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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

#211

Post by wanderfowl »

naravara wrote: post #127
nyghtly wrote: post #61

Here's some low hanging fruit to get us started: 1. Ban gambling in games. That is, if real money is involved in the transaction, then there should be no element of chance involved. If not that, at least properly enforce gambling laws to games given that gambling is illegal for children anyways. 2. Decouple real money from in-game money. If you can buy something for real money, you should not be able to acquire it wi…

>2. Decouple real money from in-game money. If you can buy something for real money, you should not be able to acquire it with in game money. If you can acquire something in game, you should not be able to buy it with real money instead. So there is a standard argument developers make for this. They're wrong, but I'll articulate it because I think it's worth articulating. Some people have more time than money and for…

This is one of the things I dislike most about modern games: We used to have cheat codes in single player games which allowed you to skip the BS and have a different kind of fun. Now, we have money that does the same thing.

As a result, new games not only tend not to support cheats, but they also treat the users as hostile, preventing even things like memory read hacks and config file edits. Some of the most fun I've had was editing lua config files to modify how units moved in single player games like Command and Conquer Generals, to change the game entirely.

User hostile, anti-hacky, 'skinner-box-or-nothing' design in single player gaming is only a symptom of the problem, but it's a nasty one.

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

#212

Post by rchaud »

djsumdog wrote: post #176
ravenstine wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see two problems with how we view addiction: - Everything has a potential of being addictive, but we focus so much on drugs since they have some especially addicting properties that aren't present in other habits. - We're stuck with Enlightenment age thinking such as "tabula rasa" and we attribute too much human behavior to free will, an ill-defined term that nobody whom I ask can provide a comprehensive answer to.

My generation grew up with TV shows like The Transformers that got kids to beg their parents for toys. McDonalds has marketed to children for the better part of a century (and it has followed many people into adulthood). The medium has changed, but the practices are the same as Edward Bernays and Anna Freud cooked up so many decades ago (Sigmund was never happy with the way his family members used his psychoanalysis…

> My generation grew up with TV shows like The Transformers that got kids to beg their parents for toys.

But the addiction component wasn't built-in the way it is now. Everyone remembers "Saturday morning cartoons with cereal" because there was a set time and place for that event. After the episode ended, it didn't auto-play the next episode, or recommend 5 highly similar shows based on your "viewing history".

Consider that "bingeing" is a commonly accepted term when it refers to consuming an entire season of a show in one sitting and companies like Netflix churn out TV shows with a focus on this "bingeability", because that's their differentiator compared to regular TV.

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

#213

Post by ConceptJunkie »

gaius wrote: post #131
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 f…

I played Candy Crush for a while a few years ago. It's a fundamentally fun game, and the trap is that every once in a while I'd hit a level that I couldn't get past ( at least without being really, really lucky). So you I'd paid to get past it and move on to more fun. I spent maybe about $5 on it before ultimately getting tired of it. My rationalization was the game was legitimately fun and I didn't mind throwing the developers a little money for providing a decent little game.

But I've seen so many similar games where the game itself wasn't fun at all, even though the rewards were still enticing. The Simpsons Tapped Out comes to mind. And in those cases I realized the game play itself wasn't interesting or fun and quickly quit. Basically, any game that has timers in it will fall into this category because the timers are there solely to make sure you keep coming back and have a compelling reason to do it often.

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

#214

Post by Wowfunhappy »

e0m wrote: post #37

I wish the rhetoric around "screens" was less focused on the delivery mechanism and instead more focused on the problematic thing behind those screens. The issues raised here seem to not be related to glowing LCDs, but rather particular apps and behaviors in those apps that lead to addictive and problematic behavior. "Screens" is even broader than saying things like "the internet is bad". The latter statement already…

The problem, of course, is that it's really difficult for a parent to differentiate between the various types of things kids can do on their screens, especially for someone who is less tech savvy in general. This isn't to say that it shouldn't be done, just that it's hard.

Personally, if I had to select one "easy avenue" to ban or restrict, it would be not screens but internet access. This has the side effect of putting the parent in charge of acquiring new content.

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

#215

Post by hhjinks »

ravenstine wrote: post #45
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 two problems with how we view addiction: - Everything has a potential of being addictive, but we focus so much on drugs since they have some especially addicting properties that aren't present in other habits. - We're stuck with Enlightenment age thinking such as "tabula rasa" and we attribute too much human behavior to free will, an ill-defined term that nobody whom I ask can provide a comprehensive answer to.

> We're stuck with Enlightenment age thinking such as "tabula rasa"

Nobody has actually believed in that for decades, and it certainly isn't present in the public consciousness.

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

#216

Post by dlisboa »

billfruit wrote: post #14
pier25 wrote: post #2

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc, are super focused on adding new users and creating an addiction on a massive scale never seen before. Of course it's bad for kids. Social media, smartphones, and tablets, are the new smoking.

Wikipedia and YouTube can be huge timesinks as well, but hardly see much commentary as regards to FB and Instagram.

Wikipedia is informative, at the very least. It's the same reason why you don't see an outcry about people spending time at the library.

Youtube can be informative as well, although the majority of it is not. I consider YouTube to be as much of a problem as FB/Instagram, with the caveat that it can, by design, have useful content (which the other two cannot).

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

#217

Post by ConceptJunkie »

themagician wrote: post #28
remarkEon wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RTS games in particular were extremely fun for me, and I don't see how playing hours of Starcraft and C&C wasn't an exercise in strategic thinking. I share Ms. Stecher's skepticism, though. Games today are fundamentally different from what they were when we were growing up (I'm guessing we're around the same age if you were big into AoE). Some of my friends have kids now, and the games I see them playing make me crin…

This is the reality. I lost days playing Red Alert. Video games used to be fun. The used to be challenging. Even Super Mario Bros 3 was a challenging game that provided a sense of accomplishment. Today gaming is much broader. Video games have merged with the larger gaming world (gambling). Most iOS games aren’t fun. They aren’t challenging. The are games of random chance at best. Like video poker or a Vegas slot mach…

It astounds me how often I see ads for slot machine games on mobile. How could that possibly be fun? I guess there's an implication that you can actually win stuff, which I know isn't true. But them I've never seen the appeal of real slot machines either.

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

#218

Post by thrmsforbfast »

TheMagicHorsey wrote: post #208

The same people that buy organic peas also have a paranoia about screens. How unsurprising. The article doesn't say there has been any peer-reviewed research to show a little screen time is harmful. It just says, oh, check it out, here is a grab bag of assholes, we picked out of a population of like 1 Million engineers, and THEY DONT LET THEIR KIDS USE SCREENS. Well guess what. I was a video game engineer for 10 year…

Your methodological criticisms are spot-on.

> The same people that buy organic peas also have a paranoia about screens. How unsurprising.

A lot of parents lack sophistication when it comes to "screen time".

I have multiple in-laws who seem to not understand that it's what is on the screen that matters. As you predicted, those same people are also prone to magical thinking about other things: vaccination, fluoride, radio waves, GMOs, etc.

This has multiple effects. First, they tend to over-limit access to useful aspects of computers. Second, they tend to allow toxic uses of the screen-time (allowing an hour of pocket slot machine time each day, which is IMO super excessive).

A stretched analogy: it's similar to a parent who doesn't understand the difference between alcohol and water, and therefore limits their children's access to liquid to a few times a day. However, during those few hours, the kids get to drink whatever they want out of the liquor cabinet. Obviously, the cabinet should be off-limits 24/7 but the water faucet should be freely available.

Similarly, kids should not be allowed to play pocket slot machines or watch youtube with zero restriction/oversight. But there's nothing wrong with allowing near-infinite screen time for other uses, because it's not the screen itself that's the problem.

Concretely, my kids will have unrestricted access to an Apple ][ with an Apple BASIC interpreter and manual. I doubt that will cause any problems that aren't also caused by unlimited access to microscopes or pH strips.

Of course, their access to iPad games and Netflix will be moderated in the same way their access to TV will be moderated.

But a lot of parents -- especially non-tech-literate parents -- lump it all in as "screentime", which causes them to both under-moderate what's going on when the screen is on and over-moderate access to the screen for healthy uses.

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

#219

Post by rchaud »

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.

I'm not who you're responding to, but I like this longread from the Verge about the specific design of slot machines that fuel addictive behaviour by users:

https://www.theverge.com/2015/5/6/8544303/casino-slot-machin...

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

#220

Post by nnforall »

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 think games can have a place. Even dumb games like Lemmings can have some place.

And some games really can be educational, or develop thinking skills, etc. I wonder what game critics would say about a child spending hours a day playing Chess.

But all chess and no soccer is not a good mix. All Fortnite and no chess is not a good mix. In fact, I seriously question the value of any Fortnite or Minecraft. As entertainment, a little bit isn't worse than many other entertainments. But too much is too much.

And as far as entertainment goes, I'm tired of yet another Marvel movie where we can blow up as many things as possible in the most spectacular ways and never even think about consequences. I know it's goofy to worry about real life when we are talking about mythological characters and aliens. But I do think that we spend a huge amount of time and money to train youth to disconnect from real life. If somebody dies on the other side of town, it isn't real so it doesn't matter. If you have to kill 100 opponents to get to the princess, it's all part of the game.

But many years ago we played cops and robbers and killed each other, too. Or cowboys and Indians. And we argued about whether somebody should be dead or not because of how many times they'd been shot. And we graduated from pointing fingers to rubberbands to add some realism. Then paintballs.

So I suppose the human brain is capable of sorting it all out.

But I think it is healthy to feed the brain some balance. Put down the controller and join a service project now and then. Adopt a highway, or visit a care center. Connect with real people and remind your brain that video games aren't real. And stealing cars isn't the only way to win the game. In fact, it's just wrong.

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