Developmental Value in Gaming?

Spinning off the conversation started by Jeff about limiting kid's video game time...

I've found that a lot of really smart, well intentioned people get kinda nuts when it comes to video games specifically for some reason. Video games are a huge category of things, that can serve wildly different purposes. Is there something less imaginative, intellectually stimulating, and problem solving focused when you compare Minecraft to playing with Legos? Is there inherently more value (a whole complicated concept itself) in playing kickball vs Wii Sports? Are the drone pilots, arthroscopic surgeons, and game creators of the future poorly served by developing their skills in virtual worlds?

Thing is, everything serves some role in the development of a person. Interdisciplinary explorations of whatever it is that a kid is most interested in is an AMAZING way to work on skill development. Kid is way into Mario Kart? Cool, let's talk about the physics, let's talk about a critical analysis of which driver best suits your style of play, let's talk about fantasy vs reality, let's have more practical experience of winning/losing and how to deal with the need to work at something to get better, etc. It's all very flexible to whatever level and goal you're working on helping them to develop.

All that developmental value aside, even "mindless" entertainment is needed to just relax the brain sometimes after a hard day of school or work.

Certainly there is value in gaming. Of course.

There is also a large number of very interesting studies that point to keeping a child away from excessive screen time for the early years. Like less than an hour over the first 4-5 years. I'm still in that stage myself. But from many of the kids I know if you don't limit it (no one is talking about taking it away entirely) they will want almost nothing else. The games offer the most amazing instant gratification you can possible device in the modern world. Getting my child to play ukulele is much more difficult because the pay off is so long term in comparison.

They will also eat nothing but chocolate bars and cake if you don't make them eat vegetables. That's how kids are. My kid seems polite and in control when other people are around... but when it's just him and the family at home... he is way more wild. So others might not notice this attitude like we do.

Video games have been used in training in a variety of fields for many years so I don't think their value is any secret really, it's more that some things that have monumental pay off years down the road don't seem as fun immediately so you have to parent and that occasionally involves things like limiting video game time.

I think we're talking about moderation and wide exposure but I would like to think that everyone here agrees that video games have benefits too.

(Cross posted from JonJacob's thread until these are consolidated or something)

First, I don't claim to have the right answers. I figure 'its a brave new world' and all that and each parent is only doing what they _think_ is in their child's best interest. I don't limit game time because I'm a meanie or on a power trip.

As y'all are aware, my son started around age 5 when I got him that RetroDuo for SNES games. He loved it. Well, before that he was able to play apps on phones. At 7, he's fully into video games, and my daughter (4) has been exposed at a much younger age since her brother has been doing it. At this point though, she seems fine just watching videos and such during her 'technology time' and she also seems a bit more at ease transitioning out of it.

Do I think videogames are harmful or don't offer anything developmental? Well, no...so long as it's in moderation (a theme at our house). There's a bit of pushback on my end simply because his world (and ours) is so immersed in videogaming. Hell, kids in his class (2nd grade!) bust out phones and pads while waiting in line after school. Do I want him always looking over the shoulders of others? Feel like he's somehow less than because he doesn't have a phone but _only_ a library book? It's tough.

Thing is, is Minecraft better or worse than Lego? I dunno. But it's not like kids are solely playing Minecraft and we can talk physics. Sure we can do that a few times, but the lesson is learned and on to playing videogames. If not Minecraft, MK8, or WoW, or apps on moms phone in the car or at restaurants...on and on. (Next time you eat out, see how many kids are on phones. I doubt they're doing something educational)


Still, with video games you don't have the frustration of your physical lego tower breaking and having to rebuild. You don't have the experience of baiting your own hook or condition yourself to run a mile. There's a whole world out there besides looking at glowing screens...which is what he'll be doing as an adult if he wants to make any money (and the robots don't have the jobs).

So, in the end, yeah, electronics can be tools and even educational, but when they are interjected into nearly every life experience _and_ as addictive as they seem to be...yeah, I'm not with it.

Balance and moderation.

What activities are used in place of potential video game time?

Leisure and play time are just that, not everything has to have an immediately apparent "pay off". There is a whole world outside of screens, but there is also a whole world within. And based on the way technology is trending, more and more of our lives will involve the use to technology.

Personally I think fishing is totally boring and pointless, so learning to bait a hook (which similar to your claim about talking about physics in MK being a limited time thing, isn't something you're going to be working on for that much time) is a skill I place less value on than the ability to navigate a digital interface to choose something.

I guess this is now trending towards some deep talk about what is the purpose of one's life and what role minute to minute activities have in achieving whatever goals one has for their life. What is one's goal in raising a child? I'd think it would generally be giving them the tools/skill set to take on whatever they want in life when they're older. The digital world may or may not be a huge part of that, but I don't see how fishing, or football, or reading fiction would necessarily be of any more value than any skills one might develop from digital media/game playing.

PS: To be clear, I'm not trying to tell anyone how to parent or that they are doing a shitty job. I'm just interested in this stuff as it's something I've done work on already and plan to continue post grad work on.

I don't place more value on fishing than being able to navigate technology. This sort of goes back to a discussion I had with Gary Sax on boardgaming vs, say, playing guitar.

For me and mine, it's about balance. I want them to be able to navigate technology (and they will, it's everywhere), but also be able to bait a hook (in this example) or run a mile or know how to play music, etc.

The whole restriction of technology is not because it's 'worse', but because it's everywhere and, from my perspective, should be one of many tools and skills a person has.

The depth of this topic knows no bounds, but I'm going to throw a couple of things into the mix to make sure the pot is well-stirred.

There can be developmental value in gaming, but there isn't. Short of a very few titles video games are specifically designed to be revenue generators only. Anything other than that is an incidental perk that stumbled into the design by mistake. The vast majority of what your kids are playing is junk.

That said, I watched Hogan's Heroes when I was a kid and that ain't exactly the height of cultural enlightenment either. There's nothing wrong with an appropriate level of relaxation time in your life.

Modern videogame designs are very highly manicured to keep you engaged. I have a buddy that designs video gambling machines and even a brief conversation with him will surprise the shit out of you. Those little glints that come off the shiny objects in the scene are carefully timed to prevent your mind from wandering. Everything is geared towards keeping the player fully immersed for as long as possible. That is perceived as "value" by end-users in non-gambling/non-inline-purchase games, which drives future purchases. I have to drag my kids away to go do other things that they love, because the game is specifically designed to resist interruption from outside stimuli. Once they're in the car on the way to flag football they're happy as hell. Getting them to put down the controller is a complete bitch.

Matt, nice try, but nobody is talking about the physics in Mario Kart which is of dubious provenance in the first place. When you try to talk to your kid about the physics in the game, or the hand-eye, or anything else that might be of practical value, they pause their train of thought, politely wait for you to finish (without listening), then pick up where they left off. It sucks, but that's reality. As a parent you can recognize that your kids don't give a shit about the physics, and they aren't magically absorbing it subconsciously. In fact videogames present very dubious or just plain wrong concepts as facts that you need to actively manage as a parent. After a session of Modern Warfare 3 I asked my son how many Iraqis the average American soldier kills in Irag in a one-year tour of duty. His answer -- "about 80". This boy needs to be made very aware how skewed his perspective is before the Army recruiter starts talking to him at age 14.

I was an avid videogamer as a kid, at least from the 1978 perspective of having to go somewhere to play them. I could score a million points on Defender. Alas, the only thing I learned from playing Defender is how to play Defender. There's just not a lot of practical applications for shooting Mutants and catching people falling through mid-air. Again, I'm not saying they should be abolished, but there's no real value to the vast majority of titles. I used to make the argument that they had value when I was younger but I realize now that I was just wrong. The overwhelming majority of videogames that your kid wants to play are entertainment and entertainment only.

The bigger issue I have is that some videogames add a lot of stress and noise into your kid's lives. In moderation it's manageable, but some games result in very nasty-ass kids who are pissed off that things didn't work right and have a big dose of adrenaline and serotonin dumped into their system because of it. Minecraft is fine, but Super Smash Brothers is like having Robin Williams and an ounce of coke in the house. Your kid doesn't sleep well afterwards (compounded by a lack of exercise) and he doesn't learn anything practical from it.

And the final thought -- videogames are seductive from the parents' perspectives as well, as they act as a babysitter with virtually unlimited patience. Your kid won't bother you for an entire Saturday if you let them play the entire time. That's awfully nice if you have to take care of a dozen chores that don't require a second set of hands.

S.

MattLoter wrote: What activities are used in place of potential video game time?

Leisure and play time are just that, not everything has to have an immediately apparent "pay off". There is a whole world outside of screens, but there is also a whole world within. And based on the way technology is trending, more and more of our lives will involve the use to technology.

Personally I think fishing is totally boring and pointless, so learning to bait a hook (which similar to your claim about talking about physics in MK being a limited time thing, isn't something you're going to be working on for that much time) is a skill I place less value on than the ability to navigate a digital interface to choose something.

I guess this is now trending towards some deep talk about what is the purpose of one's life and what role minute to minute activities have in achieving whatever goals one has for their life. What is one's goal in raising a child? I'd think it would generally be giving them the tools/skill set to take on whatever they want in life when they're older. The digital world may or may not be a huge part of that, but I don't see how fishing, or football, or reading fiction would necessarily be of any more value than any skills one might develop from digital media/game playing.

PS: To be clear, I'm not trying to tell anyone how to parent or that they are doing a shitty job. I'm just interested in this stuff as it's something I've done work on already and plan to continue post grad work on.

Matt, I think the gentle challenging of our parenting is a good thing. As a parent I find, personally, than gentle challenges like this force me to think about what I'm doing for my child and why... if approached properly there is much to be gained. So don't worry about that.

As far as what you can do in lieu of video game time. There are lots of options. Obviously any physical activity can be a plus (swimming, martial arts, soccer etc..), reading, drawing, learning an instrument, conversation, board gaming... there are a lot of options.

We are trending towards a culture that is more screen obsessed, which I think is why it's so important to give them other options early on. It may be useful in the future.

Man. Shit like this is reason #128 why there are no kids in my future... I agree with most of you about moderation but I could never practice it when it's so god damned easy. I agreed with a lot of the stuff Sag said but I could never practice what I preached with it.

MattLoter wrote: What activities are used in place of potential video game time?

Leisure and play time are just that, not everything has to have an immediately apparent "pay off". There is a whole world outside of screens, but there is also a whole world within. And based on the way technology is trending, more and more of our lives will involve the use to technology.

Only if we let it. There's a trend now towards "unplugging" and quite honestly, I'm all for it. My one daughter likes to knit, crochet, paint, draw, etc. My youngest just wants to ride bikes. That is, in a large part, because we've set up an "outdoor lifestyle" where we try to spend most of the time outside during the warmer months and more time doing stuff indoors away from the TV when it's cold.

I think it's really simple to do this, if you practice what you preach.

I can't speak as a parent, but I am grateful that my parents pushed me to try a wide range of activities when I was growing up. They weren't trying to turn me into a particular kind of person, they just wanted me to experience a lot before deciding what I wanted to do with my life. They did have some concerns about how much television I was watching back then, and sometimes imposed arbitrary limits.

I'm pretty sure there are sound developmental advantages for the tactile feedback in building Lego compared to Minecraft, but I would have to come back with some published articles on that. There's also a lot of evidence that seems to indicate "being bored" time is becoming increasingly diminished and is much more important than given credit for. Sweden of course is a lot more progressive in these areas (child care, family development, social care) but it fits my way of thinking. YMMV. I'd rather my kids not get into video games, ironically the kid up the road (American dad) is already reenacting and discussing all the cool head shot sniper kills he does (of course, as Matt said in the OP, its not like video games means "violent shit" only, but I do not think Minecraft is equivalent to LEGO not for young children anyway, mine are 4 and 1, the 4 year old used to like the ipad a bit, and the TOCA BOCA apps seemed a great sandbox way to have fun without rules and that I guess would count as a video game.


One important difference they talk about here a lot between "making shit up" (ie imagination) and "content" (video games, TV) is that the former leads to CHILD CREATED relationships, content and interaction, whereas the latter is ADULT CREATED and pushed onto the kid. The classic case they discuss here a lot is the difference between kids "who used to run around in the forest and play cowboys and indians and cops and robbers, and pretend to shoot each other (and even pretend to die)" compared to playing video games with shooting, and overwhelmingly the evidence suggests that the former leads to a healthy development of the kid processing these concepts (violence, conflict, even death) ON THEIR TERMS whereas increasingly the content pushed to them via digital media is presented by adults, from an adult perspective with excessive visual stimulation and description of the minutae of the physical act, and a corresponding dissociation from the act itself, and the role of the "attacker" in it.

Interesing stuff, but I've learned better than to argue about shit like this on the fucking internet, as that gets you literally nowhere, so, there it is. I'm not going to follow up on this, just presenting it for the sake of it I guess

We limit television to maybe 20 minutes a day or less. Very little. And absolutely zero ad-supported television. We are cordcutters, so what they watch is Shaun The Sheep or Yo Gabba Gabba on Amazon Prime/Netflix.

For the older kids, and even the 2yo a little, we allow some more interactive time with screens. I think MINECRAFT is as rewarding an activity as Lego, and I have no objections to time spent on JUST DANCE, POKEMON, or PICROSS 3D or anything like that. Hell, I game all the time, why shouldn't my kids?

That said, we are sabbatarians, so no one uses screens for 25 hours a week--Friday night to Saturday evening. That's a guaranteed island of no electronics (or phones, emails, anything) every week that keeps us all talking, boardgaming, reading, napping, what have you. This is very much a practice-what-you-preach thing. The kids know I don't do electronics then, so they know they can't do electronics then. It'd be weird to take the iPad out of a kids' hands just so I could go play HEARTHSTONE on it.

Stay engaged with your kids. Be it reading, gaming, kite-flying, whatever. I think a lot of damage folks assign to screentime has more to do with parents checking out on parenting than it does with whatever is happening on the screen.

ldsdbomber wrote: One important difference they talk about here a lot between "making shit up" (ie imagination) and "content" (video games, TV) is that the former leads to CHILD CREATED relationships, content and interaction, whereas the latter is ADULT CREATED and pushed onto the kid. The classic case they discuss here a lot is the difference between kids "who used to run around in the forest and play cowboys and indians and cops and robbers, and pretend to shoot each other (and even pretend to die)" compared to playing video games with shooting, and overwhelmingly the evidence suggests that the former leads to a healthy development of the kid processing these concepts (violence, conflict, even death) ON THEIR TERMS whereas increasingly the content pushed to them via digital media is presented by adults, from an adult perspective with excessive visual stimulation and description of the minutae of the physical act, and a corresponding dissociation from the act itself, and the role of the "attacker" in it.

Great paragraph right there and something I hadn't thought about.

I also believe in 'bored time'. We take a trip to the in-laws about once every other month. It's a 3-3.5hr drive and we don't allow any sort of technology in play during this time. I think we've reaped rewards here as the kids are content reading, singing along to songs, or more importantly having some deeper discussions. Allowing the kids multiple hours to just sit and look out windows seems to provide time for some personal questions to come up.

In the long run, the kids seem to be pretty patient and we're proud of them for that.

However, longer car rides (like a 3.5 hr ride isn't long...remember I live in Texas...3hrs is down the street) will see a movie pop up on the kindle or some time to play apps on phones.

Sagrilarus wrote: Minecraft is fine, but Super Smash Brothers is like having Robin Williams and an ounce of coke in the house.

I must have missed this line on first pass, but caused a loud laugh burst on second read.

That's funny right there.

I was thinking of getting smash brothers, because we played the hell out of it on the N64 in college. But then again, at that age and with those relationships, we were ribbing each other pretty fierce. Thinking about it now, I'm not so sure it's the type of game that'll work as well in a casual family setting like say NintendoLand. I think NintendoLand and Pushmo World will find their way as gifts this year.

ldsdbomber wrote: One important difference they talk about here a lot between "making shit up" (ie imagination) and "content" (video games, TV) is that the former leads to CHILD CREATED relationships, content and interaction, whereas the latter is ADULT CREATED and pushed onto the kid. The classic case they discuss here a lot is the difference between kids "who used to run around in the forest and play cowboys and indians and cops and robbers, and pretend to shoot each other (and even pretend to die)" compared to playing video games with shooting, and overwhelmingly the evidence suggests that the former leads to a healthy development of the kid processing these concepts (violence, conflict, even death) ON THEIR TERMS whereas increasingly the content pushed to them via digital media is presented by adults, from an adult perspective with excessive visual stimulation and description of the minutae of the physical act, and a corresponding dissociation from the act itself, and the role of the "attacker" in it.

See I think the issue here is more with passive vs active entertainment rather than the form in which interaction takes place. Lumping in Minecraft (it's such a great easy example!) with watching Pokemon cartoons is doing a serious disservice.

I agree there is value in tactile experiences, but just the same there is the same level of value in exploring and experiencing virtual interaction. If anything, as a society we are going to have more and more happening digitally.

Even with movies, I know I got countless hours of CREATIVE play based on cartoons used to sell action figures, and pretending to be Indiana Jones in neighborhood, or "playing" D&D with sticks and exploring the woods. Even passive media can be the springboard to immensely creative play.

I think the thing is that short of some elements of media, kids want to explore tons of things and tons of facets of interaction. A lot of kids who are severely limited in something because "parent said so" tend to flip it back and then fetishize and covet whatever it is that's being held back from them, which they then lose their shit over when they are older and you can't just control them all the time. Only now they don't have the developed, and self guided tool box for how to navigate life. How many kids flunk out of freshman year of college because they can't handle the freedom?

Also, thanks to this thread for a big inspiration in what I think I'm going to write about next. Gotta meet with my academic advisor but I think I'm going to trace the history, and subsequent actual data, on all the things that older generations/parents have decried as the death knell of society and the younger generation. Like did rock n roll destroy the fabric of society or not?