A Dark Consensus About Screens and Kids Begins to Emerge in Silicon Valley • Hacker News Board

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

#441

Post by ip26 » Sat, Oct 27, 2018, 3:19 AM UTC

rchaud wrote: post #227

tspike wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. It's irritating to me to hear screen time constantly discussed as a monolith. For example, I have no issue with my son playing Zelda: Breath of the Wild. He gets to poke around and experiment and explore and it has sparked a lot of imaginative play, curiosity and interesting conversations. Likewise, it's fine if he wants to watch the videos we've taken of our family, it helps him to remember relatives we don't g…

Advertising to kids happens through Youtube and Instagram, not those ugly Adsense iframes that can be spotted a mile away and at this point fall under "banner blindness" for a lot of users. I'm not a gamer so I don't know much about Zelda, but the sort of hypnotic hold some Youtube/Insta personalities have on kids is astonishing. They will parrot their talking points, talk about them relentlessly with friends and buy…

Zelda is the video game equivalent of a high fantasy novel.

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

#442

Post by village-idiot » Sat, Oct 27, 2018, 3:22 AM UTC

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…

The location and ubiquity matter. You didn’t carry your N64 with you.

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

#443

Post by ip26 » Sat, Oct 27, 2018, 3:22 AM UTC

naravara wrote: post #114

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…

>Not sure what the fix is either, other than ruthless enforcement of quotas. Or just not letting kids get into those games. At some point my wife pointed out that I had a problem disengaging from certain types of games (for me it was MOBAs specifically). They are super-addictive. It never really got in the way of anything and if I had anything else to do I would go do that, so it wouldn't really qualify as "addiction…

The other problem with MOBA's, at least for me- wins feel easy & shallow, the reward is small, while losses are a struggle & kind of crushing. So inevitably I sign off feeling unhappy & unfulfilled.

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

#444

Post by ip26 » Sat, Oct 27, 2018, 3:25 AM UTC

fjsolwmv wrote: post #390

corey_moncure wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you, Common Sense Media. Your website helped me get control over what my wife and parents were exposing my four year old daughter to, by establishing a neutral source of extremely valuable information. It became very easy to set guidelines thanks to your rating system and the wide range of titles reviewed. The new 3D animation style and cutesy animal characters are dangerously subversive. My mom thought I was b…

This is funny to read. Kids stuff has been getting tamer and tamer over the years. Check out the early 2Oth Century Disney cartoons, the original Popeye, etc.

The audience for the original Disney cartoons, was adults.

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

#445

Post by Coincoin » Sat, Oct 27, 2018, 3:33 AM UTC

kartan wrote: post #55

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…

> 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…

Funny thing is some games are designed to be boring but still addictive, so that you will pay to skip playing the boring game. It totally blows my mind that people will pay to not play a game.

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

#446

Post by netheril96 » Sat, Oct 27, 2018, 3:56 AM UTC

toyg wrote: post #384

nine_k wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, if a player does not have a title to anything in the game, the player has control over some items, and can sell this control? I suppose tokens in casinos also don't belong to players, but they are readily exchangeable for money. On one hand, this may be enough to consider it gambling for money. On the other hand, many games may expressly forbid selling in-game stuff. This is not easy to enforce, though, unless yo…

It is extremely easy to enforce: just make items non-transferable, so they can only be gained by actual questing. As soon as an item is gained, it is permanently associated to a given account. Done.

It is called soul-bound in WoW.

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

#447

Post by jlawson » Sat, Oct 27, 2018, 4:08 AM UTC

cthalupa wrote: post #416

corey_moncure wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you, Common Sense Media. Your website helped me get control over what my wife and parents were exposing my four year old daughter to, by establishing a neutral source of extremely valuable information. It became very easy to set guidelines thanks to your rating system and the wide range of titles reviewed. The new 3D animation style and cutesy animal characters are dangerously subversive. My mom thought I was b…

>There was a scene where the male Air Marshall (who was following them), woke up in a drunken haze (yes, there was a scene where shots and drinks were involved) with 2 new tattoosand in the bedroom or hotel room with another man (and all that that implied)." This appears to be a PG rated movie. This is nothing new. Let's take a step back nearly 25 years and check out things that happen in 'The Nightmare Before Christ…

Your comparison examples prove the points your arguing against.

Both your examples are about fantastical violence and/or animal predator/prey violence - things that have little or no connection to a kid's real life growing up. It's not hard to dissociate real life from a casino torture chamber and a skinned head. What influence could this have on a child - make him make his own casino torture chamber?

Grandparent complained about normalization of heavy drinking, tattooing, casual sex, deviant sex, dangerous sex, and related forms of degenerate behavior. These are things that kids must deal with growing up, and which they will be tempted to participate in, to their own detriment. It's totally different and much more insidious than cartoon or animal predator/prey violence.

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

#448

Post by SerLava » Sat, Oct 27, 2018, 4:26 AM UTC

tdeck wrote: post #437

kilburn wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most basic thing Candy Crush does that slot machines can't is adapt its behavior to the user. Candy Crush can (and does) let you play freely, only to popup the "insert coin to get help" when you are stuck. It also adjusts the game play to your level (by advancing to harder levels) so that you are always challenged and possibly get stuck. If you advance by paying, you probably will need to pay more to get further…

Casinos themselves kind of do this though, right? They give you a card with a balance to pay for games and load winnings, and sometimes they just add extra money to it if you've had a bad day to keep you playing. At least that's what I recall reading somewhere.

Hah, that's fascinating. A direct end-run around it in a way that you wouldn't think to regulate.

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

#449

Post by wutbrodo » Sat, Oct 27, 2018, 4:47 AM UTC

addicted wrote: post #342

wutbrodo wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, I'm not fully convinced either way, but it seems to me that if you're capable of understanding the arguments against something, you're capable of starting to take steps against it. This doesn't mean simply wishing an iron willpower on yourself, but one thing that worked wonders for me is modifying my environment to put barriers between me and bad things. I come from a family with a history of addiction and men…

This is not sufficient. I know that eating out every day isn't as good for me as cooking at home would probably be, but the benefits still outweigh the downsides for me, so I eat out more often than I cook at home. No one is gonna hold that against me. All these algorithms need to convince someone who is aware of their downsides is that the upsides are worth it. Instagram needs to convince someone that, sure Instagra…

Well sure; if the tradeoff is worth it for them, then they _shouldn't_ be doing it less. I'm pretty happy with the amount of junk food I eat and drugs that I do and screen time I have, because IMO the benefits outweigh the costs. It's possible for people to be bad at calculating these costs, but that doesn't require a motivated third party and is not what we're discussing here. This thread is about algorithms exploiting weakness to make you do things you think are bad.

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

#450

Post by cthalupa » Sat, Oct 27, 2018, 4:48 AM UTC

jlawson wrote: post #447

cthalupa wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There was a scene where the male Air Marshall (who was following them), woke up in a drunken haze (yes, there was a scene where shots and drinks were involved) with 2 new tattoosand in the bedroom or hotel room with another man (and all that that implied)." This appears to be a PG rated movie. This is nothing new. Let's take a step back nearly 25 years and check out things that happen in 'The Nightmare Before Christ…

Your comparison examples prove the points your arguing against. Both your examples are about fantastical violence and/or animal predator/prey violence - things that have little or no connection to a kid's real life growing up. It's not hard to dissociate real life from a casino torture chamber and a skinned head. What influence could this have on a child - make him make his own casino torture chamber? Grandparent com…

There's suggestions of casual sex and outright sexual behavior in Nightmare Before Christmas, and misogyny/rape in Watership Down. Nightmare Before Christmas includes some suggestions of using alcohol or other drugs on some of the villains.

What evidence is there that normalizing violence is less problematic to a child?

>heavy drinking,

Sure, that's not a great thing to normalize.

>tattooing,

What's wrong with tattoos?

>casual sex,

Again, something suggested in other PG movies from farther back. If your kids can handle it, they can watch it. If not, don't let them. That's what PG has always meant. It's not graphic, it doesn't show any of the foreplay, therefor it fits with the standard of PG that has existed forever.

>deviant sex,

Wait, what? Two men having sex is now deviant sex? Uh, yeah, not gonna agree there.

>dangerous sex,

Again, because it's two men? Where are you going with this?

>and related forms of degenerate behavior.

The only degenerate behavior on this list is the heavy drinking, and even that is being fairly generous to you - plenty of people have nights where they drink heavily and aren't degenerate and don't let it impact their life.

>It's totally different and much more insidious than cartoon or animal predator/prey violence.

You're making pretty huge statements here without any evidence to back it up. I don't know how much of an impact that the sort of scene in Alvin and the Chipmunk's would have on a child - I would guess probably not much, as much of the implications discussed are likely to fly right over their head - but we do know that violence, even cartoon violence, has an affect on children. http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/child-adolescent-psychiatry/...

PG movies have had this sort of content for decades. PG has never meant 'You can just show any of your young kids this.' - that is what the G rating is for. PG has always meant that there are things that you might find questionable for your child and that your parental discretion should be exercised. It's not insidious.