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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

#331

Post by naravara »

ConceptJunkie wrote: post #202
naravara wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

I've played mobile games where the option to pay just gets your through the game faster, and in my experience, if the game is any fun, why would I want to spend money to be able to play it less? But if people want that, I guess it's OK. On the other hand, if the game requires endless grinding, and let's face it, a lot of these games are really just tedious work with a reward system built in, with little or no strateg…

>So, yeah, I agree with you... it's the Skinner box we need to discourage, but that's not always a black-and-white thing, because hard work and accomplishment, with the rewards that provide, are very similar in many ways. Ultimately, the Skinner box is an attempt to simulate the process of working hard to accomplish something and receiving the rewards for it without the whole "providing an engaging and challenging experience" aspect. It's exploiting a human instinct and subverting it in a harmful way.

Yeah it's a tough issue to handle. The Spider-Man PS4 game, for example, uses the "here's a checklist, go do the thing and get a reward" model too. But I hesitate to call it a "skinner-box" because usually the goal is just an excuse to have fun web-slinging across the city and to play with the combat, which is the actual rewarding thing about the game. The gratification, in that case, comes from performing the task rather than from having finished it.

So it really does come down to how you implement it. Whether the goals and rewards are there as a framework to have fun in, or whether they're presented as a barrier you need to clear to find fun on the other side.

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

#332

Post by avip »

mindslight wrote: post #205

Calling it "screen time" is missing the elephant in the room. The largest part of the problem is that the software we're directly interacting with has been designed by companies with interests directly contrary to ours! Social interaction will inherently set off more chemical rewards, but it is the tuning of the feedback loop (optimizing for micro-interactions) that keeps us glued. Emacs/mutt/libreoffice/python/kodi…

That's a racoon maybe. The elephant is that said "screen time" comes au-lieu of parents attention.

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

#333

Post by natalyarostova »

Benjammer wrote: post #181
danesparza wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"A 6 year old's brain has no chance against a team of trained data scientists. We all know this." Hell, I'd argue that many 40-50 year old brains clearly don't stand a chance against a trained data scientist.

Don't stop there... I'd argue a prime-of-their-life 34 year old _data scientist_ doesn't stand a change _against their own algorithms_ if they immerse themselves. It's addiction. We need to stop acting like it is "weak-minded" people (children is a dog-whistle for this) who are susceptible to tech addiction. The idea of "standing a chance" is literally like saying you can consciously control your dopamine receptors t…

I'm a prime-of-my-life data scientist, and I disabled all my social media, because I realize I have no hope in fighting instagrams feed. I love the parts of those products where I can meaningfully engage with my friends and family, but over time that part grew smaller and smaller, and the addictive parts grew larger.

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

#334

Post by Aeolos »

faitswulff wrote: post #273
jimison wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Emacs/mutt/libreoffice/python/kodi have not been adversarily tuned to fire off the reward centers of our brains Indeed, some of those could desperately use a little polish to stop firing off the pain centers of our brains. :\

GIMP comes to mind...

Gimp 2.10 is really rather pleasant to use. Some pains remain, but it's (very slowly) getting there.

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

#335

Post by celticninja »

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…

Know how I managed to stop my kids playing Fortnite? I let them play 'proper' games. So now they want to play Halo or Zelda BOTW instead, they knew about Fortnite because all the kids talk about it but the actual gameplay isn't that original, the graphics are cute and cartoony to appeal to kids but kids will still appreciate a good game. They love the cutscenes so they can follow the story and the understand that there is a story arc I have also been explaining how although the game is free Fortnite makes money, and how a game like Halo is paid for in comparison.

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

#336

Post by atom-morgan »

i_cant_speel wrote: post #71
tejohnso wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain how overdoing it with Quake and Diablo is not the same ball-game as overdoing it with Fortnite?

I think Fortnite is just a bad example. It's one of the few games where you don't feel at a complete disadvantage when you choose not to spend money on it.

Yeah, if anything I think Fortnite does a good job of avoiding gambling and preserving the integrity of free-to-play.

Loot crates, which are basically slot machines, don't exist. You buy what you see, a skin.

They make a lot of money from skins but once again, there's no in-game advantage. It's purely cosmetic so at the end of the day even if you don't give Epic a dime you're still on a level playing field with everyone else.

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

#337

Post by apo »

I've seen the effects of teenagers + phones in US high schools first hand. Simply put, kids are distracted and overstimulated. The always connected nature of the phone ensures that critical planning skills will never be learned. Never being bored (and the decimation of shop classes) has sapped the creative impulse from far too many of them.

Contrary to what may be popular belief, many administrations set no guidelines around phone use in classrooms, leaving it to teachers to fight the never-ending battle. The lecture becomes hard or boring, and out come the phones.

Getting a kid anything more than a feature phone is pretty much daring the poor thing to walk tightrope across a canyon without a safety net.

The parents quoted in the article talking about how preschool kids with phones are no big deal need to spend some time in a typical high school classroom.

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

#338

Post by manfredo »

sesqu wrote: post #280
manfredo wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WoW was less of an explicit slot machine than a lot of mobile games. While things like item drops had a random element, it wasn't a "pay once per chance" sort of deal like loot boxes. You just kept killing mobs, and when you got a drop it was great. The impact wasn't all that good anyway, since even the best item would be obsolete in 4-5 levels.

WoW had an absurdly high recurring fee that it tried to make you renew again and again and again. Because there was no micropayment infrastructure, it didn't use "pay to throw dice", it used "pay to retain your investment". By contrast, many of the modern games don't do that and are perfectly happy with their high turnover rates.

The point is, though, it costs the same amount of money if you take one chance at winning or a hundred. A monthly recurring fee makes the devs optimize for lasting engagement, not impulsive choices. Sure, lasting engagement may be created by having mechanics that make the player feel guilty about not playing regularly but it's not the same sort of incentive as a slot machine.

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

#339

Post by lubujackson »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #148
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? 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 th…

I have no idea if there is any legal precedent for requiring resell value on a prize, but these "rare drops" definitely do constitute prizes on a human level. And they by definition DO economic value (even if you can't resell them) because people pay money specifically for a chance to win them.

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

#340

Post by genericone »

JHer wrote: post #314
clarkmoody wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with your last point. Technology will always be "just a tool." By its nature, it is morally neutral. The use of technology for good or for evil reflects the morality of the people deploying it. Explosives, baseball bats, water, radios, software. All have been used for noble purposes and for evil. That does not impart morality to the technology.

Whenever I see someone saying something like "just a tool" with regard to technology, I always want to recommend a thorough read of Marshall McLuhan's "Understanding Media" ("The Medium is the Message" and other adages). I think you've got it precisely the wrong way round: it is not the morality of the times that is reflected by the use of technology, but morality that reflects current technology. The French and Amer…

The medium is that which spreads the message. Since the mediums operate differently from each other, only certain types of messages can be transmitted over each one.

Before written systems, a message could only be spread by word. The message could be stopped by disappearing the person speaking.

Before print media, messages could only be written down by a scribe or learned person, and the message could only be read by another scribe or learned person. Or messages could only be passed in the form of images. Those messages could be stopped simply by burning/destroying the written/etched copy that existed.

Before the telegraph, messages could only be delivered in person, on foot or on horseback or by ship, limiting its rate of spread to those transportation speeds. Those messages could be stopped by intercepting the delivery, or controlling the territorial borders.

Before radio and telephone communications, transmitted messages could only be read by telegraphists. The messages could be stopped as long as there was no telegraphist at the time of message transmission, or if the telegraphist lied about the message.

Before televised media, only messages in the form of voice or text could be transmitted far distances, so only voice or text was consumed. The information bandwidth was extremely small, although fast.

Before internet media, only audio, video, or text could be transmitted. The information bandwidth increased with video, but these high information channels were only controlled by media elites and governments.

With internet media, internet isn't a message you consume, internet is something you participate in. The instant participation of the global population in a single activity is something altogether new that is a step-change in what has been available, and no prior medium could have prepared us for this age. The old media elites still want to control what messages are dispersed, but the new medium doesn't cede that control easily.

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