If I were young I would totally play all the games I could. They young ones saw 2008, pandemic, wars, inflation. If not escapism then what?
this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2024
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What else are you going to fill your hollow existence with before you kill yourself
I'm 29, started gaming at 7yo on the game boy color. Just did my resume and cited videogames for a bunch of skills they gave me. This article is 20years too old
His first console was a gameboy advance? My first was a gameboy and I'm 31! How old is this jabroni from the article?
"Sixteen at the time" is doing a lot of work in this article.
"And now our next story. Despite record heat waves, funneling money from public programs, ipad kids, crowed and underfunded schools, book bans, increasing everything so parents can afford less, increasing political unrest and an ever present threat of violence due to lacking gun control, kids seem to only want to play video games!"
Yes the decline of "third spaces" which are not work or home is a huge factor. Even in adults who in theory could meet at their local pub (assuming they can afford a £7 pint and it hasn't shut down).
“Kids no longer desire to go play outside.”
Outside: record heat waves; strip malls; endless, soulless commodification of human experience; hostile adults; constant, overprotective ties to the rest of the world via invasive tech; hostile capitalism…
Oh, and all this is depressing everyone.
Those things are absolutely contributing factors. But don't be so dismissive of the allure of video games. I grew up in paradise compared to what you describe, and we did play outside pretty much all the time. Then the NES came out. Our parents had to pry our asses from the TVs and throw us outside after that and threaten us with punishment if we didn't go outside to play. All we ever wanted to do was play Nintendo from there on out. Then some friends got computers... Yeah not much time was spent outside in paradise after that. And these days many games are designed to be addictive, to make you spend more time in them. We didn't have that and we were still hooked.
I'm not saying that to bash games or anything, I still love games and have been a computer nerd since back then, I'm just saying.
I was a child with an NES and virtually every Nintendo machine thereafter. Parents said my first language was Nintendo.
I still played outside all the time. I regularly rode my bike all over town. I didn't have to be threatened to play outside. I dunno, people and situations are different, I guess.
That said, it's certainly harder for kids now. I have a hard time imagining letting my kid ride a bike all over town, mostly because of traffic and stupid drivers. The free public places I used to hang out with my friends are largely gone now. Plus, like you say, the games are now designed to be addicting specifically in the ways that regularly extract more money from players. It's just kinda bad if you're not versed enough in the gaming ecosystem to know what's a worthwhile experience and what's a cash grab.
Have a SIL that is convinced the exposure to tech is a good thing, and doesn't believe in 'time and place' moderation. Guess what, her kid is addicted to his cellphone at every family gathering. Lol.
That's so dumb. Exposure to technology is neutral on its own. It depends what the tech is being used for whether it's a good or a bad thing.
Yup. Hence the results.
So many comments on this thread are very dismissive and just wave it off as "bad parenting" or "escapism". While both of those arguments are valid and probably a very big part of the problem, should we leave everything on the parents?
We don't allow businesses to sell alcohol towards children because we know it's extremely harmful and addictive. Should we simply let it free for all and then blame parents for not teaching their children that alcohol is bad and for allowing them to go out to the local shop and buy alcohol? Same goes for multiple other restrictions. Not all parents are responsible and educated enough to know how to parent. Articles like this at least show unaware parents this is a real threat and they could at least keep an eye out or educate themselves on the parental control available.
Parents need to accept responsibility for their children's behaviour. Obviously a separate example from this article but the recent suggestion that we should ban sales of mobile phones to under 16 year olds was entirely driven by pearl clutching parents who are unable to say "no" to their offspring - or at least spend 5 mins setting up parental controls.
Banning phones is an extreme measure. No restrictions whatsoever is an extreme measure. Articles like these simply start the conversation for the society at large to find a solution and, as I was saying in my initial comment some parents are simply unaware of how addictive video games can be. For many older generation (and even some of the younger parents out there that had no contact with video games) video games are often attributed to children's toys. The truth however is not that simple - some games are for children and some are engineered from the ground up to be as addictive as possible. Even if the final responsibility lies with the parents, we need to have those parents informed and articles like this do that.
Often times, things are not black or white but multiple shades of grey. Should we demonize video games? Absolutely not, they're not only fun but they can be a great tool to develop social skills, critical thinking and other adult skill. Should we inherently trust all video games and all parents to "do what's right"? No again. There is a balance in everything and dismissing unbiased articles like this one isn't helping anyone.
Kind of disagree that the article is unbiased. However I do agree with your general point that these issues are a matter of shades of grey. For example, lootboxes are 100% predatory and even parents who are older gamers might not be aware of them.
Idk, same reason older generations liked TV so much. Keep in mind they had to air the "It's X o'clock, do you know where your kids are" commercial because they literally were glued to the TV. So when an older person says some shit about video games, remind them of this.
Make real life great again /s
We need more third places that kids, teens, AND adults can access. Without needing to drive to them.
Serious boomer shit that somehow managed to completely miss the question of why the kid was that heavily into games in the first place. The very idea was mentioned once, in the whole article. As an aside. Blegh.
Taking the question at face value - probably because addiction is the business model now.
Only legislation will fix this.
I am 51 years old. I distinctly remember "articles" with headlines like this about arcades and the Atari 2600 when I was a kid. This bullshit never ends.
I wonder about "critical" addiction. I don't remember reading about people putting 12h a day into atari intellivision, nes era platforms
IDK, I certainly would've if I could as a kid, because NES and Atari were tons of fun. I probably did actually do that on occasion when doing a sleepover with friends (we loved the Olympics game for NES with the pad).
I wouldn't say I was addicted though, I excelled in school and made sure to finish my school work on time. But I really did like games, and I still do.
Sure, I liked them too, and certainly had SOME days I played a lot. But addiction of that magnitude means you aren't doing much else, let alone excelling.
Not to mention the younger generation with no work ethic, unlike in my day.. 5am start 6 days a week.. builds character.. then school.. uphill.. both ways.. respected our elders.. bought first house with 22.. kids now.. no respect.. video games.. no work ethic.. living with parents at 30.. avocado on toast.. no house.. AVOCADO ON TOAST.
Why are so many old people addicted to propaganda?
It’s their form of escapism
Escapism in this world? Imagine that...
Also of concern:
Why are so many people addicted to reading?
Addicted to reading drivel.
I wouldn't mind if my kids were glued to books all day, but newspaper opinion pieces should only be used as toilet paper.
Hey! Those poorly translated east Asian novels that all seem waaaaay to similar to be anything other than one persons fever dream replayed 47 times are just interesting enough to keep me going back.
What else are they gonna do? Play outside in the 100+heat highway adjacent parking lot?
We closed all the youth centers, made it illegal to loiter, banned them from places like coffee shops and malls, made parks miles away from residential home, prevented them from any mobility until they're 16.... It's those damn video games!
I mean god forbid we let them go outside and have unstructured time. They might get addicted to something.
I mean god forbid we let them go outside and have unstructured time.
That wouldn’t make our capitalist overlords money
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