Edgelab

The atmosphere of ‘boys only’ in computer games is quickly fading. In spite of men making the biggest demographic, the number of female gamers is slowly rising. This has been attributed to the understanding of female tastes and the development of female friendly games.

Today, almost 40% of the computer games players are female. The Entertainment Software Association says that girls spend an average of 7.4 hours per week playing. As the development continues, the number of female players is deemed to rise.

Girls and computer games have always been known to existing in two separate realms. This is because of the content contained in the video games.

Studies show that female players are repelled by computer games that involve strong and realistic violence. Since time immemorial, girls have been known to look down on violence. Consequently, with most computer games being graphic intensive, the number of female players is low.

Another revelation showed that girls disfavored computer games that featured female characters that fit into the male-dominated stereotypes.

This includes female characters with exaggerated body features or sexually provocative dressing. It is human nature to be attracted to the opposite sex. At such instances, it is difficult for a girl to place herself in the scene.

Girls are social. Subsequently, the perfect games for them are those with social interaction. Girls are able to interact better with virtual characters that are social in nature. Statistically speaking, the social aspects of most computer games are what are luring more girls into the fold.

The feature enabling players to interact with other online members has also contributed to the rise in the number of female players. It is evident that girls love playing online based games such as those on social networks than the standalone games.

The new generation software and family friendliness of computer games have further added to the increase in the number of female players. Furthermore, there is not much of a stigma attached to the female gamers today.

The virtual reality today is that there are as many female gamers as there are men. 23.2% of girls spend time playing online computer games as opposed to the 22.3% of men. This is so because of the social aspect of the platform. Studies further reveals that a majority of female players would rather keep playing rather than have sex.

Surveys have shown that girls spend more time playing computer games for stress relief. Men, on the other hand, play for the competition element. Women are also more attracted to games that test their brain power.

When it comes to girls and computer games, researchers hypothesize that girls will be more comfortable playing games with no violence or a female character with exaggerated physical features. Girls favor games that allow for rich social interactions.

However, in spite of technology helping us keep in touch with the world, it can break relationships. Girls are more prone to computer games addiction. It is hence important to reduce game play and set time to be with your partners and handle other chores.

Using Metal Detectors to Hunt for Gold

With gold standing at over $1200 per ounce, many people have begun prospecting for gold, hoping to make a small fortune with the hobby.  Gold can be difficult to find and weekend prospectors are always trying to find easier ways to get a hold of the elusive metal.  A tool that may help these hobbyists to find gold is a gold metal detector.

A metal detector helps you find any metal that may be buried in the ground.  When you scan the ground, the detector will emit a noise, alerting you to the presence of metal.  For a gold detector, it alerts you that you’ve found gold.  Gold is one of the metals that detectors can find because they have more conductivity than tin or iron does.  The other metals they can detect are:

•  Silver
• Copper
• Lead
• Zinc
• Nickel

When you use a metal detector, it doesn’t react to the mass of the object, but to the surface area.  So, you won’t know how big the item is until you dig or pick it up.  An old bullet may give off a strong signal that a coin that is on its edge, so you won’t know until you look at the metal what the detector has found.

While you may be buying a detector specifically for gold, detectors will find all metals, as they are designed to do.  Metal detectors don’t just find one particular type of metal, it would be nice if they could do that, but they are made to seek out a magnetic field produced when you move the detector over a metal object.

Electricity runs through the detector, down through the coil and produces a magnetic field.  Conductive metals are found when there own magnetic field is detected and an audible signal is sent back to the detector.  So, while you don’t know what has been found, if you are in an area known to have gold, that might be what has been detected.

Most prospectors will use metal detectors in areas in which gold mines used to exist.  This could be along the base of a mountain out in the desert or in the hills of a forest.  As long as gold was once documented in the area, using a metal detector for finding gold is a good method and a quick way to prospect for it, but don’t look to get rich over night, gold is hard to find.