Author's Note

The COVID-19 pandemic rained down on our society in March of 2020, which was my class’s senior year of high school. A time that is usually meant for celebration, social events and exciting activities was quickly ruined by this global pandemic. 

When the news broke that we would be spending the rest of that year at home, and all senior activities were canceled, I was destroyed. Missing out on what I had been looking forward to for the past four years was a tough pill to swallow, and was hard to comprehend for me and all of my classmates. 

With that in mind, I knew I wanted to research the social impacts that the COVID-19 pandemic may have had on my age group for my thesis project. 

When thinking back to the Pandemic, one of my fondest memories was the time I was able to spend with my friends through online video games. It was a difficult and lonely time for many college aged individuals, and for me, video games were an important way to stay in touch and interact with friends without being able to see them in person. 

I know this was a common trend for many of my friends and people my age, so I decided to take a closer look at how the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns affected a greater population of college-aged individuals.

Since the Pandemic, I have seen more coverage of professional eSports tournaments, more eSports streamers making a career of playing video games, and the expansion of Endicott’s eSports program. All of these pointed to the epic rise of eSports, and sparked the idea to research this rise, and all the factors that have caused video games to be such a big part of mainstream media today.

If you have any comments or feedback, I would love to hear them! You can contact me through my email, @jcasey1@mail.endicott.edu