5 ms·

My son was obsessed with this for a while and is probably ranked top 20 globally, what's the excitement of this game is beyond me. That ended up hurting his col

My son was obsessed with this for a while and is probably ranked top 20 globally, what's the excitement of this game is beyond me. That ended up hurting his college application quite a bit, and he showed no regret and is still in love with it. The only thing positive I see is that they actually have a closed circle from different nations, so he made some "online friends" there.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
DavidSJ 4y ago
Why the scare quotes around online friends? Online friends are very real friends.
- slothtrop 4y ago
  Because they're no substitute for friends you see in person.
  - DavidSJ 4y ago
    It's a big world out there. Sometimes the best connections aren't found locally.
    - bloqs 4y ago
      This may be the case as a fully formed and experienced adult, but it's critical at developmental stages
      - DavidSJ 4y ago
        When I was a teenager, I had local friends and online friends, and my online friends were very real and I'm very thankful that I had them. Neither were a replacement for the other.
    - slothtrop 4y ago
      There's a level of human connection and validation that can't be satisfied virtually. We're animals, that contact is important. We wouldn't settle for a virtual significant-other, and by the same token the experience of quality time with buds over extra-curriculars isn't going to be fully replicated in a chat-room, blog message or email.
  - kerabatsos 4y ago
    All my co-workers are online. I consider some to be good friends. It’s the way of the world now.
    - bloqs 4y ago
      You aren't a developing teenager, probably. It's well evidenced as essential for psychosocial development
    - slothtrop 4y ago
      My co-workers are online too but that has no bearing on whether I see friends in person, nor does it encompass my entire social life.
    - Gene_Parmesan 4y ago
      As recent decades have progressed and more of our lives have gone digital, self reported rates of loneliness, isolation and depression have been skyrocketing. It's sometimes called the Internet Paradox - a technology that is supposed to increase our connection is correlated with increased feelings of isolation. It's been the subject of study but it's impossible to truly reject the hypothesis due to the ubiquity of the effect - there's no control group. Obviously correlation is not causation, but I think the severity of the effects warrant further thought and investigation.
  - GOATS- 4y ago
    This simply isn't true. Many of my closest friendships started online - with people who share the same interest as me, which is rare to find irl. I have since met a handful of online friends in person and they're always as lovely as they were online. Online friends were very important to me growing up, and still are today.
    - slothtrop 4y ago
      That doesn't actually contradict me.
      - DavidSJ 4y ago
        But nor does what you said really answer my question. Online friends are real, and often provide things that local friends can't. No one here is saying they're a substitute for local friends, but that doesn't mean these relationships should be denigrated.
        slothtrop 4y ago
        > But nor does what you said really answer my question. I answered, but to further clarify: online friendships are not sufficient. No one said they don't have their place, either.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - parkingrift 4y ago
      Everything you’ve said is true, but also you literally cannot replicate in-person interaction. Perhaps one day we will be able to trick our lizard brains with virtual interactions, but we can’t do it at present. There is no replacement for touching, feeling, smelling, and seeing. You can have meaningful relationships online but you are absolutely missing out if you’re only interactions are digital.
      - 4y ago
baby 4y ago
I personally had a shaky scholarity due to playing video games too much. No regret either. I’ve ended up in a pretty good spot and have a lot of memories making friends and being competitive at something
charcircuit 4y ago
>what's the excitement of this game is beyond me It's the same excitement as speedrunning if that helps you get it. Having a community where you are all trying to get better at something while having fun doing so.
jgtrosh 4y ago
It's one of the most wholesome gaming communities out there, where achievements are celebrated and all ages get to empathize on this pure experience. It shouldn't replace irl friends, but there are much worse online friends to have than Classic Tetris players.
brailsafe 4y ago
I guess you might have missed the "are ya winnin son?" meme from a few years ago. Life isn't about the college you get into. Being in the top 20 of tetris players is going to be very rewarding, and they can go to college later if they want
- bergenty 4y ago
  Is is though? What’s the point. You’re in front of a screen during the best years of your life attempting to get good at something that is at the end of it trivial from a lot of perspectives. It’s kind of indistinguishable from smoking pot and sitting in front of your TV. That being said, I’ve followed the scene for 6 years and always found it very interesting to watch.
  - brailsafe 4y ago
    I guess I could have qualified it with might be very rewarding. A lot of people go to Uni and feel like they've largely wasted 4-8 years of their life and compromised their financial future as well. Tetris is a relatively innocuous pursuit. Pot and TV can be fun too, and is mostly indistinguishable from what most Suburbanites do in their late twenties anyway. In my view you want to teach your kids how to assess if something has become a destructive obsession. Likewise, if the kid is objectively good and entertaining, there is a market for it just like any other
- paulcole 4y ago
  > Being in the top 20 of tetris players is going to be very rewarding I was a pretty high-level Scrabble player, devoting a handful of years of my life to it, and it’s one of the biggest regrets I have. Total waste of time and only a attempt to ignore the other things I hated about my life.
  - brailsafe 4y ago
    That's kinda cool. I did that too, albeit on a much lower level with other games like WoW. But they don't need to be that, and there's nothing inherently destructive about it. At some point you realize that you're relationship to the thing is destructive (hopefully) and you step back and make changes. If it wasn't scrabble, it could just as easily been something else. A more appropriate analogy for me would actually be frontend development in my early twnties. I was genuinely interested in the technical bits, independent of the fact that I hated various aspects of my life, but I escaped into it and later realized that it wasn't worth it because I was fired anyway. But I don't regret building up skills in that. Point is, your kid finds something they're good at, maybe you cultivate it rather than try and repress it. Maybe they get too obsessed because they feel repressed by their parents in other areas, that's a thing. But you teach them appropriate life balance skills and hopefully they have the framework to step back when it's time.
Aperocky 4y ago
> showed no regret and is still in love with it. Good for him for finding the experience that he enjoys when he's young.
faeriechangling 4y ago
I respect a top 20 Tetris player more than I respect a college graduate since the college graduate just has to convince the teachers to like him and do exactly as he's told compliantly. The Tetris player has to be the best at something difficult and competitive that shows intelligence. Can hardly blame your son for not taking something seriously which is mostly taken seriously because everybody thinks that everybody else takes it seriously and you can't just opt out of impressing others because it will limit what you can do and earn in the future. College itself is just a glorified game but a far more boring and unfair one than Tetris.
- synergy20 4y ago
  after reading the comments I found another thing that is unexpected but related, he has been trying to write a program beating Tetris since high school, from initial python to AI. He was competitive on math(ranked in top 30 nationally at HMMT at 9th grade), so his missing out tier1 school(e.g. MIT) disappointed me a bit, but it's what it is. On the other hand I had a MIT PhD colleague who graduated 11 years ago and is a senior software engineer just like the rest of other colleges' graduates. I guess school does not define everything(no offense).
  - aeyes 4y ago
    your son is way ahead of most kids, he'll do just fine even if he doesn't go to MIT
DanielVZ 4y ago
Believe it or not he's learning a ton of soft skills that college fails to teach that are paramount for real life success. During college I "wasted" my time playing videogames, speedrunning, striving for high scores, and forming communities. I graduated with sub par scores but I still managed to be more successful than any of my college buddies (even those with perfect grades). Here are some ways it helped me kickstart my self taught software engineering carreer: - I learned how to enter the zone almost on command. I recognized my triggers and exploited them. - I learned how to moderate a community. Now I see the fruits of that because somehow in the two companies I've worked at I've been seen as a leader even when I was a junior developer. - I learned that learning stuff wasn't really that hard. It mostly requires dedication. I memorized speedrunning routes from google doc files for several games and it translates well into the experience I've had of reading documentation to learn a tool. - I perfected my English. As a non-native speaker, practicing English with natives gave me the tools to now work for companies abroad that are astronomically better than local ones in every conceivable way. I'm sure there are other benefits as well. There are also some risks such as social isolation, but that really depends on the player's surroundings more than anything.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

DavidSJ 4y ago

Why the scare quotes around online friends? Online friends are very real friends.

slothtrop 4y ago
Because they're no substitute for friends you see in person.
- DavidSJ 4y ago
  It's a big world out there. Sometimes the best connections aren't found locally.
  - bloqs 4y ago
    This may be the case as a fully formed and experienced adult, but it's critical at developmental stages
    - DavidSJ 4y ago
      When I was a teenager, I had local friends and online friends, and my online friends were very real and I'm very thankful that I had them. Neither were a replacement for the other.
  - slothtrop 4y ago
    There's a level of human connection and validation that can't be satisfied virtually. We're animals, that contact is important. We wouldn't settle for a virtual significant-other, and by the same token the experience of quality time with buds over extra-curriculars isn't going to be fully replicated in a chat-room, blog message or email.
- kerabatsos 4y ago
  All my co-workers are online. I consider some to be good friends. It’s the way of the world now.
  - bloqs 4y ago
    You aren't a developing teenager, probably. It's well evidenced as essential for psychosocial development
  - slothtrop 4y ago
    My co-workers are online too but that has no bearing on whether I see friends in person, nor does it encompass my entire social life.
  - Gene_Parmesan 4y ago
    As recent decades have progressed and more of our lives have gone digital, self reported rates of loneliness, isolation and depression have been skyrocketing. It's sometimes called the Internet Paradox - a technology that is supposed to increase our connection is correlated with increased feelings of isolation. It's been the subject of study but it's impossible to truly reject the hypothesis due to the ubiquity of the effect - there's no control group. Obviously correlation is not causation, but I think the severity of the effects warrant further thought and investigation.
- GOATS- 4y ago
  This simply isn't true. Many of my closest friendships started online - with people who share the same interest as me, which is rare to find irl. I have since met a handful of online friends in person and they're always as lovely as they were online. Online friends were very important to me growing up, and still are today.
  - slothtrop 4y ago
    That doesn't actually contradict me.
    - DavidSJ 4y ago
      But nor does what you said really answer my question. Online friends are real, and often provide things that local friends can't. No one here is saying they're a substitute for local friends, but that doesn't mean these relationships should be denigrated.
      - slothtrop 4y ago
        > But nor does what you said really answer my question. I answered, but to further clarify: online friendships are not sufficient. No one said they don't have their place, either.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  - parkingrift 4y ago
    Everything you’ve said is true, but also you literally cannot replicate in-person interaction. Perhaps one day we will be able to trick our lizard brains with virtual interactions, but we can’t do it at present. There is no replacement for touching, feeling, smelling, and seeing. You can have meaningful relationships online but you are absolutely missing out if you’re only interactions are digital.
    - 4y ago

baby 4y ago

I personally had a shaky scholarity due to playing video games too much. No regret either. I’ve ended up in a pretty good spot and have a lot of memories making friends and being competitive at something

charcircuit 4y ago

>what's the excitement of this game is beyond me It's the same excitement as speedrunning if that helps you get it. Having a community where you are all trying to get better at something while having fun doing so.

jgtrosh 4y ago

It's one of the most wholesome gaming communities out there, where achievements are celebrated and all ages get to empathize on this pure experience. It shouldn't replace irl friends, but there are much worse online friends to have than Classic Tetris players.

brailsafe 4y ago

I guess you might have missed the "are ya winnin son?" meme from a few years ago. Life isn't about the college you get into. Being in the top 20 of tetris players is going to be very rewarding, and they can go to college later if they want

bergenty 4y ago
Is is though? What’s the point. You’re in front of a screen during the best years of your life attempting to get good at something that is at the end of it trivial from a lot of perspectives. It’s kind of indistinguishable from smoking pot and sitting in front of your TV. That being said, I’ve followed the scene for 6 years and always found it very interesting to watch.
- brailsafe 4y ago
  I guess I could have qualified it with might be very rewarding. A lot of people go to Uni and feel like they've largely wasted 4-8 years of their life and compromised their financial future as well. Tetris is a relatively innocuous pursuit. Pot and TV can be fun too, and is mostly indistinguishable from what most Suburbanites do in their late twenties anyway. In my view you want to teach your kids how to assess if something has become a destructive obsession. Likewise, if the kid is objectively good and entertaining, there is a market for it just like any other
paulcole 4y ago
> Being in the top 20 of tetris players is going to be very rewarding I was a pretty high-level Scrabble player, devoting a handful of years of my life to it, and it’s one of the biggest regrets I have. Total waste of time and only a attempt to ignore the other things I hated about my life.
- brailsafe 4y ago
  That's kinda cool. I did that too, albeit on a much lower level with other games like WoW. But they don't need to be that, and there's nothing inherently destructive about it. At some point you realize that you're relationship to the thing is destructive (hopefully) and you step back and make changes. If it wasn't scrabble, it could just as easily been something else. A more appropriate analogy for me would actually be frontend development in my early twnties. I was genuinely interested in the technical bits, independent of the fact that I hated various aspects of my life, but I escaped into it and later realized that it wasn't worth it because I was fired anyway. But I don't regret building up skills in that. Point is, your kid finds something they're good at, maybe you cultivate it rather than try and repress it. Maybe they get too obsessed because they feel repressed by their parents in other areas, that's a thing. But you teach them appropriate life balance skills and hopefully they have the framework to step back when it's time.

Aperocky 4y ago

> showed no regret and is still in love with it. Good for him for finding the experience that he enjoys when he's young.

faeriechangling 4y ago

I respect a top 20 Tetris player more than I respect a college graduate since the college graduate just has to convince the teachers to like him and do exactly as he's told compliantly. The Tetris player has to be the best at something difficult and competitive that shows intelligence. Can hardly blame your son for not taking something seriously which is mostly taken seriously because everybody thinks that everybody else takes it seriously and you can't just opt out of impressing others because it will limit what you can do and earn in the future. College itself is just a glorified game but a far more boring and unfair one than Tetris.

synergy20 4y ago
after reading the comments I found another thing that is unexpected but related, he has been trying to write a program beating Tetris since high school, from initial python to AI. He was competitive on math(ranked in top 30 nationally at HMMT at 9th grade), so his missing out tier1 school(e.g. MIT) disappointed me a bit, but it's what it is. On the other hand I had a MIT PhD colleague who graduated 11 years ago and is a senior software engineer just like the rest of other colleges' graduates. I guess school does not define everything(no offense).
- aeyes 4y ago
  your son is way ahead of most kids, he'll do just fine even if he doesn't go to MIT

DanielVZ 4y ago

Believe it or not he's learning a ton of soft skills that college fails to teach that are paramount for real life success. During college I "wasted" my time playing videogames, speedrunning, striving for high scores, and forming communities. I graduated with sub par scores but I still managed to be more successful than any of my college buddies (even those with perfect grades). Here are some ways it helped me kickstart my self taught software engineering carreer: - I learned how to enter the zone almost on command. I recognized my triggers and exploited them. - I learned how to moderate a community. Now I see the fruits of that because somehow in the two companies I've worked at I've been seen as a leader even when I was a junior developer. - I learned that learning stuff wasn't really that hard. It mostly requires dedication. I memorized speedrunning routes from google doc files for several games and it translates well into the experience I've had of reading documentation to learn a tool. - I perfected my English. As a non-native speaker, practicing English with natives gave me the tools to now work for companies abroad that are astronomically better than local ones in every conceivable way. I'm sure there are other benefits as well. There are also some risks such as social isolation, but that really depends on the player's surroundings more than anything.