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A Dark Consensus About Screens and Kids Begins to Emerge in Silicon Valley

nytimes.com

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Re: A Dark Consensus About Screens and Kids Begins to Emerge in Silicon Valley

#131

Post by gaius »

Tehchops wrote: post #30

I think it's less about the screen time, and more about what's on the screen. Echoing some of the existing comments: Games and sites today are vastly different than they were 20 years ago. Games like Civilization, Quake, Diablo, C&C, Mortal Kombat, Tony Hawk etc... were definitely addictive. But modern games like Fortnite and Clash of Clans are not engineered the same way. They are specifically designed to function l…

Echoing some of the existing comments: Games and sites today are vastly different than they were 20 years ago.

In the old days, the focus was on playability. Games were fun. But a new genre has emerged particularly in mobile gaming that does something strange: it compels play even when it isn't fun anymore. In the old days when a game stopped being fun, you would stop playing. But these games, when they stop being fun, you make an in-game purchase...

Re: A Dark Consensus About Screens and Kids Begins to Emerge in Silicon Valley

#132

Post by jvvw »

jimejim wrote: post #57

This has always been a form of Luddism. Tech is inevitable. I view tech similarly to how I view sex-ed in 2018: it's been proven that if you do abstinence only education then bad things happen (teen pregnancies, stds, etc...). Your kids are going to grow up to be adults with bad tech habits if you don't start teaching them how to use it responsibly and protect themselves early. Help them find good content. Have days…

We try and do all this - the hard thing I find is what limits to put in place and how when they do find stuff that feels less worthwhile or on the addictive side, which they obviously do. It's actually harder than it sounds I have found to set time limits - particularly with siblings as they play together, look over eachother's shoulders etc. and if your daily schedule isn't completely regular due to other activities. We've gone for making one day at the weekend screen-free but it often feels like that isn't enough.

Re: A Dark Consensus About Screens and Kids Begins to Emerge in Silicon Valley

#133

Post by briandear »

medobs41 wrote: post #79
danesparza wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've gotten me wondering: Why AREN'T certain games subject to the same regulations as slot machines? Is that a state-by-state regulation? A federal regulation? And does the regulating code specifically mention physical machines? Thanks in advance for satisfying my curiosity.

Why AREN'T certain games subject to the same regulations as slot machines? I can answer for the US: Games aren’t subject to regulation because for the past few decades one party has made it their goal to destroy regulatory power to allow the wealthy to enrich themselves. One party in the US has been completely captured by billionaires and corporations. This started in the 1970s around the time the Koches founded the…

And yet the tech industry overwhelmingly supports Democrats? Partisan politics has nothing to do with the topic at hand. But, if you want to go there, I might suggest that Cato is a libertarian organization and libertarianism is about the rights of the individual to make their own choices rather than having the state dictate those choices. Bringing the Koch brothers into a debate over addictive screens is just silly.

Re: A Dark Consensus About Screens and Kids Begins to Emerge in Silicon Valley

#134

Post by Cyph0n »

fawak wrote: post #99
Cyph0n wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And let's be honest, as much as I like(d) counter-strike it's not an intellectual game by a long shot. Oh, you'd be surprised by how much strategy goes into CS at the highest levels of play.

> At the highest levels of play. So not for 99.99% of the players. Although it's not the same subject, this reminds me of a video by Duncan "Thoorin" Shields, a rather controversial and prominent eSports figure: "Gaming is a Waste of Time" ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiXfnfBk3BM ) In the video, he talks (among other things) about people justifying the time they spend on video games by the fact that some players…

How did you come up with that percentage? Have you ever played CS?

Firstly, OP basically said that CS is not a strategic game at all, which is completely false.

Secondly, CS can get extremely strategic in the professional scene, but it is also quite strategic at higher ranks in the game's competitive mode ladder. It is also a heavily team-based game: e.g., if one of your team members is not communicating, you are at a huge disadvantage.

Re: A Dark Consensus About Screens and Kids Begins to Emerge in Silicon Valley

#135

Post by antpls »

I would say, if kids are attracted to screen, there must be a biological reason to it. It's not like an intake of chemicals like alcohol : the device and interactions with it actually stimulates their brains. It should be studied and used in a good way rather than plain banned.

It seems the parents are disallowing devices for other reasons than just "it's bad". They are privileged people, are they afraid of being spied by the devices of their kids? Are they afraid that the existence of their privileges are leaked to a greater population?

Tomorrow's society will be connected, and so will be politic, information, and learning. But no parent wants to risk it with their own kids, because of fear of the unknown, or because they don't accept that they will lose control over their kids sooner than ever.

It's their choices to rise their kids as they want, but they are probably from the top richest 1% anyway, their kids future is already privileged and boosted, phone or no phone.

Re: A Dark Consensus About Screens and Kids Begins to Emerge in Silicon Valley

#136

Post by dabernathy89 »

samatman wrote: post #94
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered that the kind of parents that raise such children re the kind of kids to put them into waldorf schools, not that waldorf schools do something special.

(waldorf kid here) while that is an obvious confound, the waldorf pedagogy strong encourages children not be exposed to any screen time at all. It goes further: even at the kindergarten level, all toys and costumes are natural materials, you won't find a single piece of plastic among items intended for a child's use. Even the crayons are made of beeswax.

> It goes further: even at the kindergarten level, all toys and costumes are natural materials, you won't find a single piece of plastic among items intended for a child's use. Even the crayons are made of beeswax.

I can't possibly imagine the purpose for these restrictions.

Re: A Dark Consensus About Screens and Kids Begins to Emerge in Silicon Valley

#137

Post by mikeash »

wlesieutre wrote: post #47
BoiledCabbage wrote: post #21

>Technologists building these products and writers observing the tech revolution were naïve, he said. >"We thought we could control it,” Mr. Anderson said. “And this is beyond our power to control. This is going straight to the pleasure centers of the developing brain. This is beyond our capacity as regular parents to understand." A 6 year old's brain has no chance against a team of trained data scientists. We all kn…

I see this playing out right now with Apple's phones, which get continuously bigger and shinier and brighter with every new generation. Then they give us "Screen Time" and Tim Cook talks about giving people the tools to be aware of how much they're using their phones and to make their own decisions about it. If drug companies said "We're discontinuing Advil for your headaches and replacing all painkillers with small…

Is there actually a link between screen size and addictiveness?

Re: A Dark Consensus About Screens and Kids Begins to Emerge in Silicon Valley

#138

Post by kartan »

MildlySerious wrote: post #100
kartan wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are specifically designed to function like a slot machine. I work in the gambling industry, making literally slot machines. Slot machines are heavily regulated and there is a lot of "engagement" tricks that can not be used in the gambling industry. The kind of trick that Candy Crush will use. The dangerous side of gambling is for people that think that they can "win money". But the games themselves are kind of…

Can you recommend any literature on the topic of these "tricks"? If you're not in the industry, awareness is probably the best weapon against these practices.

> Can you recommend any literature on the topic of these "tricks"?

I am talking about basic stuff like:

* Push notifications reminding you that you should play the game.

* Let you win some money but then lose it unless you make a payment.

* A bar that fills faster at the beginning and then starts to fill slower. So it looks like you are closer to a goal that you actually are.

* Show a deck of cards that instead of the 52 standard cards, expected by the players, has another configuration that makes you lose more often.

etc.

Any mobile games video - like https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014450/Behavioral-Economics-a... - has a lot of forbidden techniques for on-line gambling.

Re: A Dark Consensus About Screens and Kids Begins to Emerge in Silicon Valley

#139

Post by manfredo »

Retric wrote: post #119
manfredo wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Video games are protected by the first amendment right to free speech and expression. Slot machines are gambling devices that take in and pay out money. The two aren't really comparable. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but the regulations on slot machines only apply when they're used in real money gambling. Presumably, if someone built a slot machine that didn't take in or dispense tokens, and could not be used in gam…

Not necessarily. Right now the industry is largely unregulated, but that's more a question of enforcement than any sort of real legal protection. In the US you can't build a slot machine that accepts money and dispenses tokens that have value. That's often how things operate in Japan, but the same model is generally illegal in the US. It's questionable if spending real money on virtual currency to buy "loot boxes" th…

In game items don't have value. If they did, then effectively all games with RNG mechanics would be banned. Heck, even the original Rogue would fall under that umbrella.

Re: A Dark Consensus About Screens and Kids Begins to Emerge in Silicon Valley

#140

Post by humanrebar »

mangoman wrote: post #53

The headline is chilling, but the actual content of the article boils down to "Many people in Silicon Valley feel that too much screen time is bad for kids". That being said, I found this anecdote to be particularly... unsettling. > “I try to tell him somebody wrote code to make you feel this way — I’m trying to help him understand how things are made, the values that are going into things and what people are doing t…

Watch the Be Sure To Drink Your Ovaltine clip.
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