Biscuits and Gravy wrote: ↑Tue Jul 30, 2024 10:20 am
I haven’t decided if “getting rid of the TV” also includes “getting rid of video games.” I’d appreciate some input here. I grew up on video games and I have good memories of playing with my sisters and I also built connections and friendships through the activity. Right now, I have my old PS4 set up in our reading room where my daughter can play the free trial version of Minecraft. She’s obsessed with it, and I’m not using “obsessed” here in the Gen Z offhand manner. My inclination is to leave video games available, but to limit play to an hour a day and never on school days. I dunno. That is a lot for me to enforce, and I am shit at enforcing.
Within the idea of ration limits lies the assumption that video games are somehow all bad.
Anecdotally, my childhood had two eras. LEGO from age 2 (as long as I can remember, my earliest verifiable memory was literally playing with LEGOs under a table when my sister was baptized) to 12 and computers from age 12 to 21ish. If my computing time had been rationed, I would be a very different person today. Of course it was a different time and a different kind of games. I remember typing in BASIC code from magazines in order to play "Lunar Lander", replacing burned out sound chips, etc. Thirty years ago, one needed a much better understanding of computers to play games than today. For the most part, games were a gateway or incentive to computing in general. It eventually led me online (in 1989) and the ability to connect with people of a similar level of intelligence---a connection that wasn't really available offline locally---which caused a material shift in mindset and attitude towards learning and thinking. I went from cruising on my talents to wanting to use them as best as I could; school and conformity be damned.
After getting into university, I didn't spend much time on gaming for the next 25 years figuring I better concentrate on real life stuff. After acquiring the "been there, done that"-shirt wrt all the real life stuff I can think of and needing a break, I only recently picked it [gaming] up again.
Today, gaming is very different, so it's hard to give a one-size-fits-all in terms of rationing limits. Some games are but mere dopamine traps for the idling mind. Other games are more challenging and enriching than the IRL games of careerism and consumerism that adults play. For example, a game like the Kerbal Space Program will give a much better understanding of orbital mechanics and rocket science than a 101 course at college. Ostensibly the ability to fly a modern flight sim is worth 10 hours of actual flying lessons. On the other hand, a game like Pokemon Go (which I've also spent a lot of time on, I'm level 47 (out of 50) for those who know what that means) is only good for getting me outside for a daily walk. Otherwise, all that game knowledge (I now know more types of pokemons than nuclear isotopes or stock tickers) is useless garbage information. Conversely, a game like World of Warships, which superficially looks like a bunch of battleships moving around and shooting at each other, has strategic and tactical depth beyond what I can fathom---as in I still discover new ways to think about [doctrine] and improve my game(*). I used to think that eSports was a joke, but I get it now. The kind of team coordination you see in soccer is just the starting point of the kind of team coordination you need the succeed in Wows and presumable other eSport team games.
(*) OTOH, I'm also aware of players who have spent several thousands of hours and still play like morons (one thing about modern computing is that everything is recorded, including how good everyone is). Just because a game offers depth doesn't mean that everybody is magically going to absorb it and become "deep". Playing Baby Mozart isn't going to turn the average baby into a virtuoso. More likely, it's just going to annoy them.
So, it depends. And this leads me to one of my peeves when it comes to older generations. Many parents don't really pay much attention to or maybe more importantly don't demonstrate/commit much interest in what the younger generations are doing(**). They just default to the idea that new things are all bad and old things are all wholesome.
(**) My lack of interest in the kind of humans who desperately wants to become best friends with the goat they just saw in a petting zoo is part of why I chose not to become a parent.
What can I say? Humans are dumb
This goes for everybody, BTW, not just parents. However, I don't think that good parenting can afford not to care about what their kids are actually doing. It's easy to just file all their screen activities as "video games" and declare a 1hr limit. However, if I was me, I'd be very interested in the particular games that they're playing. Not just in order to establish a connection but also to know what's coming 20-30 years when their worldview "grows up" and starts reforming the world. Whatever they do now might help or hurt them later.
This [level of engagement] requires a bit more effort. Perhaps playing enough video games yourself to be accepted or at least respected and connected and perhaps even suggest something better. You'd probably want to know if their favorite FPS shooter also has a discord channel that serves as recruitment channel for polite neonazis. You'd maybe want to know if their understanding of the laws of traffic or good behavior is based on kindness or GTA. You might want to treat an eSports game the same way you'd treat a tradSports game. If the kid shows talents, maybe not go "sorry, we have a 1hr/day limit on any outdoor activity that involves hitting a ball on grass"... but take them to a e-tournament where it will become clear that if they want to become great, they have to put in their 10,000 hours of deliberate practice. You'd want to know enough to be able to recommend how they up their game, like if they spend^H^H^H^H^Hwaste all that time on Pokemon, maybe they should move onto Ingress and consider actual coordination with fellow players. At least if they don't (because they're being obstinate teenagers) they'll eventually realize that you were right all along later on.
(Note, my response is a bit eSports oriented, because that's like 95% of where I currently spend my gaming efforts. However, not everybody is interested in sporting competitions. As such, consider
https://mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm ... also referenced in the ERE book as it applies to all walks of life whether offline or online. For example, maybe the kids like to play socializing games. In that case, you'd want to know who they're socializing with. Like, when I first got online 35 years ago, random socializing always led to other nerds which made it not only okay to be a nerd but also something to strive for instead of hiding under a blanket of conformity. Whereas today, socializing randomly easily leads into dark disinformation echo chambers. Case in point: older generation "racist grandpa"-types who didn't care to pay attention as the newfangled techmology came into being and thus lack any kind of informational immune system.)
In short, when it comes to raising children, I'm defaulting to my standard pattern of raising adults. You should know enough to engage with them at the inspiring +1 level of where they currently are in life. This is easy when students know nothing. It's a lot harder if the student doesn't know anything but thinks they do. Fortunately, that's rarely the case with preteens. Later it gets harder. When the student surpasses the teacher, you succeeded and can let them go or fly or whatever the saying is.
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