parents are less involved in their kids livesit’s no longer safe for kids to play outside in many placessocietal distancing is worse then everthere’s a mental health crisis that has been ignoredthere’s a lack in healthy role models and an abundance of toxic onesall across the world there’s political turmoil caused by politicians convincing the people to hate eachother rather than those in poweraddiction has been normalized, kids watch their parents glued to their phones and they learnkids are taught that they can become anything but will need to come to grips with the reality that they simply cannot- Muh video games
Video game addiction is a symptom of multiple societal issues, you cannot simply solve it dealing with the symptom.
Thanks this is far better then the posts blaming parents like they’re the only vector in their child’s life.
While parents certainly have a part to play societal issues are the underlying cause.
And making their parents lives better would address most of those societal issues.
But it’s so much easier to just blame the one thing, pretend to do something about it, and claim we’ve made progress.
By “no longer safe to play outside” are you referring to the people operating child murdering trucks?
I live in a city outside of the US, it’s not particularly safe for kids to play outside as there is crazy traffic and nowhere to really go.
There are just a few small parks in the city and they are not easily accessible.
When I lived in the states, I played outside with friends in the suburbs, but stopped around high school, as there were very few kids in my neighborhood and previous friends moved away/outgrew playing as they were older than me.
What else are they gonna do? Play outside in the 100+heat highway adjacent parking lot?
We closed all the youth centers, made it illegal to loiter, banned them from places like coffee shops and malls, made parks miles away from residential home, prevented them from any mobility until they’re 16… It’s those damn video games!
I mean god forbid we let them go outside and have unstructured time. They might get addicted to something.
I am 51 years old. I distinctly remember “articles” with headlines like this about arcades and the Atari 2600 when I was a kid. This bullshit never ends.
Not to mention the younger generation with no work ethic, unlike in my day… 5am start 6 days a week… builds character… then school… uphill… both ways… respected our elders… bought first house with 22… kids now… no respect… video games… no work ethic… living with parents at 30… avocado on toast… no house… AVOCADO ON TOAST.
I wonder about “critical” addiction. I don’t remember reading about people putting 12h a day into atari intellivision, nes era platforms
IDK, I certainly would’ve if I could as a kid, because NES and Atari were tons of fun. I probably did actually do that on occasion when doing a sleepover with friends (we loved the Olympics game for NES with the pad).
I wouldn’t say I was addicted though, I excelled in school and made sure to finish my school work on time. But I really did like games, and I still do.
“And now our next story. Despite record heat waves, funneling money from public programs, ipad kids, crowed and underfunded schools, book bans, increasing everything so parents can afford less, increasing political unrest and an ever present threat of violence due to lacking gun control, kids seem to only want to play video games!”
“Kids no longer desire to go play outside.”
Outside: record heat waves; strip malls; endless, soulless commodification of human experience; hostile adults; constant, overprotective ties to the rest of the world via invasive tech; hostile capitalism…
Oh, and all this is depressing everyone.
Those things are absolutely contributing factors. But don’t be so dismissive of the allure of video games. I grew up in paradise compared to what you describe, and we did play outside pretty much all the time. Then the NES came out. Our parents had to pry our asses from the TVs and throw us outside after that and threaten us with punishment if we didn’t go outside to play. All we ever wanted to do was play Nintendo from there on out. Then some friends got computers… Yeah not much time was spent outside in paradise after that. And these days many games are designed to be addictive, to make you spend more time in them. We didn’t have that and we were still hooked.
I’m not saying that to bash games or anything, I still love games and have been a computer nerd since back then, I’m just saying.
I was a child with an NES and virtually every Nintendo machine thereafter. Parents said my first language was Nintendo.
I still played outside all the time. I regularly rode my bike all over town. I didn’t have to be threatened to play outside. I dunno, people and situations are different, I guess.
That said, it’s certainly harder for kids now. I have a hard time imagining letting my kid ride a bike all over town, mostly because of traffic and stupid drivers. The free public places I used to hang out with my friends are largely gone now. Plus, like you say, the games are now designed to be addicting specifically in the ways that regularly extract more money from players. It’s just kinda bad if you’re not versed enough in the gaming ecosystem to know what’s a worthwhile experience and what’s a cash grab.
10 years old… impossible to resist
The solution here is parenting.
I have kids that age, my kids have consoles, and they don’t play into the wee hours of the morning. Why? Because I don’t let them. I don’t have draconian parental controls or whatever, I just tell them they’re not allowed and put consequences in place if they disobey. As they get older, the allowed playtime goes up, provided they’re meeting their obligations.
It’s not rocket surgery, just don’t suck at being a parent.
That said, I imagine there are cases where even a good parent can not notice deviant behavior like this. But for the vast majority, a few rules and regular checking in should cover it.
I know when I was a kid I always wanted to sneak out (to the other room) and play more games after bed. A couple times Many times I did. And I got caught, and got in trouble.
Yup, that’s my plan as well.
I learned far more about setting reasonable limits by getting caught than I ever would with software blocks. I was very curious about computers, so I probably could’ve gotten around software blocks if I tried, but the guilt of my parents catching me and explaining why I need limits was much more effective.
It takes more effort, but hopefully the lessons learned are more lasting.
Yep I would try to find ways around. Games my parents wouldn’t get me I’d give money to my friends to buy me a copy when they went off to get their own. And that’s fine. Important thing is boundaries are something they are aware of even if they break them. That to me seems like parenting. It’s not fool proof and rules are going to get broken, but it’s not a reason to not make an effort.
Every console and PC has parental controls that limit screen time. It’s 100% on parents if they don’t set it up.
Or, do what my mom did and take it away. I hated her for it, but I admit 20 years later that that was called parenting.
I refuse to use parental controls, because I know my kids will find a way around it (I would). I instead set firm rules with relatively severe consequences if they’re not followed. Once I login to the PC, there’s no time limit, content filters, etc.
That said, my youngest kept getting into the Switch and messing up peoples’ saves, so I put a parental lock on it, but I told my older kids the code and told them I trust them with it. If they abuse their time with it, they lose the console privilege.
It seems to be working. I’ll probably give them a PC soon since they’re doing a decent job stopping when their timer goes off (they set the timer according to our rules). We have limits (2hr max per day, must be done with homework, they earn time by reading), but again, I don’t enforce them with software, I enforce them with the threat of loss of privileges.