3 ms·

1. Well-being is not the only thing worth caring about. 2. The person you are addressing is talking about gaming, not screen time. 3. I don't see how you can

1. Well-being is not the only thing worth caring about. 2. The person you are addressing is talking about gaming, not screen time. 3. I don't see how you can deny that most games are made to be addictive, that innumerable people - especially teenagers - become addicted, and that this has a detrimental effect on their becoming full, rounded and developed persons.

rayiner 8y ago
Well being seems like a pretty comprehensive definition of what parents should be concerned about. And I can deny the detrimental effects of gaming because studies have repeatedly debunked that idea.
- Emma_Goldman 8y ago
  That's interesting. Can you cite those studies? I don't see, however, how a study would 'debunk' the possibility of gaming having detrimental effects. It might that show that on average the detrimental effects are negligible. But that does not show, in the least, that parents have nothing to worry about: clearly there are a sizable number of people for whom it is detrimental. Even if that is offset by benefits spread across the statistical population, it's still a problem for those particular people. And to be honest, I'm skeptical to concede even this much. I think you have to possess a highly etiolated idea of what the human 'good' is to believe that playing video games for dozens of hours a week - which millions of people do - is not to its detriment. It might be very fun. In a way, it can even be social. Both those things are important. But it's hardly the best and fullest exercise of human creativity and imagination, intelligence and enlightment, expansion and self-development, love and desire, etc.
  - Shaanie 8y ago
    >But it's hardly the best and fullest exercise of human creativity and imagination, intelligence and enlightment, expansion and self-development, love and desire, etc No, but it's probably better than watching TV or using social media which are likely the most common substitutes for games.
    - Apocryphon 8y ago
      With the advent of games streaming, MMOs, and so on, all of these media are increasingly blurred together.
  - crispinb 8y ago
    In any case you'd need longitudinal studies to properly evaluate any detrimental effects, given they are likely to be developmental in nature. > I think you have to possess a highly etiolated idea of what the human 'good' is ... Quite. Well being is contested & value-laden terrain. One would really need to read a paper & the theoretical background it emerges from before affirming the concept of well being its measures purport to operationalise. Having said that, contemporary wealthy societies specialise in etiolated concepts of the good life, so this would hardly be an exception. A consumer-subject plugged-in more or less permanently to corporate product is the dream.
- crispinb 8y ago
  Only if bewitched by the phrase. It's hard enough to agree philosophically on what constitutes well being for humans, so to accept psychological measures of it without very careful examination is a leap of faith I wouldn't take. > And I can deny the detrimental effects of gaming because studies have repeatedly debunked that idea. Again, you're taking a lot on faith there based on a relatively small amount of research done during only a few years. Exposing young people during significant portions of their waking hours to computers/screens is one of the widest-scale social experiments ever undertaken. It could take generations to fully understand its implications. I don't have a horse in this particular race and agree that many comments on the topic smack of moral panic. The most rational thing to do at this stage is reserve judgement. We don't know everything, and it's very early days yet. Having said that, if I were a parent, given the gravity of the responsibility, I'd be cautious at least.
  - rayiner 8y ago
    The resistance of other parents to data and logic is shocking to me, and one of the things I hate the most about being a parent.
    - ced 8y ago
      You seem to place a lot of faith in uncontrolled social science studies.
  - solveit 8y ago
    >if I were a parent, given the gravity of the responsibility, I'd be cautious at least. I'm curious as to what this entails, because >Exposing young people during significant portions of their waking hours to computers/screens is one of the widest-scale social experiments ever undertaken. This is false. A kid in the year 2000 has a radically different childhood from a kid in 1950 (who had the kind of childhood that people opposing screentime seem to want), who in turn has a radically different childhood from a kid in 1850 (who was probably working in a coal mine or sweeping chimneys or something). There is no way to be cautiously conservative because there is no default to default to. In fact, I find it a remarkable coincidence that out of humanity's 100,000 year history, the perfect childhood just happens to be the one that today's old people had. Rest assured that in 1950, there were just as many old people bemoaning their youth that didn't know the value of hard work and spent all their time watching movies.

rayiner 8y ago

Well being seems like a pretty comprehensive definition of what parents should be concerned about. And I can deny the detrimental effects of gaming because studies have repeatedly debunked that idea.

Emma_Goldman 8y ago
That's interesting. Can you cite those studies? I don't see, however, how a study would 'debunk' the possibility of gaming having detrimental effects. It might that show that on average the detrimental effects are negligible. But that does not show, in the least, that parents have nothing to worry about: clearly there are a sizable number of people for whom it is detrimental. Even if that is offset by benefits spread across the statistical population, it's still a problem for those particular people. And to be honest, I'm skeptical to concede even this much. I think you have to possess a highly etiolated idea of what the human 'good' is to believe that playing video games for dozens of hours a week - which millions of people do - is not to its detriment. It might be very fun. In a way, it can even be social. Both those things are important. But it's hardly the best and fullest exercise of human creativity and imagination, intelligence and enlightment, expansion and self-development, love and desire, etc.
- Shaanie 8y ago
  >But it's hardly the best and fullest exercise of human creativity and imagination, intelligence and enlightment, expansion and self-development, love and desire, etc No, but it's probably better than watching TV or using social media which are likely the most common substitutes for games.
  - Apocryphon 8y ago
    With the advent of games streaming, MMOs, and so on, all of these media are increasingly blurred together.
- crispinb 8y ago
  In any case you'd need longitudinal studies to properly evaluate any detrimental effects, given they are likely to be developmental in nature. > I think you have to possess a highly etiolated idea of what the human 'good' is ... Quite. Well being is contested & value-laden terrain. One would really need to read a paper & the theoretical background it emerges from before affirming the concept of well being its measures purport to operationalise. Having said that, contemporary wealthy societies specialise in etiolated concepts of the good life, so this would hardly be an exception. A consumer-subject plugged-in more or less permanently to corporate product is the dream.
crispinb 8y ago
Only if bewitched by the phrase. It's hard enough to agree philosophically on what constitutes well being for humans, so to accept psychological measures of it without very careful examination is a leap of faith I wouldn't take. > And I can deny the detrimental effects of gaming because studies have repeatedly debunked that idea. Again, you're taking a lot on faith there based on a relatively small amount of research done during only a few years. Exposing young people during significant portions of their waking hours to computers/screens is one of the widest-scale social experiments ever undertaken. It could take generations to fully understand its implications. I don't have a horse in this particular race and agree that many comments on the topic smack of moral panic. The most rational thing to do at this stage is reserve judgement. We don't know everything, and it's very early days yet. Having said that, if I were a parent, given the gravity of the responsibility, I'd be cautious at least.
- rayiner 8y ago
  The resistance of other parents to data and logic is shocking to me, and one of the things I hate the most about being a parent.
  - ced 8y ago
    You seem to place a lot of faith in uncontrolled social science studies.
- solveit 8y ago
  >if I were a parent, given the gravity of the responsibility, I'd be cautious at least. I'm curious as to what this entails, because >Exposing young people during significant portions of their waking hours to computers/screens is one of the widest-scale social experiments ever undertaken. This is false. A kid in the year 2000 has a radically different childhood from a kid in 1950 (who had the kind of childhood that people opposing screentime seem to want), who in turn has a radically different childhood from a kid in 1850 (who was probably working in a coal mine or sweeping chimneys or something). There is no way to be cautiously conservative because there is no default to default to. In fact, I find it a remarkable coincidence that out of humanity's 100,000 year history, the perfect childhood just happens to be the one that today's old people had. Rest assured that in 1950, there were just as many old people bemoaning their youth that didn't know the value of hard work and spent all their time watching movies.