4 ms·

I can tell you that as a parent of an 18 yr old, I've always encouraged him to go out and be with his friends. Since he was 12, he's much preferred to meet onl

by e40 8y ago

I can tell you that as a parent of an 18 yr old, I've always encouraged him to go out and be with his friends. Since he was 12, he's much preferred to meet online in games. Whole groups of them. Whooping and hollering until the wee hours of the morning, when they can. But, I generally agree with your statement. Oh, I have a son, some it might be vastly different for daughters.

singingboyo 8y ago
I think encouragement and all-else-being-equal preference for in-person vs. online is pretty much a non-factor, short of extreme cases. As mentioned above, there's just no comparison any more. I grew up in the city and had very, very few restrictions[1] on where/when I was out from around age 15, and we still preferred online. Going out in person is expensive, not everyone had equal transit access (and no one had a consistently available car), etc. Yes, there were people who didn't join up online, who I would've loved to see more of. Meeting up with them more often would have been great, but doing it regularly just wasn't feasible - we'd see everyone at school and maybe after for 15-30 minutes while people cleared out, but that was the only regular thing. [1] Mostly of the 'tell us where and when' variety - if my parents knew roughly how to find me if needed, that was good enough.
chongli 8y ago
Video games have brought an unprecedented transformation in the way young boys spend their free time, and not all for the good. As a volunteer who tutors kids in high school (and a former "hardcore gamer") and middle school I will say, anecdotally speaking, that they've made boys more sedentary, more isolated, and less interested in school. I think the most insidious aspect of video games is that they are a success surrogate. I spent over a decade and a half playing games after dropping out of high school at age 16. What kept me going was the feeling of success and accomplishment I got from impressing my online friends in games. Now in my mid-30s, I'm an undergrad in mathematics and finally putting my life back together. I've come to realize that video games are a terrible substitute for real life accomplishments and that online gaming friendships pale in comparison to building relationships with real people, in person.
- microcolonel 8y ago
  > and less interested in school. Though my profession is probably owed to the unsanctioned time I spent online in my youth (especially time away from school), and I luckily never had access to enough unearned money to buy a fast enough computer to play video games, never really played video games much, and still don't now that I have threadrippers, hundreds of gigs of ram, and top tier GPUs sitting around everywhere. Some parents see the issues with video games as extending to access to computers as a whole, and I think that could have its own social cost. If I were raising a kid right now, I'd probably have them on a feature phone, and a PC which stops short of playing modern games; but I think a lot of people would struggle with hypocrisy if they did that, since they own gaming hardware and play video games themselves, and my own mother is rather attached to her smartphone.
  - skookumchuck 8y ago
    > I'd probably have them on a feature phone ... Everyone thinks that, and then caves under the pressure.
    - microcolonel 8y ago
      Grow a spine. If you are too weak to withhold a luxury electronic device from a child in your care, you are probably too weak to raise a child in general... I think. I mean, I don't have kids, but I can't imagine being plied into spending hundreds of dollars on something which I don't want even for myself, and which I think is bad for the recipient.
      - skookumchuck 8y ago
        > I don't have kids It's easy to say you'll do this and that with kids, but things change when you have them.
- beenBoutIT 8y ago
  I'm in my mid-30s as well and I agree w/ your conclusion. I find that games work best when played occasionally as a substitute for real life activities that aren't legal or safe. E.g., GTA V allows you to steal cars, play with gasoline and rob 711's; activities that if attempted IRL would either kill you or land you in prison.
joe_the_user 8y ago
It sounds like your encouragement for your son is in the right direction. The thing about the present situation is that it's not just about what individual parents allow and disallow. It's about process works on average for a group of friends. And often, what they see other friends do. So if online interactions is the average, it will be hard to change that.

by e40 8y ago

singingboyo 8y ago

I think encouragement and all-else-being-equal preference for in-person vs. online is pretty much a non-factor, short of extreme cases. As mentioned above, there's just no comparison any more. I grew up in the city and had very, very few restrictions[1] on where/when I was out from around age 15, and we still preferred online. Going out in person is expensive, not everyone had equal transit access (and no one had a consistently available car), etc. Yes, there were people who didn't join up online, who I would've loved to see more of. Meeting up with them more often would have been great, but doing it regularly just wasn't feasible - we'd see everyone at school and maybe after for 15-30 minutes while people cleared out, but that was the only regular thing. [1] Mostly of the 'tell us where and when' variety - if my parents knew roughly how to find me if needed, that was good enough.

chongli 8y ago

Video games have brought an unprecedented transformation in the way young boys spend their free time, and not all for the good. As a volunteer who tutors kids in high school (and a former "hardcore gamer") and middle school I will say, anecdotally speaking, that they've made boys more sedentary, more isolated, and less interested in school. I think the most insidious aspect of video games is that they are a success surrogate. I spent over a decade and a half playing games after dropping out of high school at age 16. What kept me going was the feeling of success and accomplishment I got from impressing my online friends in games. Now in my mid-30s, I'm an undergrad in mathematics and finally putting my life back together. I've come to realize that video games are a terrible substitute for real life accomplishments and that online gaming friendships pale in comparison to building relationships with real people, in person.

microcolonel 8y ago
> and less interested in school. Though my profession is probably owed to the unsanctioned time I spent online in my youth (especially time away from school), and I luckily never had access to enough unearned money to buy a fast enough computer to play video games, never really played video games much, and still don't now that I have threadrippers, hundreds of gigs of ram, and top tier GPUs sitting around everywhere. Some parents see the issues with video games as extending to access to computers as a whole, and I think that could have its own social cost. If I were raising a kid right now, I'd probably have them on a feature phone, and a PC which stops short of playing modern games; but I think a lot of people would struggle with hypocrisy if they did that, since they own gaming hardware and play video games themselves, and my own mother is rather attached to her smartphone.
- skookumchuck 8y ago
  > I'd probably have them on a feature phone ... Everyone thinks that, and then caves under the pressure.
  - microcolonel 8y ago
    Grow a spine. If you are too weak to withhold a luxury electronic device from a child in your care, you are probably too weak to raise a child in general... I think. I mean, I don't have kids, but I can't imagine being plied into spending hundreds of dollars on something which I don't want even for myself, and which I think is bad for the recipient.
    - skookumchuck 8y ago
      > I don't have kids It's easy to say you'll do this and that with kids, but things change when you have them.
beenBoutIT 8y ago
I'm in my mid-30s as well and I agree w/ your conclusion. I find that games work best when played occasionally as a substitute for real life activities that aren't legal or safe. E.g., GTA V allows you to steal cars, play with gasoline and rob 711's; activities that if attempted IRL would either kill you or land you in prison.

joe_the_user 8y ago

It sounds like your encouragement for your son is in the right direction. The thing about the present situation is that it's not just about what individual parents allow and disallow. It's about process works on average for a group of friends. And often, what they see other friends do. So if online interactions is the average, it will be hard to change that.