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Let Children Get Bored Again

nytimes.com

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Re: Let Children Get Bored Again

#151

Post by floatingatoll »

hopler wrote: post #113
floatingatoll wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a kid from the 80s, my parents prohibited video game consoles except for a GameBoy during Thanksgiving trips. It took me years of work as a child to successfully overcome their restrictions and get games onto the family computer. At one point I synthesized a hybrid of every Jazz Jackrabbit level and bonus level into a single launcher sceeen, something the publisher hadn’t because DLC and GOTY weren’t things yet. I…

I don't thing Super Mario Brothers makes one a math professor

No single game would, but my parents taking a console-gaming money spending path would have had drastic effects on my childhood time investments in computers (since we weren’t wealthy, it would have been one or the other).

Re: Let Children Get Bored Again

#153

Post by HNLurker2 »

ohaideredevs wrote: post #125
nitrogen wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Books were an escape vehicle before TV, movies, and games.

I agree with you entirely - books are escapism. But there are levels of escapism - you would agree that a book is better than heroin, right? If so, you agree that there is a hierarchy. Reading teaches a lot of useful skills, such as, you know, reading. Then there is the fact that both video games and books can teach, but there are diminishing returns. When I first read Snow Crash and Neuromancer, they taught me a lot…

Rationally, fictional evidence is useless.

Imaginatively, fiction and imagination are the only things that stimulate to push the boundaries in science and tech.

Re: Let Children Get Bored Again

#154

Post by HNLurker2 »

nicoburns wrote: post #130
sizzle wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mindfulness and mediation are great for disengaging from vices and building resilience to addictive triggers and compulsive thinking. I wish someone taught me mediation to rebalance my thoughts as early as high school so I could be more introspective and have more control over my insecurities/tendency to think compulsively.

IMO, meditation should be taught even to really young kids (say, 4 years old upwards). I imagine they would benefit just as much. Interestingly, some alternative education systems seem to have such an approach. In the waldorf/steiner system (at least this is what I was told), the early years are supposed to be about learning personal discipline and how to work with others. With reading/writing not taught until later…

IMO, we should all become monks (if you live in Theravada country its tradiion) at age 20 and then give up. Why? You have great experience, and no one obligees you to stay. You can stay for a few months (Like countries Vietnam, Cambodia etc)

Re: Let Children Get Bored Again

#155

Post by HNLurker2 »

God damn it, another thread about boredom (one thing is that Boredom isn't boring): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10303091

I just guess its part of the human experience, very trivial. The problem is if I am teen and I am content with life (Movies, Meditation, Gratitude) I won't put a fight to build anything, or even do anything at all. I could live in my parents basement for years.

Something I learnt lately is that even the Buddhist didn't liked it: dullness is a hindrance. Try breathing meditation to alievate it, and it works. So what would be the difference between breathing until you die (with no stress) versus indulging in entertainment, projects, video games etc?

Re: Let Children Get Bored Again

#156

Post by hrktb »

lytedev wrote: post #53
nitrogen wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Books were an escape vehicle before TV, movies, and games.

Sure, but doesn't it work pretty differently? With books, you're just given words and your brain has to fill in the gaps and actually do some work. With video games and movies, your brain is directly stimulated; shown what to see and hear.

I think it’s more a question of in which direction you do the work.

Reading a book is a bottom up process. A movie/comic is top bottom: from visual/sound info you parse what’s happening, characters motives, what direction everything is going.

People argue the top-> down approach is “lazier”, but hearig from viewers who couldn’t understand the point of even simple movies, I don’t think it’s true, it’s just that people who don’t “get it” are left on their own as there is a forced timeline.

In that sense, video games bring two major mechanics to the table:

- interactivity: you need to understand what’s going on and take action to move forward. Also you can assume your choices.

- retryability: you can redo any part you didn’t get, the mechanic is baked into the game where for a movie it’s a PITA. I see my kid playing RPG and asking again and again NPC for info, because he didn’t get it the first time. It’s a very powerful mechanism.

Re: Let Children Get Bored Again

#157

Post by zimpenfish »

JauntyHatAngle wrote: post #137
dkersten wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how we used to think whatever the latest in graphics was, was oh so realistic and amazing! I played MUD’s for a few years when I was younger and in hindsight it was amazing: while the writing wasn’t typically as good as a book, you still filled in the world and characters with your imagination and it was both interactive and social. I still have some vivid memories of it that are as clear as if it had been a mode…

It's interesting, but I think games have taken a significant backstep over the past few years in terms of RPG's in many ways. The issue for me nowadays is that AAA studios seem to demand certain things. One of which, is fully voiced dialogue. This sounds good, people talking lines to me is great right? But the problem is, each of those lines costs time and money, and adds rigidity around what can be changed as you ne…

> fully voiced dialogue

Yeah, I 99% hate this[1]. Doubly if it's from the person I'm supposed to be playing - let me have my own thoughts about what's going on!

[1] There are some games which have excellent voiced dialogue as part of the world building, e.g. Albino Lullaby

Re: Let Children Get Bored Again

#158

Post by wink »

> Life isn’t meant to be an endless parade of amusements. “That’s right,” a mother says to her daughter in Maria Semple’s 2012 novel, “Where’d You Go, Bernadette.” “You are bored. And I’m going to let you in on a little secret about life. You think it’s boring now? Well, it only gets more boring. The sooner you learn it’s on you to make life interesting, the better off you’ll be.”

Interesting quote, and sadly might be out of context.

Still I couldn't disagree more. Everyone told me school time was the best part of my life, and oh the dreadful work after that. Bullshit. As soon as I was old enough to choose my own life and do what I want to do everything kinda improved and I'm exactly not really bored anymore (well, of course not 100%, but it's not worth mentioning). If you have the means and authority to choose your actions, boredom is much less of a problem than under constraints (can't go outside, can't go to a different place, can't stay up late playing games, don't have money to buy something you want to interact with...)

Re: Let Children Get Bored Again

#159

Post by dkersten »

zimpenfish wrote: post #157
JauntyHatAngle wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting, but I think games have taken a significant backstep over the past few years in terms of RPG's in many ways. The issue for me nowadays is that AAA studios seem to demand certain things. One of which, is fully voiced dialogue. This sounds good, people talking lines to me is great right? But the problem is, each of those lines costs time and money, and adds rigidity around what can be changed as you ne…

> fully voiced dialogue Yeah, I 99% hate this[1]. Doubly if it's from the person I'm supposed to be playing - let me have my own thoughts about what's going on! [1] There are some games which have excellent voiced dialogue as part of the world building, e.g. Albino Lullaby

I love fully voiced dialogue in some games, if it’s done well it can really help with telling a story, but in more freeform roleplaying games it definitely detracts from the fantasy that’s playing out in my imagination as it means I can’t imprint my own feelings of what characters are feeling. MUDs were definitely the pinnacle of that for me, especially when you played with people who took their fictitious roles seriously and added freeform scenarios that weren’t hard coded into the game, through a shared acknowledgement that what other players invented became a real part of the fiction even though it wasn’t recognised by the software simulation.

Re: Let Children Get Bored Again

#160

Post by tpxl »

zimpenfish wrote: post #157
JauntyHatAngle wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting, but I think games have taken a significant backstep over the past few years in terms of RPG's in many ways. The issue for me nowadays is that AAA studios seem to demand certain things. One of which, is fully voiced dialogue. This sounds good, people talking lines to me is great right? But the problem is, each of those lines costs time and money, and adds rigidity around what can be changed as you ne…

> fully voiced dialogue Yeah, I 99% hate this[1]. Doubly if it's from the person I'm supposed to be playing - let me have my own thoughts about what's going on! [1] There are some games which have excellent voiced dialogue as part of the world building, e.g. Albino Lullaby

There is a school of though that the character you're playing should not be voiced (or not even respond textually), precisely because the player cannot then imprint their own thoughts on the character, because the voice/actions/emotions/whatever don't match with that of the human player.
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