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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

#141

Post by trynumber9 »

BoiledCabbage wrote: post #40
trynumber9 wrote: post #3

> There is a looming issue Ms. Stecher sees in the future: Her husband, who is 39, loves video games and thinks they can be educational and entertaining. She does not. I'm still peeved so many people hate video games categorically. Age of Empires & Civilization got me into history as a kid and I checked out dozens of books as a result. Plus, the reason I ended up wanting to learn more about computers was to make game…

> I'm still peeved so many people hate video games categorically. I'm more annoyed that everytime video games come up, someone brings up Civilization as a strawman to argue. 99% of games aren't Civilization. We all know people are talking about that 99%. The article even calls out that the parents make exceptions for some educational games/screen time. And yet rather than legitimately engage and address peoples conce…

That's why I said categorically. As a parent, try to consider the merits -- or lack thereof -- of each individual game.

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

#142

Post by imranq »

I think the key issue for these devices is that they can only give you a representation of the “real thing”. Kids don’t have much experience of reality to create natural intuitions about nature, social relationships, and society and foisting an internet full of other peoples’ opinions to children can easily distort their perception of what’s healthy and what’s not.

The solution is to limit kids from using internet devices and put them into environments where it is easy to have rich interactions with nature and with other people. Examples like Boy Scouts, school clubs, and road trips are good.

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

#143

Post by Retric »

manfredo wrote: post #139
Retric wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Depends on the game. In multi player games where people can exchange items, people will pay real world money for other players items.

EX: People buying WoW gold.

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

#144

Post by wlesieutre »

briandear wrote: post #121
kara-1234 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check out the light phone 2 or the KY-01L, both phone looks pretty awesome. the light phone 2 being just call, text, and the KY-01L having a web browser (though it looks so bad I probably wouldn't use it) Also both those phones have e-ink displays.

So the argument is that his phone is too good and he is sucked in? So a crappier phone is the answer? That’s like saying people drive too much so we should remove the air conditioner and radio. It reminds me of the Colonel Sanders scene in So I Married an Ax Murderer: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TPMS6tGOACo

I don't want to go back down to a feature phone, but if you said "I want to bike more places instead of driving my car everywhere" it would be reasonable to not want to buy an $80,000 luxury sedan that you love to zoom around in.

Unfortunately Apple has decided that's the only car they're going to make.

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

#145

Post by nabla9 »

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…

I think the difference is how quickly you get the reward is and how the reward is gained. It also relates to the way the money is made.

In 'old school' game you receive reward after period of effort. You have to perform better and push yourself. Game is designed to be fun but selling the game once is where the money is. Good game is measured by the short peak experiences, not by the average feeling.

Another (more advanced but evil) way to design addictive game is when it the difficulty and reward frequencies are optimized to keep you playing for as long as possible. You are offered cheats or the difficulty automatically adjusts to optimize the time you spend with the game. The goal of the game is stretch the interest over time just above the threshold where you would quit. In the end the game just removes lows from the boring moments.

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

#146

Post by ip26 »

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…

This has always been a form of Luddism. Tech is inevitable.

it's been proven that if you do abstinence only education then bad things happen

How about driving technology? Children receive abstinence-only education on driving until they turn 15 or 16.

There's plenty of precedent for young children being unable to safely & responsibly handle certain things.

Was it Luddism that I wasn't allowed to operate a table saw when I was eleven?

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

#147

Post by dimgl »

BoiledCabbage wrote: post #40
trynumber9 wrote: post #3

> There is a looming issue Ms. Stecher sees in the future: Her husband, who is 39, loves video games and thinks they can be educational and entertaining. She does not. I'm still peeved so many people hate video games categorically. Age of Empires & Civilization got me into history as a kid and I checked out dozens of books as a result. Plus, the reason I ended up wanting to learn more about computers was to make game…

> I'm still peeved so many people hate video games categorically. I'm more annoyed that everytime video games come up, someone brings up Civilization as a strawman to argue. 99% of games aren't Civilization. We all know people are talking about that 99%. The article even calls out that the parents make exceptions for some educational games/screen time. And yet rather than legitimately engage and address peoples conce…

Dude, don't be ridiculous. There are countless games that aren't FPS monstrosities.

Into The Breach, Starbound, Galactic Civilizations, Celeste... these are all games that require you to think in some way and aren't mindless hack-and-slash or competitive shooter games.

Can they replace going to school? No, but let's not devolve this argument into "most games aren't like Civilization". A lot of the hatred for games is seriously misplaced.

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

#148

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

danesparza wrote: post #60
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…

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?

Slot machines are regulated because they fall under the category of gambling and video games don't meet the legal definition of gambling. (Although, I'd agree that it's starting to seem more and more as if they should.)

There's a pretty good explanation of the criteria at https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?arti... but the brief summary (from the article) is "Gambling consists of three elements: consideration, prize and chance. If any one of those three elements is missing, the game is simply not gambling (Rose, 1986))."

By looking at those criteria, there's a lot of ways video game companies can defend themselves. The strongest one IMO being that, from a legal standpoint, there is no prize. You "win" things or get drops but the TOS of all games say that the player does not own them (or anything else in the game) in any legal sense. The analogy would be more like a carnival ride where you are paying for the experience rather than the expectation of getting anything material in return.

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

#149

Post by humanrebar »

sys_64738 wrote: post #120

This is no different than when people were buying TVs for the first time in 1956. Those closest to the tech display the greatest fears. In the 1980s there was hysteria that video games would turn kids into social pariahs due to the bad effects from violence and gore. But shooting a cluster of pixels in 1984 is trivial compared to running the bloods and guts of realism of a PS4. But not much is said anymore. I think i…

Keep going back. Novels used to be unhealthy:

https://op-talk.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/14/when-novels-wer...

More recently, parents used to complain about teenage girls locking themselves in their rooms to talk on the phone with their friends.

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

#150

Post by John_KZ »

dak1 wrote: post #43

I have a 2 and a half year old son now. My wife and I have found for us that the right answer is simply moderation, variety, and supervision. 1. We moderate how much time is spent on screens. Each day he probably spends a total of an hour or less in front of any screen (iPad/iPhone/Projector). 2. He does watch some (highly filtered) educational YouTube content, but we also make sure he's playing educational and inter…

That's a great point. But it takes a lot of time and effort to filter the content your child consumes. That's because the system is designed so the end user has almost no control over the information flow. So this will affect the poor disproportionately (once again). If you don't have time to discover child-friendly, educational content, no money to buy ad-free movies and games from trusted companies, you'll just give your child a tablet with a tab open showing an educational video. What your child will be watching 10 minutes later is up the the mercy of Google. Whatever it's going to be, I bet it won't be in the best interests of your child.
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