7 ms·

I may be old fashioned, but 4 seems way too young to start video games. Especially non kid friendly ones with so much action on the screen. But then again my w

I may be old fashioned, but 4 seems way too young to start video games. Especially non kid friendly ones with so much action on the screen. But then again my wife are trying to delay any interactive screen time as long as possible.

randlet 9y ago
I was mouth agape through the whole article. Call me old fashioned too, but I don't want my 5 year old killing things with swords when their grasp on what is real and imaginary is so blurry. It blows my mind that most of the kids in my daughter's junior kindergarten class have seen Star Wars movies, Spiderman, and other violent movies. I'm not against a 4 or 5 year old using a tablet for a limited account of time for interactive educational 'games' but guns and swords is well over the line. Edit: Contra at age 6!
- scottLobster 9y ago
  When I was 4 and 5 I played with plastic swords, squirt guns and watched Power Rangers. shrug My 6 year old nephew plays Super Smash Brothers. When I was 6 I explicitly remember my friends playing Sonic and Super Mario and X-Wing/Tie-Fighter. None of them grew up to be school shooters. I'll limit the exposure time, but I'd let my kids play contra at 6. My parents went the educational-games-only route until 6th grade, and I was shut out of a lot of social situations as a result. No desire for my kids to go through that.
  - randlet 9y ago
    "None of them grew up to be school shooters." Please don't put implications in my post that aren't there. I'm not aware of research that suggests video games are or are not a factor in school shootings and similar events. Letting a kid play a game about killing people with machine guns at age 6 is crazy to me. I was also shut out of social situations like seeing movies and playing video games at a young age and I imagine my children will be to. It hurt at the time sure, but life ain't always about getting what you want or doing what everyone else is.
    - scottLobster 9y ago
      You implied that cartoonish violence like Contra will have substantially negative psychological effects on children. I've never seen any support for that and my own experiences tell me the opposite. A quick google search shows evidence going both ways, so lacking time for an exhaustive analysis I'm sticking with my experiences. Take my anecdotes with as big a grain of salt as you like, but analytically the benefits didn't outweigh the cons in my case. Not having access to the same video games, movies and entertainment as my peers greatly damaged my ability to form relationships at a young age. The only upside was perhaps a marginal increase in analytical thinking skills, which was easily offset by the anxiety/insecurities and resultant academic underperformance I had as a result of underdeveloped social skills. Your kids' mileage may vary. Sure I grew up and that's all long in the past now, but that doesn't mean it was useful, justified, or harmless. When the fiancée and I decide to have kids, I intend to give them every opportunity I can within reason, that includes the resources for a vibrant social life if they want. Obviously I won't be buying them Grand Theft Auto at age 6, but Star Wars? Absolutely.
      - randlet 9y ago
        "You implied that cartoonish violence like Contra will have substantially negative psychological effects on children." I do believe they have negative effects on children but I don't believe that extends to school shootings. Are you sure it was a lack of video games and movies that let you to have trouble forming relationships? My anecdote is that even though I had virtually no video games (except at friends houses) or television until highschool I was still able to form (and maintain for 30+ years) friendships with my peers who had very different rules than I did, and had a full social life all through school (I do consider myself a strong introvert and have had social anxiety issues in past, but I would never point at lack of TV/games growing up as a root cause). Like you said, neither one of us has hard data, only anecdotal stories with different outcomes for similar "media" parenting strategies. Even if there is no negative consequence on an individual child relative to their peer group, I still believe (can't support with evidence obviously) that exposing children to violence in video games and movies is a net societal negative that I don't intend to contribute to. edit: Just wanted to say I appreciate your perspective as it's one I hadn't even considered before and gave me some food for thought.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- throwanem 9y ago
  Hell, I learned to shoot at age six, and got my first Daisy air rifle not long after. Can't say as it did me or anyone else any harm, except for the one time I bounced a ricochet off the bridge of my nose and had a welt for a couple of days - I've never so much as aimed a firearm at another human being, and that includes the air gun wars which were the occasional recreation of the more reckless among my cohort. On the other hand, nine might've been too young to take my first deer; I've never had any particular desire to hunt since then, although if it were that or starve, I suppose I'd do the former - not that it'd be hard around here, where whitetail are abundant and have no fear of humans. It did teach me a great deal, though I might rather have learned it a few years later than when I did; on the other hand, I doubt I'd have been able to. In any case, while I certainly still eat venison when the opportunity presents, on the whole I'm still much happier to shoot deer with a camera than a rifle. I never really noticed much one way or the other about video game guns. Seems like a lot of stew from one oyster, but I don't suppose anyone should take the word of a Mississippi Borderer brat for much of anything.
  - randlet 9y ago
    I am not "anti-gun". I don't own guns but I did grow up in rural Canada and had plenty of exposure to guns, hunting, and have enjoyed skeet and target shooting myself etc. Guns are a tool which can be useful. It's the violence and normalization of it that I'm opposed to.
- khedoros1 9y ago
  I'd seen Star Wars by the time I was 5. I'd played various NES games, at least including Duck Hunt. My wife grew up around 3 brothers who included her in various things that would've made my parents blush. You don't sound old-fashioned, so I won't call you that. I was thinking more like "alarmist". I think it's possible to harm a child through exposure to violent content, but I don't think it's as easy as you seem to. In particular, I'd consider cartoonish violence essentially harmless. My son won't be around FPSes for a number of years, but NES-style games? Can't be worse than 80s Saturday morning cartoons.
mquander 9y ago
I'm a prospective parent wondering how to approach this for my future kids. How do you think about the categorization of "screen time" vs. non-"screen time"? Is there a reason I should be more concerned about my 6-year-old playing Final Fantasy than if they spent the same time reading young adult fiction? Playing Spelunky vs. playing softball? (I get that there are object-level differences; maybe young adult fiction is better than Final Fantasy at teaching something about culture, or they get more reading practice. But maybe Final Fantasy is better at teaching simple math. So I'm mostly interested in the general "screen time" vs. "not screen time" distinction.)
- ux-app 9y ago
  before I was a parent I was anti screen time. Now that I am a parent of a 3yr old I'm pro screen time within reason. I was really surprised to the huge amount of language development that occurs through screen time. My son at age 2 could name all the Thomas the Tank Engine characters. There are probably 30+ of them! I was blown away by the phraseology he absorbed/adapted from children's cartoons. There is real learning that happens in front of a screen. It's certainly not as passive as it would seem! A child's expression when watching a screen can be disturbing at times (zombie like is a good description), but I've overcome my initial misgivings. Mixed in with play, exposure to other children, outside time etc. it's really a great tool. It also gives mum and dad some down time which is nice ;)
mcphage 9y ago
> But then again my wife are trying to delay any interactive screen time as long as possible. See, interactive screen time I don't mind at all. It's the passive screen time—YouTube, Paw Patrol, or even when my wife watches football during football season—that I have a problem with. As long as my kids are thinking and responding to what they're watching, I'm okay with it.
- thwarted 9y ago
  interactive screen time I don't mind at all. It's the passive screen time—YouTube, Paw Patrol, or even when my wife watches football during football season—that I have a problem with. As long as my kids are thinking and responding to what they're watching, I'm okay with it. My 8yo son has been watching YouTube videos for inspiration for a few years now. He gets excited about something he sees in a game on youtube — Minecraft, Scrap Mechanic, Cities Skylines, Garry's Mod — then starts working on something similar himself, coming up with his own "challenges", setting up races for himself and me to compete against each other in, and making his own videos (which are really rough, but then we have a chance to talk about appropriate content in shared videos, and we review them together before making them public). He's had a few situations where he couldn't figure out how to make things work, like Minecraft redstone machines, and we go back over the video he saw it in and work through it. It's a great way to spend time with him, working on something together, and learning something and doing some critical thinking. I monitor his usage (I have a chrome profile that is logged into his account under my domain) to check the viewing history and (un)suggest things for him, to open up a dialog about the content of some videos.
  - mcphage 9y ago
    > He gets excited about something he sees in a game on youtube — Minecraft, Scrap Mechanic, Cities Skylines, Garry's Mod — then starts working on something similar himself See, that seems good. My oldest is still a bit young for that, and usually ends up on the "people playing with toys" subset of YouTube, which is... a lot less stimulating.
    - ux-app 9y ago
ensignavenger 9y ago
Why? Is there some research I haven't seen that conclusively demonstrates some danger from interacting with electronics at an early age? Or is it a social or personal preference?
- turtlebits 9y ago
  Personal preference. I feel as entertainment, it's too "low barrier?" and I see too many parents using electronics as a distraction/anti-boredom tool. It also helps me be "more present" when I'm not using electronics (my phone) when I'm around my kid.
- dTal 9y ago
  I don't know of any research, but the issue is that it's too highly stimulating. Real life can't compete with carefully engineered intermittent dopamine rushes. So you end up with fidgety kids who are uncomfortable unless they're getting some sort of "fix". It's a silent epidemic. Some years ago I went hitchhiking through Iceland. Gorgeous country. Of all the cars I rode in, maybe half a dozen had children. In every instance - EVERY single instance - the child had an iPad or phone, and was playing with that instead of admiring some of the most beautiful scenery in the world.
abritinthebay 9y ago
I started playing games on my Atari at 4, was PEEK & POKE "programming" by 5ish and at 7-8 was modifying my own games based on source code copied from Atari User magazine. Nothing wrong with engaged, mindful, and productive interaction.
memco 9y ago
I started playing the NES around that age. I now have an infant and have to think about how to introduce electronics to her. I too have reservations, but (I think) I turned out fine so maybe it's not too young?
cableshaft 9y ago
The first game I remember playing was Millipede in the arcades at Chuck E. Cheese's when I was 4. And Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. very shortly after that (maybe the same day). I'm sure I was garbage at it, but they attracted my eye and I begged until my parents relented. My brother started playing the NES with me when he was about 4 years old (maybe 5, can't quite remember). We played the hell out of hard games like Contra together. And my parents aren't particularly into video games. I actually started learning the basics of how to write software when I was 7 or 8 years old (copying and tweaking BASIC programs out of checked out library books, playing around with Hypercard on the one school Macintosh in the library). I think people can handle things much younger than most older people assume.

randlet 9y ago

I was mouth agape through the whole article. Call me old fashioned too, but I don't want my 5 year old killing things with swords when their grasp on what is real and imaginary is so blurry. It blows my mind that most of the kids in my daughter's junior kindergarten class have seen Star Wars movies, Spiderman, and other violent movies. I'm not against a 4 or 5 year old using a tablet for a limited account of time for interactive educational 'games' but guns and swords is well over the line. Edit: Contra at age 6!

scottLobster 9y ago
When I was 4 and 5 I played with plastic swords, squirt guns and watched Power Rangers. shrug My 6 year old nephew plays Super Smash Brothers. When I was 6 I explicitly remember my friends playing Sonic and Super Mario and X-Wing/Tie-Fighter. None of them grew up to be school shooters. I'll limit the exposure time, but I'd let my kids play contra at 6. My parents went the educational-games-only route until 6th grade, and I was shut out of a lot of social situations as a result. No desire for my kids to go through that.
- randlet 9y ago
  "None of them grew up to be school shooters." Please don't put implications in my post that aren't there. I'm not aware of research that suggests video games are or are not a factor in school shootings and similar events. Letting a kid play a game about killing people with machine guns at age 6 is crazy to me. I was also shut out of social situations like seeing movies and playing video games at a young age and I imagine my children will be to. It hurt at the time sure, but life ain't always about getting what you want or doing what everyone else is.
  - scottLobster 9y ago
    You implied that cartoonish violence like Contra will have substantially negative psychological effects on children. I've never seen any support for that and my own experiences tell me the opposite. A quick google search shows evidence going both ways, so lacking time for an exhaustive analysis I'm sticking with my experiences. Take my anecdotes with as big a grain of salt as you like, but analytically the benefits didn't outweigh the cons in my case. Not having access to the same video games, movies and entertainment as my peers greatly damaged my ability to form relationships at a young age. The only upside was perhaps a marginal increase in analytical thinking skills, which was easily offset by the anxiety/insecurities and resultant academic underperformance I had as a result of underdeveloped social skills. Your kids' mileage may vary. Sure I grew up and that's all long in the past now, but that doesn't mean it was useful, justified, or harmless. When the fiancée and I decide to have kids, I intend to give them every opportunity I can within reason, that includes the resources for a vibrant social life if they want. Obviously I won't be buying them Grand Theft Auto at age 6, but Star Wars? Absolutely.
    - randlet 9y ago
      "You implied that cartoonish violence like Contra will have substantially negative psychological effects on children." I do believe they have negative effects on children but I don't believe that extends to school shootings. Are you sure it was a lack of video games and movies that let you to have trouble forming relationships? My anecdote is that even though I had virtually no video games (except at friends houses) or television until highschool I was still able to form (and maintain for 30+ years) friendships with my peers who had very different rules than I did, and had a full social life all through school (I do consider myself a strong introvert and have had social anxiety issues in past, but I would never point at lack of TV/games growing up as a root cause). Like you said, neither one of us has hard data, only anecdotal stories with different outcomes for similar "media" parenting strategies. Even if there is no negative consequence on an individual child relative to their peer group, I still believe (can't support with evidence obviously) that exposing children to violence in video games and movies is a net societal negative that I don't intend to contribute to. edit: Just wanted to say I appreciate your perspective as it's one I hadn't even considered before and gave me some food for thought.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
throwanem 9y ago
Hell, I learned to shoot at age six, and got my first Daisy air rifle not long after. Can't say as it did me or anyone else any harm, except for the one time I bounced a ricochet off the bridge of my nose and had a welt for a couple of days - I've never so much as aimed a firearm at another human being, and that includes the air gun wars which were the occasional recreation of the more reckless among my cohort. On the other hand, nine might've been too young to take my first deer; I've never had any particular desire to hunt since then, although if it were that or starve, I suppose I'd do the former - not that it'd be hard around here, where whitetail are abundant and have no fear of humans. It did teach me a great deal, though I might rather have learned it a few years later than when I did; on the other hand, I doubt I'd have been able to. In any case, while I certainly still eat venison when the opportunity presents, on the whole I'm still much happier to shoot deer with a camera than a rifle. I never really noticed much one way or the other about video game guns. Seems like a lot of stew from one oyster, but I don't suppose anyone should take the word of a Mississippi Borderer brat for much of anything.
- randlet 9y ago
  I am not "anti-gun". I don't own guns but I did grow up in rural Canada and had plenty of exposure to guns, hunting, and have enjoyed skeet and target shooting myself etc. Guns are a tool which can be useful. It's the violence and normalization of it that I'm opposed to.
khedoros1 9y ago
I'd seen Star Wars by the time I was 5. I'd played various NES games, at least including Duck Hunt. My wife grew up around 3 brothers who included her in various things that would've made my parents blush. You don't sound old-fashioned, so I won't call you that. I was thinking more like "alarmist". I think it's possible to harm a child through exposure to violent content, but I don't think it's as easy as you seem to. In particular, I'd consider cartoonish violence essentially harmless. My son won't be around FPSes for a number of years, but NES-style games? Can't be worse than 80s Saturday morning cartoons.

mquander 9y ago

I'm a prospective parent wondering how to approach this for my future kids. How do you think about the categorization of "screen time" vs. non-"screen time"? Is there a reason I should be more concerned about my 6-year-old playing Final Fantasy than if they spent the same time reading young adult fiction? Playing Spelunky vs. playing softball? (I get that there are object-level differences; maybe young adult fiction is better than Final Fantasy at teaching something about culture, or they get more reading practice. But maybe Final Fantasy is better at teaching simple math. So I'm mostly interested in the general "screen time" vs. "not screen time" distinction.)

ux-app 9y ago
before I was a parent I was anti screen time. Now that I am a parent of a 3yr old I'm pro screen time within reason. I was really surprised to the huge amount of language development that occurs through screen time. My son at age 2 could name all the Thomas the Tank Engine characters. There are probably 30+ of them! I was blown away by the phraseology he absorbed/adapted from children's cartoons. There is real learning that happens in front of a screen. It's certainly not as passive as it would seem! A child's expression when watching a screen can be disturbing at times (zombie like is a good description), but I've overcome my initial misgivings. Mixed in with play, exposure to other children, outside time etc. it's really a great tool. It also gives mum and dad some down time which is nice ;)

mcphage 9y ago

> But then again my wife are trying to delay any interactive screen time as long as possible. See, interactive screen time I don't mind at all. It's the passive screen time—YouTube, Paw Patrol, or even when my wife watches football during football season—that I have a problem with. As long as my kids are thinking and responding to what they're watching, I'm okay with it.

thwarted 9y ago
interactive screen time I don't mind at all. It's the passive screen time—YouTube, Paw Patrol, or even when my wife watches football during football season—that I have a problem with. As long as my kids are thinking and responding to what they're watching, I'm okay with it. My 8yo son has been watching YouTube videos for inspiration for a few years now. He gets excited about something he sees in a game on youtube — Minecraft, Scrap Mechanic, Cities Skylines, Garry's Mod — then starts working on something similar himself, coming up with his own "challenges", setting up races for himself and me to compete against each other in, and making his own videos (which are really rough, but then we have a chance to talk about appropriate content in shared videos, and we review them together before making them public). He's had a few situations where he couldn't figure out how to make things work, like Minecraft redstone machines, and we go back over the video he saw it in and work through it. It's a great way to spend time with him, working on something together, and learning something and doing some critical thinking. I monitor his usage (I have a chrome profile that is logged into his account under my domain) to check the viewing history and (un)suggest things for him, to open up a dialog about the content of some videos.
- mcphage 9y ago
  > He gets excited about something he sees in a game on youtube — Minecraft, Scrap Mechanic, Cities Skylines, Garry's Mod — then starts working on something similar himself See, that seems good. My oldest is still a bit young for that, and usually ends up on the "people playing with toys" subset of YouTube, which is... a lot less stimulating.
  - ux-app 9y ago

ensignavenger 9y ago

Why? Is there some research I haven't seen that conclusively demonstrates some danger from interacting with electronics at an early age? Or is it a social or personal preference?

turtlebits 9y ago
Personal preference. I feel as entertainment, it's too "low barrier?" and I see too many parents using electronics as a distraction/anti-boredom tool. It also helps me be "more present" when I'm not using electronics (my phone) when I'm around my kid.
dTal 9y ago
I don't know of any research, but the issue is that it's too highly stimulating. Real life can't compete with carefully engineered intermittent dopamine rushes. So you end up with fidgety kids who are uncomfortable unless they're getting some sort of "fix". It's a silent epidemic. Some years ago I went hitchhiking through Iceland. Gorgeous country. Of all the cars I rode in, maybe half a dozen had children. In every instance - EVERY single instance - the child had an iPad or phone, and was playing with that instead of admiring some of the most beautiful scenery in the world.

abritinthebay 9y ago

I started playing games on my Atari at 4, was PEEK & POKE "programming" by 5ish and at 7-8 was modifying my own games based on source code copied from Atari User magazine. Nothing wrong with engaged, mindful, and productive interaction.

memco 9y ago

I started playing the NES around that age. I now have an infant and have to think about how to introduce electronics to her. I too have reservations, but (I think) I turned out fine so maybe it's not too young?

cableshaft 9y ago

The first game I remember playing was Millipede in the arcades at Chuck E. Cheese's when I was 4. And Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. very shortly after that (maybe the same day). I'm sure I was garbage at it, but they attracted my eye and I begged until my parents relented. My brother started playing the NES with me when he was about 4 years old (maybe 5, can't quite remember). We played the hell out of hard games like Contra together. And my parents aren't particularly into video games. I actually started learning the basics of how to write software when I was 7 or 8 years old (copying and tweaking BASIC programs out of checked out library books, playing around with Hypercard on the one school Macintosh in the library). I think people can handle things much younger than most older people assume.