Why won’t she get off Minecraft?(deangroom.wordpress.com)
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Why won’t she get off Minecraft?
https://deangroom.wordpress.com/2012/11/28/why-wont-she-get-off-minecraft/
88 comments
I agree with you wholeheartedly. I think that the popularity of Minecraft speaks to a very real deprivation amongst many middle-class westerners.
I have read any number of thinkpieces about the hazards or the educational value of Minecraft, but not one of them meaningfully described the sheer beauty and joy of the game. I'm an adult with plenty of life experience and I find Minecraft to be an intoxicating experience; I can only imagine the effect it would have on a battery-farmed kid from a sterile suburb.
If you're worrying about your child being obsessed with Minecraft, ask what sort of experiences they're getting from the game that are lacking in their real life. Watching the sun rise over a soaring mountain range. Illuminating a newly discovered cave system and seeing a vast cavern reveal itself. Planting seeds, watching them grow and harvesting the crop. Building something for the pure pleasure of creativity and showing it to your friends.
I have read any number of thinkpieces about the hazards or the educational value of Minecraft, but not one of them meaningfully described the sheer beauty and joy of the game. I'm an adult with plenty of life experience and I find Minecraft to be an intoxicating experience; I can only imagine the effect it would have on a battery-farmed kid from a sterile suburb.
If you're worrying about your child being obsessed with Minecraft, ask what sort of experiences they're getting from the game that are lacking in their real life. Watching the sun rise over a soaring mountain range. Illuminating a newly discovered cave system and seeing a vast cavern reveal itself. Planting seeds, watching them grow and harvesting the crop. Building something for the pure pleasure of creativity and showing it to your friends.
I think _why_ of it is probably a bit more complicated but still I think you have got the _what_ down pat.
When I was growing up in the sixties I spent most of the summer outside from breakfast time to teatime at least. My parents had no idea where I was, who I was with, or what I was doing. If the sun was shining and I was still indoors my mother would want to know if anything was wrong and once she had decided that there was nothing wrong I would be shooed out to get on with my life while she got on with hers.
But now children have no society of their own; they have invaded the adult space and adults have invaded their space. Fifty years ago children learned about the world from other children and transmitted their own culture to each other but now there is nowhere to hide and nowhere where you cannot be contacted by outsiders (adults).
Damn, I don't really know where I'm going with this. I suppose I'm just glad I was born where and when I was and I feel sorry for those who will never feel the freedoms that I felt; I just hope that I'm missing something and that today's children will look back in fifty years on their own golden age.
When I was growing up in the sixties I spent most of the summer outside from breakfast time to teatime at least. My parents had no idea where I was, who I was with, or what I was doing. If the sun was shining and I was still indoors my mother would want to know if anything was wrong and once she had decided that there was nothing wrong I would be shooed out to get on with my life while she got on with hers.
But now children have no society of their own; they have invaded the adult space and adults have invaded their space. Fifty years ago children learned about the world from other children and transmitted their own culture to each other but now there is nowhere to hide and nowhere where you cannot be contacted by outsiders (adults).
Damn, I don't really know where I'm going with this. I suppose I'm just glad I was born where and when I was and I feel sorry for those who will never feel the freedoms that I felt; I just hope that I'm missing something and that today's children will look back in fifty years on their own golden age.
I'm glad I was born when and where I was, growing up in the 2000s. Random outside wandering never appealed to me at any age - it felt fairly boring in comparison to indoor persuits like video games, cartoons, lego, drawing, internet browsing, books, and so on. The scenery was nice outside but the novelty didn't last long.
I remember my thought process at the time was like "I can't jump very high or fly out here like Spyro, there are no items to collect, no puzzles or enemies or portals.."
Video game worlds in general always felt more interesting, fun, and cool to explore at the time. Structured and rewarding, a lot more things you can do, characters and stories intertwined to be invested in. You don't get tired, you don't have to struggle to keep up with faster-running others, and you don't get bug bites or broken bones. Kids today have online games and skype for a nicer experience.
Nowadays I do appreciate some hiking or other nature walks but I'd never choose that as a replacement for computer usage. I don't get why people think it's so important for kids to run around unsupervised and get bruised up.
Someone earlier complained about "play dates" rather than randomly ringing friends' doorbells. You should always know where your kid is, and who would rather walk than be driven?
The attitudes on this issue I always see on the internet are baffling.
I remember my thought process at the time was like "I can't jump very high or fly out here like Spyro, there are no items to collect, no puzzles or enemies or portals.."
Video game worlds in general always felt more interesting, fun, and cool to explore at the time. Structured and rewarding, a lot more things you can do, characters and stories intertwined to be invested in. You don't get tired, you don't have to struggle to keep up with faster-running others, and you don't get bug bites or broken bones. Kids today have online games and skype for a nicer experience.
Nowadays I do appreciate some hiking or other nature walks but I'd never choose that as a replacement for computer usage. I don't get why people think it's so important for kids to run around unsupervised and get bruised up.
Someone earlier complained about "play dates" rather than randomly ringing friends' doorbells. You should always know where your kid is, and who would rather walk than be driven?
The attitudes on this issue I always see on the internet are baffling.
The main problem is that we don't know a lot about what will happen to kids that grow in this kind of environment (video games, indoors, 24 hour cartoons, etc). From anecdotal experience and observation, 'indoor' kids seem to be less social, have slightly less verbal vocabulary and more fearful of things and people (both adults and other children) vs. the outdoor kids. My kid is a mix, he likes to stay indoors watching cartoons or playing with the iPad and will do it all day if we let him, but we 'force' him to go outside, jump in the pool, climb some trees, talk with strangers, etc. There are few places where he isn't the most social, most outgoing, most friendly kid around (only ones topping him are the ones that go to the local waldorf school). Now, is this important and should be our goal as parents? I don't know, but having learned about the world after 30 or so years, I think this kind of personality is better suited over introvert/indoor type (maybe I'm wrong though)
Also anecdotally, I had extremely good vocabulary and reading skills according to some kind of testing in early elementary school, and grew up as I described. I guess we'll have to wait for more objective studies.
iPad games are a lot less constructive than normal ones, though, usually.
iPad games are a lot less constructive than normal ones, though, usually.
> You should always know where your kid is
This attitude is the difference. Children are human beings with rights, too, and they are capable of much more than contemporary American parents give them credit for.
This attitude is the difference. Children are human beings with rights, too, and they are capable of much more than contemporary American parents give them credit for.
It becomes much harder as you age to run around and get bruised up. Kids can take more damage than adults.
It's important, I think, to do that while you can. There's always time for the rest.
It's important, I think, to do that while you can. There's always time for the rest.
>and who would rather walk than be driven?
People who want agency.
People who want agency.
Both get you there, one faster and climate controlled, the other tiring. Why would I care about "agency" in that specific situation at a young age?
Because life is about the journey and not the destination. The destination (barring religious ideas) is the same for all of us.
I enjoy running and walking as an adult since about hs age. As a kid I loved riding my bike too. Going at a slower pace leaves you open to whim. Let's you observe and digest your surroundings. Maybe you would see Cory. Maybe the neighbor kid you don't like that much had a bunch of friends playing frisbee in his yard so it was worth it to join. Or see there was a new kid and a moving truck. Or a turtle in someone's yard.
These days when I go for a walk, there is almost no kids playing or riding bikes or anything and it's kind of eerie.
These days when I go for a walk, there is almost no kids playing or riding bikes or anything and it's kind of eerie.
Because one of those things is you acting on your own initiative under your own control, and the other is dependent on someone more powerful than you to grant permission and decide it's worth their time.
I'll go even further - the internet has displaced the automobile as the place and symbol of freedom for modern teenagers.
For my dad, it was his car. For me, it's my Macbook.
For my dad, it was his car. For me, it's my Macbook.
I got my first skateboard in 1996. I was 10 years old at the time. I grew up in a small town on Long Island and because I was obsessed with going out to skate with my buddies my mother let me walk into town on my own. Spend all afternoon doing whatever I decided to do (usually skate) and then come home. The only rule she had for it was to call her if I was going to be late and explain why. Sometimes I'd take the LIRR (local commuter train) to Montauk, which took about 30 minutes, to go to the skatepark there.
A month after my 16th birthday my little brother was born. He's 13 now and when I look at how little freedom he has compared to what I had when I was a kid I sometimes wonder how he's going to figure out how to do anything for himself.
To echo your point about the internet... My brother is online, often playing Minecraft, all the time. He loves the internet. He loves that he doesn't have to ask permission to look at anything. He enjoys meeting random people to chat with online about video games and weird youtube people that teenagers are into now. I think it's pretty awesome. He has a sort of digital version of what I experience IRL.
The contrast is actually kind of amusing when you consider that in 1996 I also got my first computer. A Mac running System 7. At the time the internet was considered dangerous for children and my parents heavily monitored my activity on it much like they monitor my brother's real life experiences.
I wonder what I'll be worrying about when I have kids.
A month after my 16th birthday my little brother was born. He's 13 now and when I look at how little freedom he has compared to what I had when I was a kid I sometimes wonder how he's going to figure out how to do anything for himself.
To echo your point about the internet... My brother is online, often playing Minecraft, all the time. He loves the internet. He loves that he doesn't have to ask permission to look at anything. He enjoys meeting random people to chat with online about video games and weird youtube people that teenagers are into now. I think it's pretty awesome. He has a sort of digital version of what I experience IRL.
The contrast is actually kind of amusing when you consider that in 1996 I also got my first computer. A Mac running System 7. At the time the internet was considered dangerous for children and my parents heavily monitored my activity on it much like they monitor my brother's real life experiences.
I wonder what I'll be worrying about when I have kids.
I'm worried that this will be even more the case when I am raising kids. I don't want my daughter taken away because I let her go camping.
> I don't want my daughter taken away because I let her go camping.
From the parent comment:
> The days of packs of children running around town or exploring the woods are long gone, due to fears of dangerous men and accidents.
Fear is fear. What you fear will manifest itself further if you and others continue to fear it.
From the parent comment:
> The days of packs of children running around town or exploring the woods are long gone, due to fears of dangerous men and accidents.
Fear is fear. What you fear will manifest itself further if you and others continue to fear it.
This is a collective action problem. My own lack of fear will have no effect of the actions of CPS if they decide I am a negligent parent because other people could have been afraid to let their kid go camping.
Feels like the author doesn't want to admit gaming addiction is real. So because Minecraft is a 'good' game, you can't get addicted to it? bollocks
I grew up playing (and becoming addicted to) MUDs, which are, from an outside perspective, quite good for you. They promote reading, high imagination, social interactions, a sense of accomplishment, etc. and there are MUDs which focus on or require player building (MOOs/LPs etc).
What did my addiction to MUDs get me? Bad grades in school, and no 'real life' experience. I had no idea how to take care of myself, which would cause me issues later in life when I did start forming RL relationships. And while my online social ability was amazing, in real life I could barely talk to people (I believe there could be a lot written about this very subject). I didn't make friends, much less girlfriends. All I cared about was getting through the school day so I can could get home and play MUDs. The one thing it did give me was programming, since I became so interested in them I began programming them.
I grew up playing (and becoming addicted to) MUDs, which are, from an outside perspective, quite good for you. They promote reading, high imagination, social interactions, a sense of accomplishment, etc. and there are MUDs which focus on or require player building (MOOs/LPs etc).
What did my addiction to MUDs get me? Bad grades in school, and no 'real life' experience. I had no idea how to take care of myself, which would cause me issues later in life when I did start forming RL relationships. And while my online social ability was amazing, in real life I could barely talk to people (I believe there could be a lot written about this very subject). I didn't make friends, much less girlfriends. All I cared about was getting through the school day so I can could get home and play MUDs. The one thing it did give me was programming, since I became so interested in them I began programming them.
> I grew up playing (and becoming addicted to) MUDs, which are, from an outside perspective, quite good for you
From an outside perspective? In my experience, it's only the people playing MMOs that tout the benefits :)
From an outside perspective? In my experience, it's only the people playing MMOs that tout the benefits :)
MUDs are significantly different in that you have to read, solve, and think a lot more rather than the "watch six timers tick down and then hit a button" gameplay loop of most modern MMOs.
But I would also agree that playing RPG games of any description for a large portion of your day is a net negative.
But I would also agree that playing RPG games of any description for a large portion of your day is a net negative.
The bullet points for your resume are going to come from your guild interactions. Did you lead a 40 man raid of people (poorly! ;) ) clicking their timed buttons? Did you cull drama over the DKP allotment? Did you organize a recruiting drive to boost membership when guild levels were introduced? Etc...
All of those things provide real world skills but their informal nature makes them unfit for a resume. However those skills are increasingly relevant in the industries built around those games so its mainly a matter of selling yourself to the people who can recognize the value in that skillset.
Just as virtual skills don't always translate perfectly to the real world the reverse is also true. There's a large market out there for digital goods that most people are blissfully unaware of.
Just as virtual skills don't always translate perfectly to the real world the reverse is also true. There's a large market out there for digital goods that most people are blissfully unaware of.
All this is just arguing over definitions. No one disagrees (well, much) on what's going on. It's just a "semantic stopsign" to short circuit a proper evaluation. If you can make the case it's an addiction, hey, you've proved it's bad to some extent, mission accomplished. For magazines and many people, that's enough analysis.
And the author didn't seem to ever explain how a kid that refuses to get off Minecraft and fights with his family isn't a problem. Unless the point was "don't tell him to stop". While I generally appreciate the sentiment, maybe the kid has other things he's neglecting...
Same argument for drugs. People resist the term addict when talking about SSRIs, but that's probably because they never run out. And likewise, since everyone agrees that opiates are addictive, they must be bad. The thought that you can be an illegal opiate addict yet reap huge benefits from it is a contradiction to many people. (Unless a doctor is involved -- then it's OK.) It's just intellectual laziness.
Btw, MUDs were awesome, and I had my first real relationship by meeting someone via a MUD. It contributed to me dropping out of school, but getting more info software was far more useful.
And the author didn't seem to ever explain how a kid that refuses to get off Minecraft and fights with his family isn't a problem. Unless the point was "don't tell him to stop". While I generally appreciate the sentiment, maybe the kid has other things he's neglecting...
Same argument for drugs. People resist the term addict when talking about SSRIs, but that's probably because they never run out. And likewise, since everyone agrees that opiates are addictive, they must be bad. The thought that you can be an illegal opiate addict yet reap huge benefits from it is a contradiction to many people. (Unless a doctor is involved -- then it's OK.) It's just intellectual laziness.
Btw, MUDs were awesome, and I had my first real relationship by meeting someone via a MUD. It contributed to me dropping out of school, but getting more info software was far more useful.
For other people reading this who are less familiar, there is a difference between dependence and addiction. This difference offers a clear explanation behind why someone can have withdrawal symptoms from abrupt SSRI cessation despite these not being addictive drugs. It also explains why some opioid use is considered beneficial while other use is considered harmful, despite all opioids having properties that can lead to dependence.
My son is 6 and many of the kids he interacts with at school and daycare play Minecraft. So just the last week or so, we picked up Minecraft for the iPad and for the PC. I had always been vaguely interested in playing it but never actually pulled the trigger.
So my impression after a week is that it is weirdly fun and addictive. I've now put more hours into Minecraft than anyone else in the house. I got my wife playing it and she's still experimenting around. My son likes to play creative and just kind of fool around. I think he's a bit too young yet to really get into it. But he does love watching me play and we discuss everything together. It's probably the most engaged he's been with me on the computer.
But I have stayed up way too late playing it...
So my impression after a week is that it is weirdly fun and addictive. I've now put more hours into Minecraft than anyone else in the house. I got my wife playing it and she's still experimenting around. My son likes to play creative and just kind of fool around. I think he's a bit too young yet to really get into it. But he does love watching me play and we discuss everything together. It's probably the most engaged he's been with me on the computer.
But I have stayed up way too late playing it...
I played it on PC years back (and when I thought the game making $30M was an insane amount of success). But shitty graphics support prevented me from running it on my laptops and I gave up. Yet I can still remember the large things I built, the houses and bridges and staying up all night.
Now my girls are 7 & 8, and for the last year they've been building these huge things in creative. They're in love with Stampy (on YouTube... Annoying voice but he shows some neat tricks). This week they took vacations, and I agreed to play survival with them. (I must admit, it does scare me just a bit; the rush to setup before nightfall and the sound that something is nearby.)
Well... Every night we've stayed up until 1am or so (kids are lightweights) playing Minecraft. Coordinating expeditions, streamlining resource usage, building sky palaces. It's a blast and my one daughter told my wife how much she enjoyed it and was so happy I did this. Now it's probably because I'm a terrible father and don't spend enough time with them, but they really enjoy this time. And they tell stories, laughing, about how the time a creeper blew me up, or when they accidentally attacked something or whatever. It's some serious "together" time. (And I can't imagine am easier way of being a decent parent.)
I'm gonna install it on their laptops (I was lazy and used 360) and I'm hoping there's servers aimed for littler kids. Just because teenage boys seem to be real dicks online. (It's not language, we swear a fair amount while playing, I'd just like to increase the chance of them making real friends vs endless griefers.) There's gotta be other parents like me that'd be willing to run a private, verified identity, server, eh?
Now my girls are 7 & 8, and for the last year they've been building these huge things in creative. They're in love with Stampy (on YouTube... Annoying voice but he shows some neat tricks). This week they took vacations, and I agreed to play survival with them. (I must admit, it does scare me just a bit; the rush to setup before nightfall and the sound that something is nearby.)
Well... Every night we've stayed up until 1am or so (kids are lightweights) playing Minecraft. Coordinating expeditions, streamlining resource usage, building sky palaces. It's a blast and my one daughter told my wife how much she enjoyed it and was so happy I did this. Now it's probably because I'm a terrible father and don't spend enough time with them, but they really enjoy this time. And they tell stories, laughing, about how the time a creeper blew me up, or when they accidentally attacked something or whatever. It's some serious "together" time. (And I can't imagine am easier way of being a decent parent.)
I'm gonna install it on their laptops (I was lazy and used 360) and I'm hoping there's servers aimed for littler kids. Just because teenage boys seem to be real dicks online. (It's not language, we swear a fair amount while playing, I'd just like to increase the chance of them making real friends vs endless griefers.) There's gotta be other parents like me that'd be willing to run a private, verified identity, server, eh?
Mojang actually have a service that provides an invite-only hosted server called Minecraft Realms[1] - it's subscription-based, currently priced (according to their website) at £8/mo. And, quoting: "Only the host of a Realms server needs to pay a subscription fee."
[1] https://minecraft.net/realms
[1] https://minecraft.net/realms
> There's gotta be other parents like me that'd be willing to run a private, verified identity, server, eh?
I'm sure there are. By the way, isn't this basically how football clubs, etc. get formed? :).
I'm sure there are. By the way, isn't this basically how football clubs, etc. get formed? :).
Understated: Parents should get on minecraft with their kids. It's very useful as a family team building and can also encourage leadership if you let the kids be the boss of you in the virtual world.
It's also great if you're traveling to get on minecraft together to have fun instead of a short phone conversation. (it also works well for divorced parents)
It's also great if you're traveling to get on minecraft together to have fun instead of a short phone conversation. (it also works well for divorced parents)
Creative / collaborative mode is good addiction, but when they start connecting to servers or griefing their siblings, it's not so good anymore. Survival mode isn't so great either,but can be ok if they are using it as a constrained creative mode. iPad is really the best format as it doesn't have all the distractions of PC minecraft. The UX is great for kids as well.
Note minecraft can be awesome for siblings that fight all the time. You'll be amazed when they actually get along on building something.
It's basically 21st century Lego.
Note minecraft can be awesome for siblings that fight all the time. You'll be amazed when they actually get along on building something.
It's basically 21st century Lego.
I grew up playing with Lego with my siblings. We would fight over that ever-elusive piece of which we only had one of.
I haven't played too much of Minecraft to understand the "pieces," but I think the problem we had with Lego would be solved :)
I haven't played too much of Minecraft to understand the "pieces," but I think the problem we had with Lego would be solved :)
Playing too much Minecraft is considered an addiction because it has a real cost to the addict playing the game. Please note that "playing too much" is to the point that it is causing the child to do poorly in school or have other negative effects.
Preface: I agree with you, especially wrt video games. I never understood or enjoyed video games, anyways.
However, when defining addiction, I think "causing the child to do poorly in school" is a really, really dangerous standard. Several psychologists and teachers told my parents I was addicted to computers because I did poorly in high school and also spent a lot of time on the computer. Never-mind that I had worked through Cinderella, SICP, the first half of Dragon, and an undergrad crypto course in addition to a Discrete Mathemtics and Linear course by the end of high school... all while fueling my "addiction".)
I think there's a lot of danger in conflating "interferes with good grades" with "harmful". Especially in high school. Taking grades seriously in high school would have been far more harmful than my computer "addiction".
However, when defining addiction, I think "causing the child to do poorly in school" is a really, really dangerous standard. Several psychologists and teachers told my parents I was addicted to computers because I did poorly in high school and also spent a lot of time on the computer. Never-mind that I had worked through Cinderella, SICP, the first half of Dragon, and an undergrad crypto course in addition to a Discrete Mathemtics and Linear course by the end of high school... all while fueling my "addiction".)
I think there's a lot of danger in conflating "interferes with good grades" with "harmful". Especially in high school. Taking grades seriously in high school would have been far more harmful than my computer "addiction".
Exactly this. I both enjoyed video games and did a lot of programming in secondary/high school and all that time did in fact interfere with my school performance quite a bit. And I'm really thankful for my parents to not push me too hard back then, because things I learned let me end up in a great university and have a career in programming. And the games were both what taught me English and what made me interested in programming in the first place.
A younger friend of mine gained his first digital electronics knowledge building 8-segment displays in Minecraft, and the time spent on setting up and managing Minecraft servers gave him skills he now directly uses every day, for money and for fun.
The point is, school is bullshit (and kids smell it, they're incredibly good bullshit detectors). Pretty much anything a kid does on a computer that isn't literally browsing 9gag all day teaches them more than the same time spent doing homework. Parents need to be very careful here. School-related tasks are very inefficient way of spending time, but are easy for parents to focus on because they're quantified. You just have to look at the test scores and grades (and their first derivatives). The fact that they're totally unrelated to any education taking place is too much to think about.
So if you see your kid spends a lot of time building, creating and exploring stuff on the computer, do him/her a favour and don't mind too much if they occasionally forget about their homework. And most important of all - don't introduce insane time limits like "1 hour of computer time a day, every other day". With such strict limits, there's literally nothing a kid can do except of watching funny pictures of cats on-line or playing games. Exploration and learning takes time, and is something you don't even start if you know you are on strict deadlines (note: this also applies to adults at and after work).
A younger friend of mine gained his first digital electronics knowledge building 8-segment displays in Minecraft, and the time spent on setting up and managing Minecraft servers gave him skills he now directly uses every day, for money and for fun.
The point is, school is bullshit (and kids smell it, they're incredibly good bullshit detectors). Pretty much anything a kid does on a computer that isn't literally browsing 9gag all day teaches them more than the same time spent doing homework. Parents need to be very careful here. School-related tasks are very inefficient way of spending time, but are easy for parents to focus on because they're quantified. You just have to look at the test scores and grades (and their first derivatives). The fact that they're totally unrelated to any education taking place is too much to think about.
So if you see your kid spends a lot of time building, creating and exploring stuff on the computer, do him/her a favour and don't mind too much if they occasionally forget about their homework. And most important of all - don't introduce insane time limits like "1 hour of computer time a day, every other day". With such strict limits, there's literally nothing a kid can do except of watching funny pictures of cats on-line or playing games. Exploration and learning takes time, and is something you don't even start if you know you are on strict deadlines (note: this also applies to adults at and after work).
> And the games were both what taught me English...
I've heard this from a lot of people. It's probably the most understated advantage of online gaming among students from non-English-speaking countries.
I've heard this from a lot of people. It's probably the most understated advantage of online gaming among students from non-English-speaking countries.
In my case this was actually off-line games I played when my only Internet connection was a 56k modem. Mostly StarCraft and Fallout, and some old Star Trek games, and I learned English because I really wanted to understand the story. I still remember myself sitting with a dictionary and translating the words used in descriptions.
My own experience with my son is that he spends an enormous amount of time online on Pokemon. I'm still figuring out what the hell he's doing there. Some of it seems useful. He just recently got excited about JavaScript, to help his buddy run a server, but fizzled out after five hours. He just doesn't have the follow-through skills. I'm trying to gently help him forward with it, but there is an engagement problem. (And some other problems, we're paying a lot of attention to him right now.)
He's been through Minecraft, done some stuff, and then fell off when it got harder than he liked. Likewise with other video games. He loved Kerbal for 45 minutes and was done. He gets hooked on video games because they are shiny, and sniffs at some of the possibilities, but then drops out. They provide enough stimulation to distract him from whatever is bothering him, and to keep him from getting so bored that he might actually read a book. But they don't provide any steps up to an actual learning threshold.
Yes, some people can learn enormous amounts from video games and such. But I worry that those people have a particular set of focus and problem-solving and follow-through skills. I don't see much in the online environment to help identify and fill those gaps for other people. Ideally schools should be able to do that, and no, too often they don't. But at least they have the opportunity to put great teachers in position to do just that.
I definitely get the possibilities of video games and I hope I'm not hung up on conventional learnings. But I fear that for a large category of kids, these games are really net negatives. I'm definitely worried about my son.
He's been through Minecraft, done some stuff, and then fell off when it got harder than he liked. Likewise with other video games. He loved Kerbal for 45 minutes and was done. He gets hooked on video games because they are shiny, and sniffs at some of the possibilities, but then drops out. They provide enough stimulation to distract him from whatever is bothering him, and to keep him from getting so bored that he might actually read a book. But they don't provide any steps up to an actual learning threshold.
Yes, some people can learn enormous amounts from video games and such. But I worry that those people have a particular set of focus and problem-solving and follow-through skills. I don't see much in the online environment to help identify and fill those gaps for other people. Ideally schools should be able to do that, and no, too often they don't. But at least they have the opportunity to put great teachers in position to do just that.
I definitely get the possibilities of video games and I hope I'm not hung up on conventional learnings. But I fear that for a large category of kids, these games are really net negatives. I'm definitely worried about my son.
I don't really have any opinions about video games; I always got bored with them too quickly to spend any substantial amount of time on them. But that's really just me... I suspect if my hand/eye coordination and reflex time was a bit better I might've spent a lot of time on them.
I had some problems with following through on hard tasks in grad school. When I got to the point where Google was completely useless and I knew I had six months of work to do (at best) with very little outside guidance, I kind of got down and couldn't focus. I found that biting off small pieces that seemed either easy or interesting and then convincing myself to forget about the long-term picture until I figured out that piece was a helpful way to avoid paralysis.
Also, whispering "I could give you a hint" in your own ear is pretty amazingly helpful, for the same reason that just knowing you could just Google for the answer if you need to is helpful when you're working on a hard assignment. Less stress, I guess.
Not sure if or how that applies to your son. Also seems like the sort of thing a kid would have a very difficult time doing for themselves. In any case, it sounds like you're very in tune and thinking about things the right way. Good luck with your son.
I had some problems with following through on hard tasks in grad school. When I got to the point where Google was completely useless and I knew I had six months of work to do (at best) with very little outside guidance, I kind of got down and couldn't focus. I found that biting off small pieces that seemed either easy or interesting and then convincing myself to forget about the long-term picture until I figured out that piece was a helpful way to avoid paralysis.
Also, whispering "I could give you a hint" in your own ear is pretty amazingly helpful, for the same reason that just knowing you could just Google for the answer if you need to is helpful when you're working on a hard assignment. Less stress, I guess.
Not sure if or how that applies to your son. Also seems like the sort of thing a kid would have a very difficult time doing for themselves. In any case, it sounds like you're very in tune and thinking about things the right way. Good luck with your son.
I'm always very hesitant to suggest anything based on a vague description - but it sounds like games are not the problem here, because the same pattern repeats in other things.
Yes and no. Yes, there are definitely other problems (and we're trying to get at those).
But the games are a problem as an attention sponge / stimulus hit. Thirty years ago the kid would have gotten so bored that he would have read a book or picked up a basketball or listening to music or something. Those initially would not have provided stimulus, but in time they would have, and he would have begun to associate the work done at them with stimulus and thus become more engaged with them. (I would hope. Maybe he'd start on weed, right?)
Today, it is just too easy to get a small stimulus attention hit from some game, or surfing around. God knows I struggle with it sometimes, don't most of us? For a kid who hasn't developed real engagement and follow-through, those little hits stave off boredom, sort of, but never lead to anything more rewarding.
All I'm saying is, I think the whole online environment definitely poses a new set of risks and that some people are more at risk than others.
But the games are a problem as an attention sponge / stimulus hit. Thirty years ago the kid would have gotten so bored that he would have read a book or picked up a basketball or listening to music or something. Those initially would not have provided stimulus, but in time they would have, and he would have begun to associate the work done at them with stimulus and thus become more engaged with them. (I would hope. Maybe he'd start on weed, right?)
Today, it is just too easy to get a small stimulus attention hit from some game, or surfing around. God knows I struggle with it sometimes, don't most of us? For a kid who hasn't developed real engagement and follow-through, those little hits stave off boredom, sort of, but never lead to anything more rewarding.
All I'm saying is, I think the whole online environment definitely poses a new set of risks and that some people are more at risk than others.
It's no different than using reading incorrectly and getting them addicted to that. Anything can become an addiction, gaming isn't any more or less prone to becoming addictive than shopping, playing outside, reading or eating. Many drugs are inherently addiction forming, taking them will cause an abnormal chemical response in the brain that forms an addiction, that's what the term addictive should mean when describing something. Gaming does not create an abnormal response in the brain.
But again, the point the author makes, and he tries to be nice about it, is that it's not Minecraft or any other games fault, it's parents using it incorrectly. Poor parenting can create bad habits, which yes can eventually become addictions. But that doesn't make the focus of the addiction the culprit, that makes the parents the culprit.
But again, the point the author makes, and he tries to be nice about it, is that it's not Minecraft or any other games fault, it's parents using it incorrectly. Poor parenting can create bad habits, which yes can eventually become addictions. But that doesn't make the focus of the addiction the culprit, that makes the parents the culprit.
Addiction isn't defined by the "pleasure source" (drug, game, shopping) and doesn't require criminal or financially draining effects. Addiction is being so obsessed with an activity that it consumes one's life and he/she neglects other priorities in pursuit of its pleasure.
It would be completely foolish to deny that some games have addictive qualities to them - look at how developers such as Blizzard hire psychologists to make their games more appealing. That short work-reward cycle feels fulfilling, and drives many people to keep on playing despite it being harmful.
> Non-gamers are bombarded by messages from the larger media-culture.
>So parents hear constantly that games are harmful, that gamers are all potential crazed gunmen, isolated shut ins and so on.
No they don't. Has the author noticed it's not 2007 anymore? To find substantial video-game addiction stories, you now have to go find them. They are not a part of mainstream culture, especially the crazed gunman stories.
>This is why we have televisions, magazines and newspapers – they are technological devices to sell us advertising.
Lots of media companies own video game studios.
To be sure, video-game addiction is a minor problem compared to drugs, alcohol, and sex addiction. But sticking your head in the sand is not going to win you any allies, nor does a persecution complex. Instead, stick to the positive benefits that video games have, and DO NOT overstate them, like marijuana activists convinced the drug is a cure-all.
The world has moved on. We(gamers) won. It's time to stop pretending we're a persecuted minority.
> Non-gamers are bombarded by messages from the larger media-culture.
>So parents hear constantly that games are harmful, that gamers are all potential crazed gunmen, isolated shut ins and so on.
No they don't. Has the author noticed it's not 2007 anymore? To find substantial video-game addiction stories, you now have to go find them. They are not a part of mainstream culture, especially the crazed gunman stories.
>This is why we have televisions, magazines and newspapers – they are technological devices to sell us advertising.
Lots of media companies own video game studios.
To be sure, video-game addiction is a minor problem compared to drugs, alcohol, and sex addiction. But sticking your head in the sand is not going to win you any allies, nor does a persecution complex. Instead, stick to the positive benefits that video games have, and DO NOT overstate them, like marijuana activists convinced the drug is a cure-all.
The world has moved on. We(gamers) won. It's time to stop pretending we're a persecuted minority.
Has the author noticed it's not 2007 anymore? To find substantial video-game addiction stories, you now have to go find them. They are not a part of mainstream culture, especially the crazed gunman stories.
I'm not sure if things have changed all that dramatically in 8 years. Video games remain a convenient scapegoat for various societal ills.
I'm not sure if things have changed all that dramatically in 8 years. Video games remain a convenient scapegoat for various societal ills.
I haven't heard one media outlet claiming e.g. Dylann Roof was influenced by video games, and I think they would have a stronger case nowadays with games like Hatred on the market.
Dylann Roof is an atypical case. Not much was said about gun control either, which is unusual. The primary debate that was sparked was surrounding the Confederate battle flag(s).
What do you mean by "nowadays with games like Hatred on the market"?
What is special about Hatred? It wasn't a particularly violent game, it just got propelled into notoriety by demagoguery and the developers' guerrilla marketing. It's a near verbatim clone of Postal, and that came out in 1997.
What do you mean by "nowadays with games like Hatred on the market"?
What is special about Hatred? It wasn't a particularly violent game, it just got propelled into notoriety by demagoguery and the developers' guerrilla marketing. It's a near verbatim clone of Postal, and that came out in 1997.
That's because society as a whole isn't mentally capable of assigning more than one salient feature to an event.
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Video game addiction can be much much worse than regular drugs. It depends what a person is more susceptible to. Sometimes games ruin relationships, cause people to lose friends and destroy academic careers. Giving up the game is almost impossible once the rest of your life is completely empty.
There are now clinics in some countries that cater specifically towards video game addiction. Playing world of warcraft, I witnessed these events firsthand with myself and some of my "real life" friends.
I am aware that some people cannot get addicted at all, but it's not true for everyone.
Edit: some links
RPG addiction can be traced all the way back to MUDs: http://abandonedrealms.com/essays/addiction.php
Wow addiction: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/aug/29/world-of-w...
Video game addiction on webmd: http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/addiction/features/video-...
There are now clinics in some countries that cater specifically towards video game addiction. Playing world of warcraft, I witnessed these events firsthand with myself and some of my "real life" friends.
I am aware that some people cannot get addicted at all, but it's not true for everyone.
Edit: some links
RPG addiction can be traced all the way back to MUDs: http://abandonedrealms.com/essays/addiction.php
Wow addiction: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/aug/29/world-of-w...
Video game addiction on webmd: http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/addiction/features/video-...
Video games can be good. Video games can be bad. Specifically pertaining to minecraft, I've never found a game that has the potential to offer so many educational experiences. You can start off stacking blocks with your kid. Fast forward a few years and you've downloaded something like computer craft and you are now creating your own game skins and literally programming simple AIs whether they are bots or enemy mobs.
It's a much older demographic, but Kerbal Space Program is educational in a similarly sneaky way. First you build some rockets and they don't go very far, then you build some better ones, and at a certain point you wind up learning about orbital mechanics and rocketry equations. It really changed the way I think about space, while procrastinating!
I haven't made mods for it yet, but there are people that go down that rabbit hole too. Quite a bargain for the $30 I paid.
I haven't made mods for it yet, but there are people that go down that rabbit hole too. Quite a bargain for the $30 I paid.
Oh yes, for me it was best money spent for a video game ever. I've clocked almost 400 hours and I still really didn't get into making planes - I'm launching rockets, building space stations and (with help of a bunch of cool mods) setting up colonies on moons.
This game has it all - you need to learn being precise (targeted landings if you want to build a structure somewhere or picked up kerbonauts you crashed the previous time), you need to plan and do logistics (hello fuel shipments), and you need patience (rendezvous and docking). And, as OP said, you quickly end up learning a lot about orbital mechanics, rocketry and space exploration. You don't need to know the maths, but you'll end up learning it anyway, because formulas are the easiest way to compress your intuition about "why bigger ships need helluva bigger rockets" or "why when I go faster I go slower".
Oh, and a fun thing I observed watching the community - because KSP runs on Unity 4, which has an unusable 64bit version for Windows, and the game itself starts quickly eating your RAM when you go for installing part or visual mods to the point of crashing the 32bit version, a lot of people install Linux for the first time in their lives just to play a working 64bit version of KSP. Yay for more education :).
This game has it all - you need to learn being precise (targeted landings if you want to build a structure somewhere or picked up kerbonauts you crashed the previous time), you need to plan and do logistics (hello fuel shipments), and you need patience (rendezvous and docking). And, as OP said, you quickly end up learning a lot about orbital mechanics, rocketry and space exploration. You don't need to know the maths, but you'll end up learning it anyway, because formulas are the easiest way to compress your intuition about "why bigger ships need helluva bigger rockets" or "why when I go faster I go slower".
Oh, and a fun thing I observed watching the community - because KSP runs on Unity 4, which has an unusable 64bit version for Windows, and the game itself starts quickly eating your RAM when you go for installing part or visual mods to the point of crashing the 32bit version, a lot of people install Linux for the first time in their lives just to play a working 64bit version of KSP. Yay for more education :).
I'm just starting on that game (ThinkPad T440p didn't have the gpu to run it...X250 does). But I run Windows as host OS to avoid drivers and battery issues. Do you know if the game will be OK inside VirtualBox or VMware? (Yes I could just try it but commenting is easier.) Will I not hit RAM issues if I don't install visual mods? (It renders shitty enough already; don't need to slow it down more.)
I don't now how good is the virtualization nowadays; KSP is mostly CPU-bound anyway thanks to physics done in a single thread. You should be fine on Windows though, as long as you don't overdo it with parts mods. The magic boundary for 32bit processes is 3.2GB RAM (fire up Process Explorer after KSP loaded and see how much it uses). There's a trick you can use to get the game use only half of the memory (for some weird reason) - fire it up with --force-opengl command line parameter. This should let you install pretty much any visual mod you want and then quite a bunch of others. Some people also used to use texture compression mods. Either of those tricks may no longer be necessary though, because one of the recent updates got rid of the uncompressed textures in the game - but by that time I bought an SSD and installed a fresh Linux on it to play 64bit, so I don't know if the change helped.
Oof logistics. I have about a dozen nonfunctional satellites in orbit because I forgot to extend antennas before dropping them into orbit while using RemoteTech.
Happened to me too. Or even more often, I forgot to extend solar panels and ended up out of power. Only recently I had to fly a rescue mission and do an EVA to force-extend a panel from outside.
For those who don't know KSP mods, RemoteTech adds the requirement to maintain communication links (via powered antennas) in order to be able to control unmanned vehicles. You can create relays as well (usually the first thing you do is to launch a geostationary comm network over the home planet), and the mod can account for the speed-of-light delay if you so choose.
Combine it with bunch of other mods like Kerbal Attachment System (attaching and detaching parts by kerbonauts during EVA, including pipes that let you transfer resources without docking) and one of many life support mods, and suddenly you really have to think a lot about logistics in game.
For those who don't know KSP mods, RemoteTech adds the requirement to maintain communication links (via powered antennas) in order to be able to control unmanned vehicles. You can create relays as well (usually the first thing you do is to launch a geostationary comm network over the home planet), and the mod can account for the speed-of-light delay if you so choose.
Combine it with bunch of other mods like Kerbal Attachment System (attaching and detaching parts by kerbonauts during EVA, including pipes that let you transfer resources without docking) and one of many life support mods, and suddenly you really have to think a lot about logistics in game.
And then you build planes...
When I first bought KSP, I had no idea you could even get into orbit. So many different levels of accomplishments to strive for, especially now with career mode.
When I first bought KSP, I had no idea you could even get into orbit. So many different levels of accomplishments to strive for, especially now with career mode.
> Video games can be good.
I challenge you to show me a way in which video games can be optimally good. Not just better than some carefully selected bad alternative, but better than any alternative. As in, actually a good thing to do of all options available.
I challenge you to show me a way in which video games can be optimally good. Not just better than some carefully selected bad alternative, but better than any alternative. As in, actually a good thing to do of all options available.
That's a pretty silly thing to demand. There are very few things that most people find enjoyable which are "optimally good". Requiring something to be "optimally good" in order to do it would make a quite dull life for most of us.
Flight simulators for pilots.
> To your brain, Mincraft is a form of going outside.
> Our bodies are just a way to move our sub-conscious around. We spend most of our lives in our own sub-conscious because our brain likes to do stuff. The brain is in charge, not the body, and the brain is just as interested in solving problems in Minecraft as it is getting hands to move lego-bricks around a table.
Errrh. I like gaming but dualism is a poor excuse for that (and one I believe to be very wrong both empirically and philosophically).
> Our bodies are just a way to move our sub-conscious around. We spend most of our lives in our own sub-conscious because our brain likes to do stuff. The brain is in charge, not the body, and the brain is just as interested in solving problems in Minecraft as it is getting hands to move lego-bricks around a table.
Errrh. I like gaming but dualism is a poor excuse for that (and one I believe to be very wrong both empirically and philosophically).
I don't think the author was trying to go for anything metaphysical there.
Worse, physical. The author is claiming that body exists to serve the mind, and as no needs of own. Nutrition and exercise/atrophy and vitamin D production give the lie to the claim that playing outside is equivalent to playing minecraft.
I wonder if anyone ever asked whether playing with blocks is addictive?
I've been waiting forever for someone to write the ultimate eloquent screed on medium irrelevancy, so I could link it in response to a thousand conversations including this one. It would cover things like:
• How toy blocks are toy blocks, whether they're made of wood or abstract vertices;
• how a novel is a novel, whether it has a battle engine or not;
• how a war simulation is a war simulation, whether the bullets are made of plastic and paint or network packets;
• further, how talking to friends is talking to friends, whether it's on a playground or on Facebook;
• and that talking to strangers is talking to strangers, whether it's on a playground or on Facebook;
• but also how there are also structured leagues that kick out creepy people, both for soccer and Starcraft;
• and, most importantly, that "playing on the computer" isn't an activity. The simplest and most useful metaphor is that the computer is a place, like "school" or "the park" or "a friend's house", where your child goes and all sorts of activities happen. Those activities are not better or worse for happening on a computer; they're exactly as they were when they weren't happening on a computer.
Ideally, parents would treat the computer, the medium, as an irrelevant distraction to finding out what their child is up to. One is not "chatting on Facebook"; one is just chatting with friends, or with a kid in my class, or perhaps with some random person who started talking to me. That information, the important information, gets buried under the medium.
• How toy blocks are toy blocks, whether they're made of wood or abstract vertices;
• how a novel is a novel, whether it has a battle engine or not;
• how a war simulation is a war simulation, whether the bullets are made of plastic and paint or network packets;
• further, how talking to friends is talking to friends, whether it's on a playground or on Facebook;
• and that talking to strangers is talking to strangers, whether it's on a playground or on Facebook;
• but also how there are also structured leagues that kick out creepy people, both for soccer and Starcraft;
• and, most importantly, that "playing on the computer" isn't an activity. The simplest and most useful metaphor is that the computer is a place, like "school" or "the park" or "a friend's house", where your child goes and all sorts of activities happen. Those activities are not better or worse for happening on a computer; they're exactly as they were when they weren't happening on a computer.
Ideally, parents would treat the computer, the medium, as an irrelevant distraction to finding out what their child is up to. One is not "chatting on Facebook"; one is just chatting with friends, or with a kid in my class, or perhaps with some random person who started talking to me. That information, the important information, gets buried under the medium.
Except the argument doesn't hold water. There is a difference between playing with toy blocks or virtual blocks. The toy blocks develop physical skills, and teaches physical experimentation. The virtual blocks develops keyboard/gamepad skills and usually illustrates unphysical simulation. The toy blocks allow arbitrary social interaction with other kids, the virtual blocks constrain social interaction to the limits of the device or setting.
I've been in that camp -- I got a degree from DigiPen before I decided to do something more meaningful with my life. But I wish I could go back in time and tell the adolescent me that obsessed over games, hosted LAN parties, and spent all his waking hours in front of his custom-built PC, to just go outside and play.
I've been in that camp -- I got a degree from DigiPen before I decided to do something more meaningful with my life. But I wish I could go back in time and tell the adolescent me that obsessed over games, hosted LAN parties, and spent all his waking hours in front of his custom-built PC, to just go outside and play.
> But I wish I could go back in time and tell the adolescent me that obsessed over games, hosted LAN parties, and spent all his waking hours in front of his custom-built PC, to just go outside and play
That sounds like you were in the opposite of that camp, actually. If you embraced the idea of medium irrelevancy as a child, then you would default to ambivalence between, say, playing a sports game, and playing an actual sport. This would let you freely weigh the pros and cons of each, which would likely end up with you playing the actual sport.
The medium may be irrelevant, but the individual activities are not identical, they're just in an equivalence class with one-another. Playing with wood blocks can be better or worse than playing with abstract-vertex blocks, exactly insofar as either of those can be better or worse than playing with jello blocks, or imaginary blocks, or building something out of real fired-clay bricks.
What I'm getting at, is that activities done on a computer are not in a separate magisterium where their "computerness" is their one and only property. Ignore that they're on a computer; look at them for what they actually are, what they actually require and enable you to do, etc.
Soccer is better as a real physical activity on a field. Scrabble (as my grandmother continually attests) is better as an asynchronous online mobile game. The reasons why have nothing to do with the "computerness", and everything to do with the required affordances and social goals of the two activities.
I should also note that frequently there isn't an either-or distinction. I "hang out with my friends" strictly more than I used to, because I do the same amount of real-world "hanging out", and a bunch of additional low-engagement online "hanging out." This is especially true of the friends I have in other countries; 20 years ago, my relationship with them would be something like "I write them letters and see them once every three years." Now we talk all night.
That sounds like you were in the opposite of that camp, actually. If you embraced the idea of medium irrelevancy as a child, then you would default to ambivalence between, say, playing a sports game, and playing an actual sport. This would let you freely weigh the pros and cons of each, which would likely end up with you playing the actual sport.
The medium may be irrelevant, but the individual activities are not identical, they're just in an equivalence class with one-another. Playing with wood blocks can be better or worse than playing with abstract-vertex blocks, exactly insofar as either of those can be better or worse than playing with jello blocks, or imaginary blocks, or building something out of real fired-clay bricks.
What I'm getting at, is that activities done on a computer are not in a separate magisterium where their "computerness" is their one and only property. Ignore that they're on a computer; look at them for what they actually are, what they actually require and enable you to do, etc.
Soccer is better as a real physical activity on a field. Scrabble (as my grandmother continually attests) is better as an asynchronous online mobile game. The reasons why have nothing to do with the "computerness", and everything to do with the required affordances and social goals of the two activities.
I should also note that frequently there isn't an either-or distinction. I "hang out with my friends" strictly more than I used to, because I do the same amount of real-world "hanging out", and a bunch of additional low-engagement online "hanging out." This is especially true of the friends I have in other countries; 20 years ago, my relationship with them would be something like "I write them letters and see them once every three years." Now we talk all night.
Past tense.
Good point. I think all the handwringing over computer games is society saying "This stuff is kind of new, maybe we should be cautious." Happens every time technology advances, particularly when kids are the users.
The thing that is particularly bad in our age is that we're demonizing many realms of experience with the language of addiction. It's stupid. I hope we get over it.
The thing that is particularly bad in our age is that we're demonizing many realms of experience with the language of addiction. It's stupid. I hope we get over it.
This is absurdly wrongheaded, and perhaps one of the most misguided things I've ever read on HN. The medium, as the old saying goes and in many cases, is the message, and the way information comes into our brains fundamentally changes the context of the information, how we learn it, and how we're able to access it (for a trivial example, look at the connection between scent and memory).
How toy blocks are toy blocks, whether they're made of wood or abstract vertices;
No. Muscle memory and spatial skills are based on physical manipulation with the hands and arms. One cannot develop good body awareness/proprioception without actually using their limbs (this becomes even more important as we potentially move away from finger-based controls for computers).
how a novel is a novel, whether it has a battle engine or not
No. Control over the outcome and process of an artistic object fundamentally changes the object -- an appropriate analogy would be to an echo chamber where people manipulate art into forms they prefer rather than be challenged by it. Games can be art, but a process you engage with and alter is different from a process imposed upon you as a single vision by a writer.
how a war simulation is a war simulation, whether the bullets are made of plastic and paint or network packets
No. Physical reflexes and adrenaline responses operate in different ways when someone is perceiving real operations rather than an obvious simulation. Virtual reality may overcome some of these issues but it will do so by narrowing the analogue, not by analogizing bullets and packets.
and that talking to strangers is talking to strangers, whether it's on a playground or on Facebook;
No. Humans use an incredible number of feedback mechanisms to interpret person-to-person interaction, ranging from facial expressions to pheromones -- the idea that these responses can be coded into text or emoji in a coherent way is absurd (particularly given that many of them occur at an unconscious level).
The computer is not a place -- it's a manipulatory environment that currently engages the fingertips, the eyes, and occasionally the ears, three of dozens of sensory inputs that our brain uses to model the world. The brain is plastic in many ways, but it is not so plastic that these inputs can replace scent, visual responses to faces, physical action of the limbs, the skin's response to environmental factors such as cold or sunlight, and many more.
Messages are never independent of their medium, and this is never more true than when those messages are human experiences.
How toy blocks are toy blocks, whether they're made of wood or abstract vertices;
No. Muscle memory and spatial skills are based on physical manipulation with the hands and arms. One cannot develop good body awareness/proprioception without actually using their limbs (this becomes even more important as we potentially move away from finger-based controls for computers).
how a novel is a novel, whether it has a battle engine or not
No. Control over the outcome and process of an artistic object fundamentally changes the object -- an appropriate analogy would be to an echo chamber where people manipulate art into forms they prefer rather than be challenged by it. Games can be art, but a process you engage with and alter is different from a process imposed upon you as a single vision by a writer.
how a war simulation is a war simulation, whether the bullets are made of plastic and paint or network packets
No. Physical reflexes and adrenaline responses operate in different ways when someone is perceiving real operations rather than an obvious simulation. Virtual reality may overcome some of these issues but it will do so by narrowing the analogue, not by analogizing bullets and packets.
and that talking to strangers is talking to strangers, whether it's on a playground or on Facebook;
No. Humans use an incredible number of feedback mechanisms to interpret person-to-person interaction, ranging from facial expressions to pheromones -- the idea that these responses can be coded into text or emoji in a coherent way is absurd (particularly given that many of them occur at an unconscious level).
The computer is not a place -- it's a manipulatory environment that currently engages the fingertips, the eyes, and occasionally the ears, three of dozens of sensory inputs that our brain uses to model the world. The brain is plastic in many ways, but it is not so plastic that these inputs can replace scent, visual responses to faces, physical action of the limbs, the skin's response to environmental factors such as cold or sunlight, and many more.
Messages are never independent of their medium, and this is never more true than when those messages are human experiences.
Did you read my response to maaku above? You're arguing against a bunch of strawmen points.
I'm not saying that there is no difference between the two things; I'm saying that an "activity" is a concept that belongs primarily to the cluster in conceptspace representing that activity's goals and affordances, and you should evaluate an instantiation of an activity relative to other instantiations of that activity, rather than relative to other activities available in the same medium.
Or, to put that more simply, I'm saying that you should treat e.g. Minecraft as an instance of the kind of thing that Lego is, compare the two based on their merits (with e.g. Lego on the motor coordination side, as you said), and only then decide what you want or don't want your kids playing with.
The point I was trying to make is that, for example, telling a child to "turn off their computer and read a book" is nonsense if they were reading a book on the computer. Both things are books. In this case, there is no additional merit on either side of the ledger; in either case, the affordance is "text" and the interaction is "moving your eyes to absorb it."
Likewise, it is nonsense to tell your child to "get off the computer and go play with your friends" when all their friends are stuck at home due to their own overprotective parents, and so the only place they can freely see their friends is on the computer. You're making an assumption based on the medium (that the computer is solitary and real life is social), whereas in the specific case-by-case evaluation at that moment, the opposite is true.
Again note how I'm not suggesting the experiences are one-for-one replacements for one-another. Of course they're not. But the degree to which they're not is exactly the same degree that any other instantiation of the same {goals, affordances} tuple—any other instance of the same activity—is not.
And one more alternate phrasing, for redundancy's sake: in the set {computer game, board game, card game}, the adjective "computer" doesn't magically make the first element more N-dimensionally distant from the other two than they are to one-another. You should do the same evaluation when comparing the merits of the computer game to the card game, that you would when comparing the merits of the card game to the board game. Don't bias yourself by assuming that anything on a computer is going to have the same merits and the same drawbacks. The medium is not the central cluster to which the activity belongs. It's just a property in the equation.
I'm not saying that there is no difference between the two things; I'm saying that an "activity" is a concept that belongs primarily to the cluster in conceptspace representing that activity's goals and affordances, and you should evaluate an instantiation of an activity relative to other instantiations of that activity, rather than relative to other activities available in the same medium.
Or, to put that more simply, I'm saying that you should treat e.g. Minecraft as an instance of the kind of thing that Lego is, compare the two based on their merits (with e.g. Lego on the motor coordination side, as you said), and only then decide what you want or don't want your kids playing with.
The point I was trying to make is that, for example, telling a child to "turn off their computer and read a book" is nonsense if they were reading a book on the computer. Both things are books. In this case, there is no additional merit on either side of the ledger; in either case, the affordance is "text" and the interaction is "moving your eyes to absorb it."
Likewise, it is nonsense to tell your child to "get off the computer and go play with your friends" when all their friends are stuck at home due to their own overprotective parents, and so the only place they can freely see their friends is on the computer. You're making an assumption based on the medium (that the computer is solitary and real life is social), whereas in the specific case-by-case evaluation at that moment, the opposite is true.
Again note how I'm not suggesting the experiences are one-for-one replacements for one-another. Of course they're not. But the degree to which they're not is exactly the same degree that any other instantiation of the same {goals, affordances} tuple—any other instance of the same activity—is not.
And one more alternate phrasing, for redundancy's sake: in the set {computer game, board game, card game}, the adjective "computer" doesn't magically make the first element more N-dimensionally distant from the other two than they are to one-another. You should do the same evaluation when comparing the merits of the computer game to the card game, that you would when comparing the merits of the card game to the board game. Don't bias yourself by assuming that anything on a computer is going to have the same merits and the same drawbacks. The medium is not the central cluster to which the activity belongs. It's just a property in the equation.
Playing with blocks is a far better thing to do than playing with virtual blocks.
How do you know?
Well let's see: development of motor skills, physical exercise, development of a reality-based sense of consequences, ability to feel embodied cause and effect, chances for ad-hoc social interaction with other kids, truly open-ended possibilities for play unconstrained by the imagination of the video game creator, ...
I think the onus is on the person claiming virtual blocks are an equal or better substitute to prove it.
I think the onus is on the person claiming virtual blocks are an equal or better substitute to prove it.
Nope. No hand-eye coordination or motor skill improvement happening when you use a mouse-driven computer interface to place blocks on a screen.
No ad-hoc social interaction with other kids either, especially on public servers where lots of kids hang out.
have you even played minecraft?
No ad-hoc social interaction with other kids either, especially on public servers where lots of kids hang out.
have you even played minecraft?
You're the one claiming that "playing with blocks is a far better thing to do than playing with virtual blocks", but all you can offer are blanket statements. Can you point to a study that compares playing with blocks and playing video games and shows that the first option is far better than the other one?
As for the particular statements:
> development of motor skills
Video games also help with developing motor skills. "The findings demonstrate a positive influence of computer games on psychomotor functioning" [1]. Although this study tested adults, here's a similar one with children [2].
> physical exercise
Moving blocks with fingers offers as much exercise as using said fingers to press buttons or move a mouse. In any case, both activities offer negligible exercise compared to sports.
> development of a reality-based sense of consequences
What kind of consequences? That blocks will fall if they are not supported? 4.5-month-old infants are aware of that already and at this stage it's unlikely they played with blocks [3].
> ability to feel embodied cause and effect
Unless they step on a brick bare-foot, playing with blocks won't improve the perception of causality any more than interacting with everyday objects in children's environment [4]. The only behavior on that list that is remotely related to blocks is "holding a block in each hand and banging the blocks together" - hardly a unique purpose of blocks.
> chances for ad-hoc social interaction with other kids
This is not an inherent property of playing with blocks, but rather of all potential group activities - including video games. Besides, online video games offer something that blocks cannot: a possibility of interacting with kids from other countries and cultures.
> truly open-ended possibilities for play unconstrained by the imagination of the video game creator
In theory, yes. In practice, you're heavily constrained by the number of pieces you own. The pieces themselves are constrained by their designer and manufacturer in terms of shape, size, and color. Compare this with gigabytes of RAM which can hold millions of virtual blocks and their properties.
1 - http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-007-4546-9_4... 2 - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/01933973949... 3 - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/00100277939... 4 - http://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/cd/re/itf09cogdevfdcae.asp
As for the particular statements:
> development of motor skills
Video games also help with developing motor skills. "The findings demonstrate a positive influence of computer games on psychomotor functioning" [1]. Although this study tested adults, here's a similar one with children [2].
> physical exercise
Moving blocks with fingers offers as much exercise as using said fingers to press buttons or move a mouse. In any case, both activities offer negligible exercise compared to sports.
> development of a reality-based sense of consequences
What kind of consequences? That blocks will fall if they are not supported? 4.5-month-old infants are aware of that already and at this stage it's unlikely they played with blocks [3].
> ability to feel embodied cause and effect
Unless they step on a brick bare-foot, playing with blocks won't improve the perception of causality any more than interacting with everyday objects in children's environment [4]. The only behavior on that list that is remotely related to blocks is "holding a block in each hand and banging the blocks together" - hardly a unique purpose of blocks.
> chances for ad-hoc social interaction with other kids
This is not an inherent property of playing with blocks, but rather of all potential group activities - including video games. Besides, online video games offer something that blocks cannot: a possibility of interacting with kids from other countries and cultures.
> truly open-ended possibilities for play unconstrained by the imagination of the video game creator
In theory, yes. In practice, you're heavily constrained by the number of pieces you own. The pieces themselves are constrained by their designer and manufacturer in terms of shape, size, and color. Compare this with gigabytes of RAM which can hold millions of virtual blocks and their properties.
1 - http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-007-4546-9_4... 2 - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/01933973949... 3 - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/00100277939... 4 - http://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/cd/re/itf09cogdevfdcae.asp
I think the biggest problem is the online nature of it. When I was growing up, it was literally "you can play until the next spot where you can pause". That doesn't really work with an online game like Minecraft where there is no definitive beginning and end. There's no "round" or "level" to beat. And there's almost assuredly at least one friend who can keep playing until bedtime, even if all your friends can't.
I think the only real way to "fix" the issue is to set strict time limits out of the gate so that your children learn early on to mediate their time.
I think the only real way to "fix" the issue is to set strict time limits out of the gate so that your children learn early on to mediate their time.
You need to be careful with those limits 'lest you end up ensuring your kid never learns to do anything else with the computer than playing games. Exploring and tinkering takes time. A kid won't start doing that if he/she knows he has only an hour a day tops, nor you can really do anything creative on such short time blocks.
Spending time on a computer != playing minecraft on xbox which is almost always what I see occurring when I hear parents talking about their kids spending too much time playing minecraft.
Yes, Minecraft is available for PC. But I would say that is the vast, vast, vast minority of how kids under the age of 16 consume it. I see it almost universally on tablets, phones, and consoles.
Yes, Minecraft is available for PC. But I would say that is the vast, vast, vast minority of how kids under the age of 16 consume it. I see it almost universally on tablets, phones, and consoles.
On the other hand, "just one more level" x10 is an issue in round & level style games.
> Saying Minecraft is addictive is similar to trying to argue millions of people addicted to soccer and therefore soccer creates the violence and racism on the terraces and so on.
Unfortunately, playing a lot of Minecraft won't help you detect humongous logical fallacies like these. Whether it's addictive or not is orthogonal to the knock-on effects of that addiction. The article has more than a few of these woozy rationalisations, which is sad as there are some decent points in there.
Unfortunately, playing a lot of Minecraft won't help you detect humongous logical fallacies like these. Whether it's addictive or not is orthogonal to the knock-on effects of that addiction. The article has more than a few of these woozy rationalisations, which is sad as there are some decent points in there.
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Similar to just about anything I read these days about parenting, I found some things I agreed with and a few that I don't. What has always been troubling to me however, is "our" (society, media, whomever) propensity to blame our children's activities for the disconnect between what they enjoy doing and what we, as parents, think they should be doing.
There are benefits that can be obtained from playing games, video or otherwise. I, personally, have used pokemon to teach reading, story-telling, math, strategy, problem solving, and a myriad of other things to my oldest son. His brother isn't far behind him. We play minecraft, smash bros, mario kart; I even recently introduced him to portal 2. Some of what I let him do is for fun. Some is to gauge his interest in things. Other times I use the time to teach him something new. But the biggest factor of this strategy working is and will almost always be parental involvement.
Most of the backlash I see/hear/read about from other parents is due primarily to an unwillingness to get interested in what their children are interested in. They'll buy them the game and go enjoy some "peace and quiet" and never think twice about it. There's something to be said of a parent really taking an interest and learning about a new universe with their children. I'm far from perfect, but that's what I've been attempting, and it's working out pretty well so far.
There was a quote in an Orson Scott Card book, "The Lost Gate" where the main character speaks of his sort-of adopted mother/trainer/mentor where he mentions that "Love ... it's a term for the woman in my life who loves me enough to read the novels I'm reading just so she can try to figure out what they're teaching me."
TL;DR - Games aren't inherently good or bad. But it's up to the parent to actually do the parenting. They can't just throw a "good video game" in front of their children and expect them to magically grow into engineers or doctors.
There are benefits that can be obtained from playing games, video or otherwise. I, personally, have used pokemon to teach reading, story-telling, math, strategy, problem solving, and a myriad of other things to my oldest son. His brother isn't far behind him. We play minecraft, smash bros, mario kart; I even recently introduced him to portal 2. Some of what I let him do is for fun. Some is to gauge his interest in things. Other times I use the time to teach him something new. But the biggest factor of this strategy working is and will almost always be parental involvement.
Most of the backlash I see/hear/read about from other parents is due primarily to an unwillingness to get interested in what their children are interested in. They'll buy them the game and go enjoy some "peace and quiet" and never think twice about it. There's something to be said of a parent really taking an interest and learning about a new universe with their children. I'm far from perfect, but that's what I've been attempting, and it's working out pretty well so far.
There was a quote in an Orson Scott Card book, "The Lost Gate" where the main character speaks of his sort-of adopted mother/trainer/mentor where he mentions that "Love ... it's a term for the woman in my life who loves me enough to read the novels I'm reading just so she can try to figure out what they're teaching me."
TL;DR - Games aren't inherently good or bad. But it's up to the parent to actually do the parenting. They can't just throw a "good video game" in front of their children and expect them to magically grow into engineers or doctors.
The addiction to Minecraft (or most other online games) is purely social. Soon a new game will come along that the next lot of kids will all play together. There is nothing about Minecraft itself that makes it addictive. I've lived through this myself hopping from game to game with my high school friends.
Perhaps it is a bad thing that kids are never bored.
As a kid I was often bored - playing outside with friends was the only interesting thing to do.
My kids have unlimited YouTube/App's/Minecraft to enjoy.
Some of my later interests came as a result of having to occupy myself, I don't see this process happening with them.
As a kid I was often bored - playing outside with friends was the only interesting thing to do.
My kids have unlimited YouTube/App's/Minecraft to enjoy.
Some of my later interests came as a result of having to occupy myself, I don't see this process happening with them.
please add a (2012) to this article title. Minecraft and it's evolution in the mainstream has come a long way since then.
Discussion here is still relevant and current, just sayin - old old url.
it's impossible to be addicted to video game? I'm sorry I had to stop reading. I feel like there is no point upvoting or even constructing a thoughtful comment to this article.
The internet is like a parallel universe based around the exact opposite rules. You can look at whatever you want, talk to whoever you want, say whatever you want, do whatever you want, and no one is going to stop you. There is no wonder that so many suburban children become "internet addicts" these days, given that it is the sole element of freedom in their lives.
And Minecraft is the ultimate embodiment of this freedom. There is no structure or goal to it, just the freedom to wander about a crude approximation of the natural world, go on adventures by yourself or with friends, and build things with your own two hands. In short, it is a safe, sterilized version of the ancient childhood experience of wandering the woods, building forts, and carving out a society secret from the adults. It is the solution to problems we created ourselves out of fear of the world.