the career by children. A second finding is that both boys and
girls in Nigeria opt for the high-status professions. Even though 21.3% of mothers in Benin and
11.5% of those in Lagos are school teachers, no child from Lagos wants to be a school teacher, while
2 (0.73%) from Benin want to be.No boy wants to be a nurse while 8 girls as against 5 boys want to
be scientists. Almost an equal number of boys and girls want to be architects. That is progress, as in
times past women tended to be mostly school teachers and nurses. All  children subscribe to the
notions of justice and equity.

It is clear that old forms are tenacious and deep-rooted. It is also clear that new forms are taking
shape. Greater awareness of the inequalities in existing boundaries encourage the growth of the new
forms. Sometimes, people just forget that these prejudices exist until it is brought to their notice. One
is encouraged in this optimism by a comparison of the responses to the questions "who play
computer games most" and "who should play" and "girls are more involved in home management";
the majority thought both boys and girls should play because "both are equal and God created boys
and girls".