Presisely! The boy should be on a shooting range with real weapons and learning how to deal REAL damage! #RealArmsMakeBetterParenting

Spare the rod, spoil the child. Nothing says behave like daily beatings and gruel. You never see those brats in Dickens novels misbehaving.

“The only thing that really worried me was the Fortnight. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a child in the depths of a battle royale (with cheese) binge. And I knew we'd get into that rotten stuff pretty soon. Probably at the next Wi-Fi hotspot...”

Everyone here knows about game binging and game addiction. If you don't believe in them you are a liar. We all know they exist and that the addiction part is as strong as any drug psychologically.

The problem is with children (how adults wish to live their lives is up to them). I get addicted to games and am glad I didn't have that option as a kid. Yes, we had atari and other game outlets/arcades, but it wasn't at your fingertips 24/7. Plus the games were short due to no save features/memory etc.

The biggest difference is there wasn't any social aspect to them (vast majority of the time). I hear now that if you *don't* play Fortnite that you are ostracized in school. You aren't *cool*. Now, that may be because they are junior basement dwellers in training but the mind-fuck of that must be pretty difficult for a teen.

Add in phone addiction, no gym class, and parents who let their kids eat/do anything and you have a real issue.

I guess one could say the addiction is good because it keeps kids off the street or some other thing but games are now the new facebook (ego-trip/social value/'likes'...and nothing good came of that.

“The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. And I knew we'd get into that rotten stuff pretty soon. Probably at the next gas station.”

Well - ether, videogames and collapsed parenting.
Hunter S. Thompson

edit
MattyC beat me to the punch.

Nice. Fear and Loathing. Dug the book, loved the movie.

This is not hard people. Kids leave devices in the living room when they go to bed. You set the router to block devices after 9:00PM. You limit their 4G to 500MB per month, so they're forced to use it sparingly. Etc.

It's rare that I agree with Red, but that comment is pretty spot on. Games can be habit forming, and you can get obsessed with them especially when you're young. It's up to parents to put limits on things. I say that as someone who has pulled multiple all-nighters playing Civ 2, XCom, Alpha Centauri, etc.

jdreyer wrote on Jan 12, 2019, 15:27:
This is not hard people. Kids leave devices in the living room when they go to bed. You set the router to block devices after 9:00PM. You limit their 4G to 500MB per month, so they're forced to use it sparingly. Etc.

It's rare that I agree with Red, but that comment is pretty spot on. Games can be habit forming, and you can get obsessed with them especially when you're young. It's up to parents to put limits on things. I say that as someone who has pulled multiple all-nighters playing Civ 2, XCom, Alpha Centauri, etc.

Excuse me sir, I don't know what you think you know about parenting, but it is completely the responsibility of companies and other people to regulate the behavior of children. A parent shouldn't have to set limits with their own kids. It's not consistent with being their best friend and then being able to ignore them when they become inconvenient.

Pigeon wrote on Jan 12, 2019, 15:50:

jdreyer wrote on Jan 12, 2019, 15:27:
This is not hard people. Kids leave devices in the living room when they go to bed. You set the router to block devices after 9:00PM. You limit their 4G to 500MB per month, so they're forced to use it sparingly. Etc.

It's rare that I agree with Red, but that comment is pretty spot on. Games can be habit forming, and you can get obsessed with them especially when you're young. It's up to parents to put limits on things. I say that as someone who has pulled multiple all-nighters playing Civ 2, XCom, Alpha Centauri, etc.

Excuse me sir, I don't know what you think you know about parenting, but it is completely the responsibility of companies and other people to regulate the behavior of children. A parent shouldn't have to set limits with their own kids. It's not consistent with being their best friend and then being able to ignore them when they become inconvenient.

Or change companies to schools and you get more or less the same thing, and I'd say its less to do with wanting to be their best friend and just pure laziness (and if you say that then you get the "well you don't know how hard it is you don't have kids blah blah blah... my personal favorite).

Are kids on devices too much? Yeah, probably.
Are rbey using them during class too much? Absolutely,
Is Fortnite somehow unique? Kind of, but not really. They'd be doing intagram or Snapchat or whatever. Plus a game on top.

Isn't like us here weren't binging in high school. Less, as it was more visible, but we'd go from one type of binge to another.

One of the problems is also how many of these games are designed. I don't know if Epic has with Fortnite/Borderlands - wouldn't be surprised if they have however - but companies like Blizzard and Bungie have employed behavioral psychologists for years in order to make their games addictive. Personally I've never understood the draw of those sorts of games so I don't understand how anyone can be addicted to them but there are plenty of people for which do find it addictive. Las Vegas wouldn't exist with addiction.

I played computer games every available minute of my life when I was kid. And in high school CS specifically. Didn't cause me no problems.

There isn't much wrong with that article. Key word is "binge" - though I guess people define that in different ways. I don't think they over-sell the issues and “gaming takes precedence over other interests and daily activities" is a good quote, though it could do with some expansion on the theme of everything in moderation and perhaps touching on the possibility of there being underlying issues for which gaming is an escape.

The article also correctly concludes it's a child behaviour and parenting issue about setting limits, rather than trotting out something about games being bad or the even game publishers out to steal your kid's brains or whatever.

Video gaming is no different from any other recreational activity, spending 60 hours a week doing it is only a problem if it negatively impacts other parts of your life. ie.. work/school suffers, you stop showering and eating, etc.

Probably the biggest oxymoron of the 21st century to date, "Fox News".

Mr. Tact wrote on Jan 12, 2019, 20:40:
Video gaming is no different from any other recreational activity, spending 60 hours a week doing it is only a problem if it negatively impacts other parts of your life. ie.. work/school suffers, you stop showering and eating, etc.

Probably the biggest oxymoron of the 21st century to date, "Fox News".

Sneaky
I can see skipping a shower every now and then but there is no way I'm forgetting to eat.

I wonder where WHO was when too many people watch TV and they now need to make it an addiction.

jamiedj99 wrote on Jan 12, 2019, 23:52:
I wonder where WHO was when too many people watch TV and they now need to make it an addiction.

No one has stayed up 50 hours straight watching TV. However, most on this site have done that playing video games before. Some have played games until death. It's a bit different due to the interactivity.

Sepharo wrote on Jan 12, 2019, 19:10:
I played computer games every available minute of my life when I was kid. And in high school CS specifically. Didn't cause me no problems.

I'd go as far to say that reality has fucked me up a lot more than videogames could ever hope to, and now I run my own business. This is my safe space, where I can mute, change servers, and alt-f4 at a whim.

That being said...

My wife had a classmate who had to withdraw from the PhD program because Starcraft 2 came out ^_^ And before anyone asks, yes he was Korean. Def my fav videogame fail story.

He lacked the discipline.

jdreyer wrote on Jan 13, 2019, 03:15:

jamiedj99 wrote on Jan 12, 2019, 23:52:
I wonder where WHO was when too many people watch TV and they now need to make it an addiction.

No one has stayed up 50 hours straight watching TV. However, most on this site have done that playing video games before. Some have played games until death. It's a bit different due to the interactivity.

Did you just say that "most" on this site have stayed up 50 hours straight playing videogames!? You gotta relax on that g-fuel bro, you'll blow a gasket.

I've done entire weekends on video games. In fact, entire summers. I regret it 100%. What a waste. I think moderation is good, maybe 20 hours a week Max but not 40 or 60+ hours a week which is what I was doing as a kid on summer break.