Digital Introspection Within Learning-on-my-Own Rhetoric Among Computer Gamers

In activity theory, most studies have focused on examining learning centered around interactions with peers or mentors; but the personal learning frame centered on externalization of internal activity is yet to be fully examined. I performed an ethnographic study of a computer-mediated form of such self-teaching activity in the electronic sport game StarCraft. I found that expert players relied significantly on digitally-mediated introspection—self-examination and critique of personal practices mediated by digital archives—to reveal psychological contradictions which become new objects of learning. I argue that psychological contradiction is a useful concept for examining self-teaching activities within computerized environments.