The introduction of smartphone technology and reasonably high speed internet access has had a highly positive impact on rural and suburban Indian populace. Online marketplaces have become more accessible to Indian buyers and sellers, information and resources have become available to the masses much more easily within the past decade, and it has never been easier for the average citizen to take control over their investments and trading opportunities. During the Covid-19 lockdown between 2020 and 2021, Indian academia had made unforeseen progress in the field of asynchronous, online learning, without which education in India may have reached a standstill over this period.
However, an equally impressive progress has been made by Indian users of smartphone, which deserves further in-depth observation. Due to online socialization replacing in-person gatherings, India has – for the first time in recorded history – become a notable stakeholder in the world of gaming. During and after the Covid-19 lockdown, India has contributed over 50% of the total growth in the number of gamers globally. The rural youth populace – now gamers – are faced with the novel frontier of multicultural and multilingual communication.
This paper, therefore, seeks to study the rural youth community in Daudpur village, Saran District of Bihar (India), in order to observe the quality of their online social gaming experience, with particular focus on the quality of their communication with their fellow (global as well as Indian) gamers. The parameters to be studied are – whether or not they are comfortable with communicating with fellow gamers online, whether or not their proficiency over English (or lack thereof) factors into their communication efforts, whether or not their experience has been positive or negative, and whether or not the games which they are playing actively promote communication with their fellow gamers.
