Tech addiction is one of my biggest worries as a parent. I spent a huge amount of time playing Civilization, Doom, FIFA, and so on. Years later I spend a lot of time on WoW.
Nowadays games are even more addictive. You can play online. You can customize your character. And there's now 25 more years of advances in discovering what makes people hooked. I'm already seeing my kid's friends playing Fortnite all the time, and they're only 6 years old.
Plus now you need a computer to study. And the computer is now the best way to learn useful things as well. So I'm gonna end up trying to show the kid all sorts of things that I as a parent think are good for him, but the same device can be used to waste his whole life.
The thing is I've seen the computer lead people to both great things, or complete failure. Some kids get one and can code before university, they know how to find things out with it, and they can organise their lives with it. Others have literally lost their futures due to being unable to pull their eyes away from the screen.
In a similar boat as the parent as far as turning out alright. But in college I saw more people who gamed as much as I did flunk out than people who made it through with me.
The games we used to play had some degree of extension like modding or scripting that at least caused me to branch out. The same can't be said of the current generation who will grow up with games like Fortnite that have no depth outside of the game itself.
I guess there is minecraft but I don't know how that is doing and will probably be an exception not the rule in the future.
Nowadays games are even more addictive. You can play online. You can customize your character. And there's now 25 more years of advances in discovering what makes people hooked. I'm already seeing my kid's friends playing Fortnite all the time, and they're only 6 years old.
Plus now you need a computer to study. And the computer is now the best way to learn useful things as well. So I'm gonna end up trying to show the kid all sorts of things that I as a parent think are good for him, but the same device can be used to waste his whole life.
The thing is I've seen the computer lead people to both great things, or complete failure. Some kids get one and can code before university, they know how to find things out with it, and they can organise their lives with it. Others have literally lost their futures due to being unable to pull their eyes away from the screen.