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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

#31

Post by tw1010 »

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 used to feel just like you. Now that I've escaped from video game addiction though, I'd totally admit the reason I felt that way was either due to implicit peer pressure from fellow nerds, or from lying to myself that there was some underlying cause for why I spent so much time in front of the screen (e.g. loneliness, shyness) which could have been addressed in much healthier ways.

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

#32

Post by Cyph0n »

matthewaveryusa wrote: post #9
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…

To add to your point, I got into programming because I modified the buy menus in counter-strike to my liking when I was a young teen and immediately got hooked by the idea that I could make my computer automate things for me. And let's be honest, as much as I like(d) counter-strike it's not an intellectual game by a long shot. I remember my internet was so bad I had to add wait;wait;wait between issuing commands to t…

> 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.

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

#33

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

mikepurvis wrote: post #20
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My mother tolerated my and my sibling's videogame obsession throughout our youth, but she still largely felt we were wasting our time. I don't think she ever really understood the appeal. Now she's older and retired, and whenever I visit to see what she's doing with her leisure time, she spends most of it on her laptop playing a fish aquarium game or Farmville on Facebook.

That's a fascinating turn-around though— I wonder if she considers what she's doing gaming? Basically, there are a lot of extremely high quality single-player narrative games out there, many of which provide a story/explore difficulty level where it's almost impossible to die. Would she still be prejudiced against those, or now that she understands the appeal in broad terms, would she consider upgrading to games that…

I don't think she's really interested in what I or my brothers considered "games". The high-intensity/fast-reflex or long-investment kind of games we would play probably did not appeal to her. She seems to have gravitated towards the casual-gaming stuff, where the end-goal of the game is meandering and there's a great deal of instant gratification ("Congrats! You clicked a button! Have a trophy!")

With that said, I regret in hindsight that I didn't force her to try Animal Crossing back when it came to the Gamecube 15 years ago. It was very much a prototype of the casual gaming trend that's popular now. We might've found some common ground back then before our ages caused role-reversal.

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

#34

Post by asnowman »

I'm worried by how the big market of mobile games with very little discernible intellectual content are influencing kids. Games are inherently forced to have some kind of intellectual engagement (though I think we've explored the edge with cookie clicker) so I'm not that alarmed just yet. But from what I've seen most of these games don't seem to engage the user in a way that encourages them to challenge themselves.

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

#36

Post by fhood »

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…

Challenge is not the issue. Dark Souls is bloody difficult, but that doesn't mean that I feel like I've been using my brain after playing it.

Video games are awesome, but they provide too much stimulation and instant gratification for little kids. I don't think TV is much better, but video games are way more entertaining than TV.

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

#37

Post by e0m »

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 sounds unhelpful because everyone has a better understanding of just how diverse of a platform "the internet" is.

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

#38

Post by criley2 »

tw1010 wrote: post #31
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 used to feel just like you. Now that I've escaped from video game addiction though, I'd totally admit the reason I felt that way was either due to implicit peer pressure from fellow nerds, or from lying to myself that there was some underlying cause for why I spent so much time in front of the screen (e.g. loneliness, shyness) which could have been addressed in much healthier ways.

I guess as a former addict you have to do things like categorically dislike all video games just to maintain your sobriety. Good on you for doing what you have to do to overcome your addiction, but such black and white opinions are not really healthy or smart for people who aren't struggling against a disease, IMO

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

#39

Post by framebit »

moreira wrote: post #4
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…

Civilization in particular is phenomenal. The Civilopedia was a treasure trove of details about different real-life historical concepts. And the "Women's Suffrage" video in Civilization 2 made quite an impact on me as a kid. Having said that, I do think there's a big, big difference between playing games of that sort and... Candy Crush.

I actually came here to say the same thing: Civilization != Candy Crush.

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

#40

Post by BoiledCabbage »

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 concerns about video games, it's always the same argument of: raise the benefits of Civilization, share nostalgia about playing it in the past and ignore the actual arguments being presented.

This thread is no exception. This is a place of more intelligent discourse - address the opposition's points, or concede they are valid.

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