6 ms·

I want to know what's going on in my child's brain when they watch YouTube videos of other people playing video games.

contingencies 8y ago
Here in China there are a lot of videos of kids (or adults) playing with toys. My daughter can't get enough of them, so far as I can tell because she enjoys seeing other people create inter-toy relationships and play scenarios in their minds. She is 4, the same age as the children in this study. She's not self-reading yet but she is a vicious monopoly player and we do read to her in English and Chinese.
trentnix 8y ago
The scientific consensus is that it's something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dys8KUnwGGg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dys8KUnwGGg
atom-morgan 8y ago
Change "playing video games" to "playing football/soccer/basketball". It's just a different competitive activity.
- watwut 8y ago
  Through, kids tend to be calm after playing those sports and tend to act like jerks after playing videogames. They also focus on homework better after sport and worst after game. They are also able to stop soccer easier while not too tired, but play game longer then they can handle (leading to royally annoying behavior).
  - GuiA 8y ago
    Definitely not limited to children, I observe this in myself too. (although hopefully I handle it better than a child) I suspect that is because when playing a physical sport, the physical exertion gives you a dopamine rush whether you lose or win. When playing video games, you have no such release if you lose - just pent up frustration.
    - saulrh 8y ago
      That or the exercise means you're too tired to actually do anything with your anger and disappointment and instead just sit there hating yourself.
      - watwut 8y ago
        I don't think that describes feeling and behavior after people playing sport. Not in my experience at all. It is other way round - angry sad people are happier after physical activity (which does not have to be competitive anyway).
  - kakarot 8y ago
    I'd like some citations for that wildly presumptuous statement.
    - austincheney 8y ago
      Let’s call it repeated observation. Watching people play video games induces a drug like numbness and craved fixation followed by withdrawal once the stimulus is removed. The withdrawal is observable as a lack of cognitive concentration compounded by emotional sensitivity.
      - kakarot 8y ago
        Personal "repeated observation" is nothing more than anecdotal evidence. It doesn't mean anything. Watching anything that you enjoy will create a stimulus feedback loop. I like watching let's plays of old games and learning new strategies for old games from people who dedicate large amounts of their time and expertise to that kind of thing. I don't suddenly have a "lack of cognitive concentration compounded by emotional sensitivity" after watching. I experience the same symptoms I would if I had just watched half an hour of television, whether its a sports game or cartoon. If I was intellectually stimulated during this time, then my brain begins sorting and strengthening connections between new and old information. If I have a mental addiction to whatever I'm doing, then some negative impulses may also occur, but that happens with literally anything and is irrelevant to video games. The ideas you're suggesting, that watching someone else play video games creates negative behavior such as "focusing on homework better after sport and worst after game" is some serious armchair psychology that, unless you can provided citations to credible studies, simply has no basis in reality.
        yesenadam 8y ago
        I don't suddenly have a "lack of cognitive concentration compounded by emotional sensitivity" after watching. I experience... I'm not rude enough to just reply "That doesn't mean anything" to that, but the thought of doing so crossed my mind.
  - Nzen 8y ago
    Independent of how well this narrative typifies any particular group of people, this response is a non sequitur, in the context of the original comment. Ie, atom-morgan is suggesting that the mental experience of video game stream audience members is similar to that of sport stream audience members. Presumably, we would match a video game and sport of similar intensity (team fortress : football :: papers please : figure skating).
empath75 8y ago
I’m an adult and I do that. I watch them because I’m trying to get better at the game and watching what better players do helps. I’ve also watched people play through games to see if I want to buy them. There’s a few twitch streamers I’ll sometimes watch because I think they’re funny or whatever but that’s closer to like listening to talk radio than watching sports.
the_af 8y ago
To be fair, I want to know what's going on in my brain when I watch unboxing videos of board games.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  Maybe it's Pavlovian, you associate taking the game out of the box with the fun of playing to such an extent that you receive the reward through the paired stimulus.
scrollaway 8y ago
I'm 27. I absolutely love watching people play games (only certain games though). It's relaxing and very rewarding. For example, in a strategy game, I get to do my own strategies in my head and either: - they get executed, which makes me feel good about myself - the player executes a better strategy, which makes me go "hmm!" - the player executes a worse strategy, which makes me go "ha!" :) It's also a lot more passive than actually playing. I can hit pause or sit up and walk at any time, I don't need to finish the game or anything like that.
- rangibaby 8y ago
  I guess that is why some people watch sports too
jimmy1 8y ago
The same thing that happens when they watch other people play sports or chess or ping pong, or when I watch other people complete home improvement projects that I have been putting off for years (I swear honey, I am going to build us the radest deck one day)
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  With sport there was a recent report that as we live vicariously through the sportsmen we watch - that we're, IIRC, less likely to seek out active pursuits. As of our brain thinks we've been doing sport ourselves. When I watch chess I can almost play along, it's very close to playing for oneself. I'm not sure it's a foregone conclusion that our desire for gaming would be sated, rather than stimulated. It's probably different for children too? When I was young I couldn't watch sport; it didn't make sense to me to sit and watch someone else have fun instead of going and having fun myself.
winchling 8y ago
The practice of consuming content accompanied by a commentary or 'gloss' is an educational practice dating back to the Middle Ages: https://sites.nd.edu/manuscript-studies/2015/09/17/reading-between-and-around-the-lines-an-introduction-to-glosses-and-commentaries/ https://sites.nd.edu/manuscript-studies/2015/09/17/reading-b... The novice gets to see a more experienced student tackle the same problems, 'live'. Which helps him to identify some of his own misconceptions. The author of the book or video game is less able to assist in this way because as an expert he has forgotten his early misconceptions, suffering as he does from the Curse of Knowledge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_knowledge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_knowledge Modern publishers have dropped the practice because [insert correct historical explanation here ... because we don't copy our texts by hand?] and this may explain why textbooks now so unreadable. The practice has re-emerged spontaneously on YT because children, contrary to popular belief, actually enjoy learning things.
- hyperpallium 8y ago
  When people explain things to me, the point they make is often unhelpful... but incidentally, in the course of their explanation, I learn the crucial thing neither they nor I realized was the problem. Walkthroughs would have a similar effect.
- jacobolus 8y ago
  > dating back to the Middle Ages Or realistically long before the invention of writing. Observing the world together and explaining what is happening is one of the things parents do with their young children all the time, and is also a big part of how tutoring/coaching/mentoring works in any field, and arguably a focus of good lectures as well. Legibly adding layers of commentary in written books is a difficult typographical challenge though. Medieval-style books aren’t all that easy to read. The biggest problem by far with many current textbooks, at least in early grades, is that they are developed by people without any particular skill or expertise, based on a terrible committee process driven largely by politics and marketing. I don’t think adding interlinear annotations would help.
thret 8y ago
I think it's similar to what is going on in an adult's brain as they watch other people play sports; only a bit more sophisticated as your child likely plays the same game competitively and is gleaning strategy and insight, rather than drinking beer and cheering for a colour.

Here in China there are a lot of videos of kids (or adults) playing with toys. My daughter can't get enough of them, so far as I can tell because she enjoys seeing other people create inter-toy relationships and play scenarios in their minds. She is 4, the same age as the children in this study. She's not self-reading yet but she is a vicious monopoly player and we do read to her in English and Chinese.

trentnix 8y ago

The scientific consensus is that it's something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dys8KUnwGGg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dys8KUnwGGg

atom-morgan 8y ago

Change "playing video games" to "playing football/soccer/basketball". It's just a different competitive activity.

watwut 8y ago
Through, kids tend to be calm after playing those sports and tend to act like jerks after playing videogames. They also focus on homework better after sport and worst after game. They are also able to stop soccer easier while not too tired, but play game longer then they can handle (leading to royally annoying behavior).
- GuiA 8y ago
  Definitely not limited to children, I observe this in myself too. (although hopefully I handle it better than a child) I suspect that is because when playing a physical sport, the physical exertion gives you a dopamine rush whether you lose or win. When playing video games, you have no such release if you lose - just pent up frustration.
  - saulrh 8y ago
    That or the exercise means you're too tired to actually do anything with your anger and disappointment and instead just sit there hating yourself.
    - watwut 8y ago
      I don't think that describes feeling and behavior after people playing sport. Not in my experience at all. It is other way round - angry sad people are happier after physical activity (which does not have to be competitive anyway).
- kakarot 8y ago
  I'd like some citations for that wildly presumptuous statement.
  - austincheney 8y ago
    Let’s call it repeated observation. Watching people play video games induces a drug like numbness and craved fixation followed by withdrawal once the stimulus is removed. The withdrawal is observable as a lack of cognitive concentration compounded by emotional sensitivity.
    - kakarot 8y ago
      Personal "repeated observation" is nothing more than anecdotal evidence. It doesn't mean anything. Watching anything that you enjoy will create a stimulus feedback loop. I like watching let's plays of old games and learning new strategies for old games from people who dedicate large amounts of their time and expertise to that kind of thing. I don't suddenly have a "lack of cognitive concentration compounded by emotional sensitivity" after watching. I experience the same symptoms I would if I had just watched half an hour of television, whether its a sports game or cartoon. If I was intellectually stimulated during this time, then my brain begins sorting and strengthening connections between new and old information. If I have a mental addiction to whatever I'm doing, then some negative impulses may also occur, but that happens with literally anything and is irrelevant to video games. The ideas you're suggesting, that watching someone else play video games creates negative behavior such as "focusing on homework better after sport and worst after game" is some serious armchair psychology that, unless you can provided citations to credible studies, simply has no basis in reality.
      - yesenadam 8y ago
        I don't suddenly have a "lack of cognitive concentration compounded by emotional sensitivity" after watching. I experience... I'm not rude enough to just reply "That doesn't mean anything" to that, but the thought of doing so crossed my mind.
- Nzen 8y ago
  Independent of how well this narrative typifies any particular group of people, this response is a non sequitur, in the context of the original comment. Ie, atom-morgan is suggesting that the mental experience of video game stream audience members is similar to that of sport stream audience members. Presumably, we would match a video game and sport of similar intensity (team fortress : football :: papers please : figure skating).

empath75 8y ago

I’m an adult and I do that. I watch them because I’m trying to get better at the game and watching what better players do helps. I’ve also watched people play through games to see if I want to buy them. There’s a few twitch streamers I’ll sometimes watch because I think they’re funny or whatever but that’s closer to like listening to talk radio than watching sports.

the_af 8y ago

To be fair, I want to know what's going on in my brain when I watch unboxing videos of board games.

pbhjpbhj 8y ago
Maybe it's Pavlovian, you associate taking the game out of the box with the fun of playing to such an extent that you receive the reward through the paired stimulus.

scrollaway 8y ago

I'm 27. I absolutely love watching people play games (only certain games though). It's relaxing and very rewarding. For example, in a strategy game, I get to do my own strategies in my head and either: - they get executed, which makes me feel good about myself - the player executes a better strategy, which makes me go "hmm!" - the player executes a worse strategy, which makes me go "ha!" :) It's also a lot more passive than actually playing. I can hit pause or sit up and walk at any time, I don't need to finish the game or anything like that.

rangibaby 8y ago
I guess that is why some people watch sports too

jimmy1 8y ago

The same thing that happens when they watch other people play sports or chess or ping pong, or when I watch other people complete home improvement projects that I have been putting off for years (I swear honey, I am going to build us the radest deck one day)

pbhjpbhj 8y ago
With sport there was a recent report that as we live vicariously through the sportsmen we watch - that we're, IIRC, less likely to seek out active pursuits. As of our brain thinks we've been doing sport ourselves. When I watch chess I can almost play along, it's very close to playing for oneself. I'm not sure it's a foregone conclusion that our desire for gaming would be sated, rather than stimulated. It's probably different for children too? When I was young I couldn't watch sport; it didn't make sense to me to sit and watch someone else have fun instead of going and having fun myself.

winchling 8y ago

The practice of consuming content accompanied by a commentary or 'gloss' is an educational practice dating back to the Middle Ages: https://sites.nd.edu/manuscript-studies/2015/09/17/reading-between-and-around-the-lines-an-introduction-to-glosses-and-commentaries/ https://sites.nd.edu/manuscript-studies/2015/09/17/reading-b... The novice gets to see a more experienced student tackle the same problems, 'live'. Which helps him to identify some of his own misconceptions. The author of the book or video game is less able to assist in this way because as an expert he has forgotten his early misconceptions, suffering as he does from the Curse of Knowledge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_knowledge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_knowledge Modern publishers have dropped the practice because [insert correct historical explanation here ... because we don't copy our texts by hand?] and this may explain why textbooks now so unreadable. The practice has re-emerged spontaneously on YT because children, contrary to popular belief, actually enjoy learning things.

hyperpallium 8y ago
When people explain things to me, the point they make is often unhelpful... but incidentally, in the course of their explanation, I learn the crucial thing neither they nor I realized was the problem. Walkthroughs would have a similar effect.
jacobolus 8y ago
> dating back to the Middle Ages Or realistically long before the invention of writing. Observing the world together and explaining what is happening is one of the things parents do with their young children all the time, and is also a big part of how tutoring/coaching/mentoring works in any field, and arguably a focus of good lectures as well. Legibly adding layers of commentary in written books is a difficult typographical challenge though. Medieval-style books aren’t all that easy to read. The biggest problem by far with many current textbooks, at least in early grades, is that they are developed by people without any particular skill or expertise, based on a terrible committee process driven largely by politics and marketing. I don’t think adding interlinear annotations would help.

thret 8y ago

I think it's similar to what is going on in an adult's brain as they watch other people play sports; only a bit more sophisticated as your child likely plays the same game competitively and is gleaning strategy and insight, rather than drinking beer and cheering for a colour.