My 5 year old son has consistently been called "best in class" and "brilliant student" by his schools' staff - obviously to my pride and joy;-) - being an IT guy, a gamer, as well as a dad, I have always taken a relaxed attitude towards pc use and gameplay. He never really played anything too challenging or involving - a bit of tuxracer, a bit of sonic, etc. Until a few weeks ago, when some of his schoolfriends started playing some more involving games, and he wanted to keep up. "Bionicles" was duly installed, and away he went.
We are now 2 weeks later, and my wife and I just - like, 30 mins ago - finished a discussion about how to remove the game from the pc whilst making it look like an accident.... His schoolwork has plummeted, his teachers are really upset - his concentration is just gone, and he isn't interested in playing, arts, crafts, friends or schoolwork. He is a completely different boy, and its really worrying us.
Make of it what you will, but this gave me a first-hand look at the whole issue, and has me pretty disturbed.
Well, you could stop being so damned afraid of your child and remove the stupid game without staging an elaborate lie to cover up what is a perfectly reasonable act. Will he cry and bitch? Possibly, but maybe you won't raise one of those assholes who wants to call a lawyer as soon as someone tries to deny him absolutely anything.
Sheesh. What in the hell happened to parents just saying "No" instead of treating kids like royalty? This Just In: you can love your offspring while still denying them things, despite what your idiot neighbor claims.
I am only a child of the 70s, but it's certainly a different, wussier, world out there than I remember.
I'm with Oliver. Why you're devising a plan to lie to your child instead of being up front and direct with him is beyond me. My unsolicited advice is simply to teach your child the value of moderation and responsibility; limit his gaming to x hours per day and see how that works out.
by Anonymous Coward
on Friday April 22 2005, @08:44PM (#12319827)
I'm with Oliver, but with one addition: tell your son in advance what you are going to do. He will protest and give you a hard time (hold your balls out, man), but he may lose your trust and never forgive you if you unexpectedly destroy the game and his player data.
you can love your offspring while still denying them things, despite what your idiot neighbor claims.
Denying children from being overwhelmed by abundance _is_ the responsibility of loving parents. It's the only way for children to develop a perspective on how the real world operates (most people don't get things simply by pouting about it--they have to work for it).
Limit his time on the game, use it as reward and punishment. If he won't respond to you when he is playing pull the plug out of the wall, it will get his immediate attention. Learn to say NO, don't appoligise for saying NO, and follow through. Your kid will have alot more respect for you in the long run.
I'm a child of the fifties, it may be wussier today but I'm glad bashing your kids has become an unacceptable practice.
I think I agree with most of the posts here, especially Oliver's.
I am currently a high-achieving high school junior. I have liked to play games since I started playing MUDs at age 12. However, my parents never felt bad telling me "no". Because my parents were frank in what activities should be my priorities, I learned both to moderate my gaming and to put school work first.
I am now getting the chance to watch my parents do the same to my brother. He followed my lead and started gaming in the last year. My parents are still making it clear that school work must come first. He hasn't yet gotten it, but he will.
Meanwhile, I have friends who were also straight-A, honors students in 9th grade, but who are now B students in regents classes (the lowest level in my school) for six hours of the day, and are Everquest and World of Warcraft grinders for the other sixteen.
I bet their parents would be happier if they had just said "no".
Actually, we covered it in my INtro to Psych class this semester.
Permissive parenting - bad, kids are underachievers, have low self-esteems, antisocial, drug users, etc.
AUthoritarian parenting (like the 50s) - still bad. Kids grow up with serious problems with authority. Kids split off, one group becomes criminals, the other group will conform for awhile and then during their midlife crisis completely uproot themselves and start fresh. All will have low self-worth and so forth.
So how do you win?
Um, read Oliver's post?;)
Personally, I think my wife and I are on the riht track. My daughter spent 4 hours rebelling aainst cleaning her room tonight, a typical 20-minute cleaning job. In the process she missed a movie and storytime. She was pretty upset about it and whined a bit about "I can't sleep because I didn't read a story", but it didn't take her long to figure it out. She's starting to come around.:)
Her brother, in contrast, cleaned his room immediately and was done in 10 minutes. He got to watch the movie and had storytime before bed. He also got to play with both his parents a little bit along the way. He's 1 1/2 years younger than his sister. The 1-year old (almost 2) helped pick up a bit too.:)
Permissive parenting - bad... Authoritarian parenting (like the 50s) - still bad.
Children learn from their parents in many ways the parent doesn't expect. The problem with "permissive" parenting - if the parent has broad values then not necessarily any problem, but in this sense I think the meaning is submissive parenting - avoid confrontation even when you think the child is wrong. In this case, the child will learn the same pattern of behaviour, and will grow to not argue his case as a teenager. This leads to the low self-esteem etc, that you're talking about.
The authoritarian approach? Your child will learn that power equates to right, that the ability to punish replaces the need to justify.
The middle approach? Always speak up, never act without explanation. Listen to child so that child learns to use reason to get her way. Above all, avoid yelling and other resorts of force / power. 'Cause very soon, your child will be using the same techniques on you.
You think that's bad...
2 of my college friends dropped out of college because of Everquest. They spent ALL day playing it and not going to class because they felt that they needed to keep up with their guild members, etc. They were on scholarship, which they lost. Eventually they dropped out of college. It's sad but games can be very addicting, just like a lot of things. Games are designed to be addicting, that's how they make their money. I'm guilty of being an addict as well, but to cycling. The good thing is that when I'm cycling, I'm in so much pain that there's a limit to how much I do it. Computer games, on the other hand, has no such mechanism. I think the pain comes later when the rest of your life suffers as in the case of my friends. So maybe instead of immediate reward and delayed punishment, they should make it delayed reward and immediate punishment, like cycling:-) Then again, a game like that will never sell.
I had college friends who dropped out because of MUDs... couldn't stop playing them, even to the detriment of their schoolwork. It was easy to find them, though. They never left the computer labs..
Of course all I call that is a lack of discipline. Like this "brilliant" kid. Tell him _NO_ once in a while so he can get used to it when he grows up... and maybe he won't be Everquest (or MUD) fodder.:)
Spoiled little brats... getting all that they can possibly want, and appreciating none of it.
Games addictive? I don't buy it. It sounds to me like your friends don't have an addiction problem, they have a self-discipline problem. They want to forego stuff that is important but hard in favor of stuff that is entertaining and easy. It's a simple matter of short-term gratification (another level) versus long-term satisfaction (a degree). That paper can always be written tomorrow, one can always cram for the next exam, but my guildmates need me NOW!
If I were a betting man, I would wager that if they weren't invovled in Everquest, they would have found some other diversion to consume their time and cause them to drop out of college.
The nature of addiction is the inability to curb the constant urge for self-gratification. Its not PHYSICAL addiction, but psychological addiction is just as debilitating and almost difficult to beat.
There is not much difference between snorting cocaine and shooting heroin to feel good, than watching TV or playing video games to get those same endorphins. (Or heavy physical activity, for that matter, but I never believed in runner's high.) The only difference with self-medication is that your brain is causing those drug effects to occur, and the body is self-regulating enough not to inflict permanent physical damage or cause severe physical withdrawal.
The problem is not merely "self-discipline". Its deeper. There is no reward for denying gratification if the long term goal doesn't provide satisfaction. I feel sorry for people that busted their ass to get an engineering degree in the '80's, only to find out afterwords society lied to them about job availability. I feel similarly about pre-meds back in the '80s. (I don't feel sorry for them now, because the writing is on the wall about how relatively crappy the medical profession has become.) The key thing is that society has been feeding everyone a line a bullsh*t about hard work and responsibility will allow you to achieve your happiness (see Fight Club). Don't get me wrong, those traits are required, you'll be better off financially, and you still may end up happy. But its been mythologized, and soon American society will be crashing into reality.
Midlife crisis occurs when people have plugged themselves into this life pattern because people told them they should live this way, only to realize at that point, it doesn't make them happy or feel fulfilled.
The problem is a crisis of faith, or purpose. You can't really beat that into people. Most people are pushed into adult behaviors by the desire to conform, or get ego gratification. Once those stop being motivators, there's not really any rationale to get a job better than station attendant if playing video games makes you adequately happy.
I can totally relate passthecrackpipe. (odd name for such a....umm...mature post). My little brother is 16 now and ever since he was about 11 or 12 he's had a problem with letting computer games controlling his life that has gotten progressively worse and worse. Although he does keep up with his grades (because if they plummet he knows he will lose his computer priveledges until they come back up). Try that with your son, that is remove or severely restrict his gaming time until he gets those grades up. I think that would help solve your problem.
But it won't end there, let me assure you. Even though my brother keeps his grades up, he spends *all* his free time playing games, reading about games, and pretty much nothing but games. He doesn't go outside. He doesn't socialize with others. He just wants to get online and "pwn pplz with hiz 1337 skillz". (-_-) In the past my parents had been pretty damn lax about this, even though they knew it was a problem, and I insistently pressured them to make him do something else, anything else but play games! I'm afraid that this problem is only going to grow exponentially for each generation as kids start to grow up on games and let them control their lives. As parents, guardians, or whatever you are, I urge you all to remind your younger family members that games are great, but they should try doing other things with their lives. Otherwise, they will never know how many great things they are capable of doing in this world.
Man, I can relate. MUDs, BBSing, IRC, there went much of highschool and early college. Especially the early chunk of college since all my CS classes had nice little telnet connections, only when I switched majors (and lost the in-class telnet) did my grades improve.
I broke up with one of my first g/fs because "I was about to level" on Genocide. I spent more time learning how to code on a MUSH (and later a pirated Diku) than I ever sunk into schooling.
I guess now that I'm a mature adult, I can depend of/. to take up all my time. Where would we be without the internet, I don't know, but I am sure that we all would be more productive. (world peace or/.... hmmmmm)
I think this is the big thing: educational games are dead, except for stupid multimedia treehouse and barbie games. Puzzle games are no longer things like The Incredible Machine and Lemmings, that actually give you _problem solving_ skills, but twitch-puzzles like Tetris and Chu-Chu Rocket (which are fun by their own right, but not mind-expanding).
I hate, absolutely _hate_, laying blame on parents, but after working as long as I have in IT at a school district I can see that children are mirrors of their parents' behavior.
Why do you hate blaming parents so much? It's their job to raise their kids, and nearly every problem a child has can be directly related to his parents' (lack of) parenting. The original poster is a perfect example. Rather than addressing the problem, he's scheming with his wife to "accidentally" remove the game. What's his son going to learn from this? That it's okay to neglect his responsibilities (even at 5 years old, you have them -- education, playing, being a kid)? That mommy and daddy are real klutzes with the computer, so he should start learning how to hide what he's doing? In this case, it may or may not be the parents' fault that the kid got so wrapped up in the game (it probably is -- they didn't limit his play time, or set down ground rules), but if they go through with the planned course of action they are absolutely responsible for what that teaches the child.
It's not my job to parent your kids, nor is it the government's job, nor teachers, school administrators, day care employees, etc. It's your kid, you teach him how to be responsible. If you can't handle that, perhaps you should reconsider being a parent. Harsh? Sure. But throwing more tax dollars at poorly parented children isn't going to solve the problem, either. You have to fix the problem, and the problem is usually the parents (or parent, in more and more cases).
My son is about a year old. My wife became pregnant before we got married, so you might say he was unforeseen.
There are two things about watching people parent that never cease to amaze me.
The first is how many people can rise to the occasion and do a good job when it is not what one would expect of them.
The second is how otherwise intelligent and responsible people can completely fail to take responsibility for how their actions affect their children.
So I say that parenting is never something that people are ready for. It is something that people can rise up to do. But before you have a child of oyur own, you are simply unprepaired.
Now on to the rest of the discussion. The metaphore I use in looking at this is that of social laws and rules. If the government were to "accidently" confiscated our cars or our houses, we would have a fit and rightly so. If, however, this was based upon a conviction in a court of law, it would be different. One of the most difficult aspects of family building is focusing on how to create a system of rules which helps foster growth. These rules need to be in the open, and easily understood.
If your child is playing too many computer games, first talk to your child about it. Set rules regarding when your child is allowed to play the game and under what circumstances. If this fails, let the child know that the game will be uninstalled. Give, say, three opportunities for failure. If the game is abused such that the conversation must repeat three times, the game gets uninstalled. Make sure that this is all done in the open and that the system is transparent.
One of the most difficult things to do sometimes is to have enough respect for your kids to think that maybe they actually need to know why you are doing something.
The survey didn't mention how subjects were selected, what if some of them are also drug users? And I think people are more willing to reveal their email addiction than their drug adddiction.
I believe it's more about social-acceptability. If the respondents think that being distracted by emails is not unacceptable (as shown in the article), they will allow themselves to be distracted.
Next up we will see how sex lower people's IQ. Imaging you're answering questions in front of naked marketing chicks.
I would like to volunteer for your research. Maybe we can get a grant to do more research into the culmulative factors like 'the simultaneous effects of drugs and marijuana om the IQ' or does reading e-mail during sex while smoking marijuana lower your IQ or just cause fires?'... The research posibilities are endless and just as meaningful as this first round of research.
"pass the pop3...dude.."
"Police arrested a local ISP for running an SMTP"
"That's one less scum off the face of this earth, we can't have these kids propigating this brain-numbing garbage," says Officer Joe Johnson, "Not in my town"
Not to mention, the IQ drop is a government myth. [erowid.org] The cherry-picked studies which show this have some seriously flawed methodology like graduate students tested against off-the-street stoners. If you can keep producing results that show marijuana in a negative light you can some nice grants from the government.
Sure the internet can make you more intelligent if you spend your time reading Wolfram Mathworld, Scientific American, Project Gutenburg texts, and Wikipedia...but who does? Is the back-forth banter here really intelligent? Seems more like smalltalk. The bloggers are just writing about each other. Everquest is pulling people away from reality entirely.
Maybe the library isn't such a bad idea after all.
that allowing computers to constantly shift your focus from one thing to the other, impairs your long term ability to focus on one thing and imprint it on your brain in serious depth.
My prescribed solution (IMHO)? A weekend per month secluded from all electronica, preferably with someone else, along with non-technical books, and one or more chess sets. Or better yet, a program once a month that provides a rewarding experience that reinforces one's ability to just **focus**.
that allowing computers to constantly shift your focus from one thing to the other, impairs your long term ability to focus on one thing and imprint it on your brain in serious depth.
I haven't read the study beyond the linked article, but personally I suspect that the whole problem extends far beyond email use.
Western society is built on distractions, and on interrupting people from what they're doing, much of which is to do with commercialism. For instance:
Television, which the vast majority of people base their lives around, interrupts everything for commercial breaks every few minutes. People are being asked to concentrate for short spurts of time and then switch off or do something else.
The standard formula for popular music is to produce songs that last about three to five minutes. Commercial radio often plays one song at a time, and then encourages listeners to switch modes by playing commercials. Some albums are still designed so that the entire album is an experience to listen to, but with others the disjointed focus of the music still completely changes between tracks. Compare this with older forms of classical music, for instance, for which it's common for some movements and symphonies to last tens of minutes or hours.
Modern communication devices such as telephones, especially mobile phones, encourage people to be on demand all the time to deal with new problems and tasks immediately and as they arise. Technologies such as SMS encourage people to divide their attention even further, having a conversation in many very short messages and often when also doing something else. Compare this with some time ago when it would often be common to be out of contact except for particular times. (eg. Reading snail mail, or arriving at the office.)
Personal computers, at least the ones that most people owned, used to be very bad at multitasking. This made it necessary to only run one main application at a time. It wasn't possible to use a computer for word processing at the same time as spreadsheeting, without fully closing down one and starting the other. Today, typical workstations allow people to easily and frequently switch between many tasks at once.
It doesn't surprise me at all that people's attitudes to doing things have been changing quite dramatically, and it seems quite feasible that the effects of this on people's wellbeing could be negative. Emails popping up and being addressed are just an extension of everything else that's been happening with advances in technology and societial attitudes.
I would love a tool, similar to the one that you suggest, that encourages being able to focus on things. I'm not entirely sure how it could be guaranteed to work, though. To me, many of the possible problems seem to be embedded quite heavily in the way that society now works.
Meanwhile, I think I'll try forcing myself to concentrate more by shutting down lots of other things while I'm browsing slashdot. It's a shame they're so easy to start up again.
Slashdot. Seriously its worse than email, at least email has an actual productive purpose, with slashdot we just waste our time posting things that will have no actual benefit - look im doing it now!
How in the world do you correct for all other factors and then go on to claim that computers make kids less intelligent than having 500 books in the household? Adding together all my fiction, reference, and technical books I barely break the 200 count. Aren't they really saying that kids in more affluent homes are smarter? And are they factoring in easy access to public libraries?
I MEEN OMG!!! DOES U LOSE ALL THOOSE QI PTS 4 EMALING LIKE THIS!?!?!?!?!?!
Seriously, If you are going to use e-mail like a retard then it probably does make you stupid. For some reason people seem to think that because it's an e-mail grammar, punctuation and spelling can go out of the window. It's just like text messaging short hand. I try where possible to write e-mails, text messages and instant messages with reasonable grammar, spelling and punctuation. It takes a little more time, but you soon learn to type faster and more accurately because of it.
There was a case in Britain not long ago where a student wrote an entire essay for their GCSE's (exams for 16yr olds) in txt message short hand. I believe that the sudden proliferation of new means of communication (txt messages, e-mails and IMs) mean that children learn txt short hand before learning grammar or typing skills. This means that they end up with some ugly short hand with no spelling required (since anything in the ballpark will let the reader know roughly what you're trying to say) and no grammar skills. Since most of them will be using txts and IMs before actually studying them in class it's no wonder that the fail to learn the correct way of doing things.
is revolting. If you're naturally lazy or stupid and you use the computer, play video games, email obsessively, or smoke pot to excess, yes, you're going to get caught in it and probably get stupider over time.
But if you're naturally smart or motivated, the opposite is true. I've known people that smoked pot all through college and graduated early with amazing grades. I'm sure amongst the people you know, you can think of the video game addict that gets all A's and the video game addict that flunked out years ago.
These things are just enablers. That's why, especially with pot, you should be of sound mind and body before you turn the machine on or pack the pipe. It makes the difference between expanding your mind and escaping from it.
I will forever be greatful to 2 excellent high school teachers I had (in public school no less!), 1 in math (pre-calc, calc) and 1 in chemistry (chem1 and chem2AP). They wouldn't let us use calculators for anything, not on tests, not on homework, no where. This forced us to get good at doing all sorts of mathmatics in our heads, and to come up with creative solutions if we couldn't remember the specific function/equation to apply to a problem.
I often times would have to work around some equation I couldn't remember and basically derive the equation from smaller building blocks. This gave me a much greater understanding of the actual processes going on. This kind of problem solving/understanding completely disappears when children can use calculators to simply "get the right answer", but the important thing in the maths and sciences is not necessarily the answer, but the process of getting there, and the ability to problem solve, which has completely disappeared in US middle and high schools.
Intelligence has no specific definition. Some people might say that being able to make people laugh is a form of intelligence, for example.
IQ measures a very narrow set of skills which aren't massively useful in real life. You'll get much further in life by being influential in social situations, or by being able to make good decisions for example.
It seems that the temporary loss of IQ test skill was purely due to the questions being popped up at random intervals.
Instant Messaging (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Instant Messaging (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Instant Messaging (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Instant Messaging (Score:5, Funny)
OMG I BT U LOSE 20 POINTS FOR IM11!!!!1! OMG LOL
The ALL-CAPS are evidently important to the syntax, after all...
you don't want to look like a nerd.
Parent
Well, funny and all but..... (Score:5, Interesting)
We are now 2 weeks later, and my wife and I just - like, 30 mins ago - finished a discussion about how to remove the game from the pc whilst making it look like an accident.... His schoolwork has plummeted, his teachers are really upset - his concentration is just gone, and he isn't interested in playing, arts, crafts, friends or schoolwork. He is a completely different boy, and its really worrying us.
Make of it what you will, but this gave me a first-hand look at the whole issue, and has me pretty disturbed.
Parent
Re:Well, funny and all but..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sheesh. What in the hell happened to parents just saying "No" instead of treating kids like royalty? This Just In: you can love your offspring while still denying them things, despite what your idiot neighbor claims.
I am only a child of the 70s, but it's certainly a different, wussier, world out there than I remember.
Parent
Re:Well, funny and all but..... (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Well, funny and all but..... (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Well, funny and all but..... (Score:5, Informative)
Denying children from being overwhelmed by abundance _is_ the responsibility of loving parents. It's the only way for children to develop a perspective on how the real world operates (most people don't get things simply by pouting about it--they have to work for it).
Parent
MOD parent up! (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no need to remove the game.
Limit his time on the game, use it as reward and punishment. If he won't respond to you when he is playing pull the plug out of the wall, it will get his immediate attention. Learn to say NO, don't appoligise for saying NO, and follow through. Your kid will have alot more respect for you in the long run.
I'm a child of the fifties, it may be wussier today but I'm glad bashing your kids has become an unacceptable practice.
Parent
Re:Well, funny and all but..... (Score:5, Insightful)
I am currently a high-achieving high school junior. I have liked to play games since I started playing MUDs at age 12. However, my parents never felt bad telling me "no". Because my parents were frank in what activities should be my priorities, I learned both to moderate my gaming and to put school work first.
I am now getting the chance to watch my parents do the same to my brother. He followed my lead and started gaming in the last year. My parents are still making it clear that school work must come first. He hasn't yet gotten it, but he will.
Meanwhile, I have friends who were also straight-A, honors students in 9th grade, but who are now B students in regents classes (the lowest level in my school) for six hours of the day, and are Everquest and World of Warcraft grinders for the other sixteen.
I bet their parents would be happier if they had just said "no".
Fitzghon
Parent
Re:Well, funny and all but..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, we covered it in my INtro to Psych class this semester.
Permissive parenting - bad, kids are underachievers, have low self-esteems, antisocial, drug users, etc.
AUthoritarian parenting (like the 50s) - still bad. Kids grow up with serious problems with authority. Kids split off, one group becomes criminals, the other group will conform for awhile and then during their midlife crisis completely uproot themselves and start fresh. All will have low self-worth and so forth.
So how do you win?
Um, read Oliver's post? ;)
Personally, I think my wife and I are on the riht track. My daughter spent 4 hours rebelling aainst cleaning her room tonight, a typical 20-minute cleaning job. In the process she missed a movie and storytime. She was pretty upset about it and whined a bit about "I can't sleep because I didn't read a story", but it didn't take her long to figure it out. She's starting to come around. :)
Her brother, in contrast, cleaned his room immediately and was done in 10 minutes. He got to watch the movie and had storytime before bed. He also got to play with both his parents a little bit along the way. He's 1 1/2 years younger than his sister. The 1-year old (almost 2) helped pick up a bit too. :)
Parent
Re:Well, funny and all but..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Permissive parenting - bad
Children learn from their parents in many ways the parent doesn't expect. The problem with "permissive" parenting - if the parent has broad values then not necessarily any problem, but in this sense I think the meaning is submissive parenting - avoid confrontation even when you think the child is wrong. In this case, the child will learn the same pattern of behaviour, and will grow to not argue his case as a teenager. This leads to the low self-esteem etc, that you're talking about.
The authoritarian approach? Your child will learn that power equates to right, that the ability to punish replaces the need to justify.
The middle approach? Always speak up, never act without explanation. Listen to child so that child learns to use reason to get her way. Above all, avoid yelling and other resorts of force / power. 'Cause very soon, your child will be using the same techniques on you.
Parent
Re:Well, funny and all but..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps what will help is insulting the intelligence of your "brilliant student" of a son, by refusing to be straightforward and upfront with him?
Parent
Re:Well, funny and all but..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Well, funny and all but..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course all I call that is a lack of discipline. Like this "brilliant" kid. Tell him _NO_ once in a while so he can get used to it when he grows up... and maybe he won't be Everquest (or MUD) fodder.
Spoiled little brats... getting all that they can possibly want, and appreciating none of it.
Parent
A self-discipline problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Games addictive? I don't buy it. It sounds to me like your friends don't have an addiction problem, they have a self-discipline problem. They want to forego stuff that is important but hard in favor of stuff that is entertaining and easy. It's a simple matter of short-term gratification (another level) versus long-term satisfaction (a degree). That paper can always be written tomorrow, one can always cram for the next exam, but my guildmates need me NOW!
If I were a betting man, I would wager that if they weren't invovled in Everquest, they would have found some other diversion to consume their time and cause them to drop out of college.
Parent
Re:A self-discipline problem (Score:5, Insightful)
There is not much difference between snorting cocaine and shooting heroin to feel good, than watching TV or playing video games to get those same endorphins. (Or heavy physical activity, for that matter, but I never believed in runner's high.) The only difference with self-medication is that your brain is causing those drug effects to occur, and the body is self-regulating enough not to inflict permanent physical damage or cause severe physical withdrawal.
The problem is not merely "self-discipline". Its deeper. There is no reward for denying gratification if the long term goal doesn't provide satisfaction. I feel sorry for people that busted their ass to get an engineering degree in the '80's, only to find out afterwords society lied to them about job availability. I feel similarly about pre-meds back in the '80s. (I don't feel sorry for them now, because the writing is on the wall about how relatively crappy the medical profession has become.) The key thing is that society has been feeding everyone a line a bullsh*t about hard work and responsibility will allow you to achieve your happiness (see Fight Club). Don't get me wrong, those traits are required, you'll be better off financially, and you still may end up happy. But its been mythologized, and soon American society will be crashing into reality.
Midlife crisis occurs when people have plugged themselves into this life pattern because people told them they should live this way, only to realize at that point, it doesn't make them happy or feel fulfilled.
The problem is a crisis of faith, or purpose. You can't really beat that into people. Most people are pushed into adult behaviors by the desire to conform, or get ego gratification. Once those stop being motivators, there's not really any rationale to get a job better than station attendant if playing video games makes you adequately happy.
Parent
Re:Well, funny and all but..... (Score:5, Insightful)
But it won't end there, let me assure you. Even though my brother keeps his grades up, he spends *all* his free time playing games, reading about games, and pretty much nothing but games. He doesn't go outside. He doesn't socialize with others. He just wants to get online and "pwn pplz with hiz 1337 skillz". (-_-) In the past my parents had been pretty damn lax about this, even though they knew it was a problem, and I insistently pressured them to make him do something else, anything else but play games! I'm afraid that this problem is only going to grow exponentially for each generation as kids start to grow up on games and let them control their lives. As parents, guardians, or whatever you are, I urge you all to remind your younger family members that games are great, but they should try doing other things with their lives. Otherwise, they will never know how many great things they are capable of doing in this world.
Parent
Re:Well, funny and all but..... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Well, funny and all but..... (Score:5, Insightful)
MUDs
These old text games have probably been the cause of more skipped final exams and lost study time than any two modern games together.
Parent
Re:Well, funny and all but..... (Score:4, Interesting)
Pre-MUD typing speed: circa 20wpm.
Post-MUD typing speed: circa 90-100wpm, depending on content.
So I guess that's my lemonade:)
Parent
Re:Well, funny and all but..... (Score:5, Funny)
Now you can get a job at your local swordmaker or apocrathy.
Parent
Re:Well, funny and all but..... (Score:5, Funny)
So are MMORPGs. I quit my job and divorced my wife because of Ultima Online alone!
However I *did* make 5x GM, so it was wayy worth it.. I'll take 5x GM in old skool UO (circa 1998) over sex and money any day!!
Parent
shhhhh... I'm about to level. (Score:5, Interesting)
I broke up with one of my first g/fs because "I was about to level" on Genocide. I spent more time learning how to code on a MUSH (and later a pirated Diku) than I ever sunk into schooling.
I guess now that I'm a mature adult, I can depend of
Parent
Re:Well, funny and all but..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Where's my Island of Dr. Brain?
Parent
Re:Well, funny and all but..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do you hate blaming parents so much? It's their job to raise their kids, and nearly every problem a child has can be directly related to his parents' (lack of) parenting. The original poster is a perfect example. Rather than addressing the problem, he's scheming with his wife to "accidentally" remove the game. What's his son going to learn from this? That it's okay to neglect his responsibilities (even at 5 years old, you have them -- education, playing, being a kid)? That mommy and daddy are real klutzes with the computer, so he should start learning how to hide what he's doing? In this case, it may or may not be the parents' fault that the kid got so wrapped up in the game (it probably is -- they didn't limit his play time, or set down ground rules), but if they go through with the planned course of action they are absolutely responsible for what that teaches the child.
It's not my job to parent your kids, nor is it the government's job, nor teachers, school administrators, day care employees, etc. It's your kid, you teach him how to be responsible. If you can't handle that, perhaps you should reconsider being a parent. Harsh? Sure. But throwing more tax dollars at poorly parented children isn't going to solve the problem, either. You have to fix the problem, and the problem is usually the parents (or parent, in more and more cases).
Parent
My $0.02 (Score:5, Insightful)
There are two things about watching people parent that never cease to amaze me.
The first is how many people can rise to the occasion and do a good job when it is not what one would expect of them.
The second is how otherwise intelligent and responsible people can completely fail to take responsibility for how their actions affect their children.
So I say that parenting is never something that people are ready for. It is something that people can rise up to do. But before you have a child of oyur own, you are simply unprepaired.
Now on to the rest of the discussion. The metaphore I use in looking at this is that of social laws and rules. If the government were to "accidently" confiscated our cars or our houses, we would have a fit and rightly so. If, however, this was based upon a conviction in a court of law, it would be different. One of the most difficult aspects of family building is focusing on how to create a system of rules which helps foster growth. These rules need to be in the open, and easily understood.
If your child is playing too many computer games, first talk to your child about it. Set rules regarding when your child is allowed to play the game and under what circumstances. If this fails, let the child know that the game will be uninstalled. Give, say, three opportunities for failure. If the game is abused such that the conversation must repeat three times, the game gets uninstalled. Make sure that this is all done in the open and that the system is transparent.
One of the most difficult things to do sometimes is to have enough respect for your kids to think that maybe they actually need to know why you are doing something.
Parent
Sex Lowers IQs (Score:4, Informative)
The survey didn't mention how subjects were selected, what if some of them are also drug users? And I think people are more willing to reveal their email addiction than their drug adddiction.
I believe it's more about social-acceptability. If the respondents think that being distracted by emails is not unacceptable (as shown in the article), they will allow themselves to be distracted.
Next up we will see how sex lower people's IQ. Imaging you're answering questions in front of naked marketing chicks.
Re:Sex Lowers IQs (Score:5, Funny)
I would like to volunteer for your research. Maybe we can get a grant to do more research into the culmulative factors like 'the simultaneous effects of drugs and marijuana om the IQ' or does reading e-mail during sex while smoking marijuana lower your IQ or just cause fires?'... The research posibilities are endless and just as meaningful as this first round of research.
Parent
Re:Sex Lowers IQs (Score:5, Insightful)
>why the fuck didn't you just say acceptable?
"not full" != empty
the world isn't binary.
that's why.
Parent
google (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:google (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:google (Score:4, Insightful)
Riiight
Those who are "lazy and smart" have no excuses.
Parent
My email made me fat.. (Score:5, Funny)
My neighbor's email made him a pedophile.
And, my dog's email made him kill himself.
And a friend's email made him blame everything else in his life for being dumb.
Right angle? (Score:4, Interesting)
Is it the e-mail that makes people dumber, or dumb people that uses e-mail?
Email is distracting? (Score:4, Funny)
I can easily stay focus--ooh, Amazon shipped my book order!
ah.. (Score:5, Funny)
The Solution (Score:5, Funny)
And legalize pot... that way i wont even care that i dont have email anymore
Re:The Solution (Score:5, Informative)
Not to mention, the IQ drop is a government myth. [erowid.org] The cherry-picked studies which show this have some seriously flawed methodology like graduate students tested against off-the-street stoners. If you can keep producing results that show marijuana in a negative light you can some nice grants from the government.
Parent
Every day... (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure the internet can make you more intelligent if you spend your time reading Wolfram Mathworld, Scientific American, Project Gutenburg texts, and Wikipedia...but who does? Is the back-forth banter here really intelligent? Seems more like smalltalk. The bloggers are just writing about each other. Everquest is pulling people away from reality entirely.
Maybe the library isn't such a bad idea after all.
That article is a LONG way of saying (Score:5, Interesting)
My prescribed solution (IMHO)? A weekend per month secluded from all electronica, preferably with someone else, along with non-technical books, and one or more chess sets. Or better yet, a program once a month that provides a rewarding experience that reinforces one's ability to just **focus**.
It's much more than just email, too (Score:5, Interesting)
I haven't read the study beyond the linked article, but personally I suspect that the whole problem extends far beyond email use.
Western society is built on distractions, and on interrupting people from what they're doing, much of which is to do with commercialism. For instance:
It doesn't surprise me at all that people's attitudes to doing things have been changing quite dramatically, and it seems quite feasible that the effects of this on people's wellbeing could be negative. Emails popping up and being addressed are just an extension of everything else that's been happening with advances in technology and societial attitudes.
I would love a tool, similar to the one that you suggest, that encourages being able to focus on things. I'm not entirely sure how it could be guaranteed to work, though. To me, many of the possible problems seem to be embedded quite heavily in the way that society now works.
Meanwhile, I think I'll try forcing myself to concentrate more by shutting down lots of other things while I'm browsing slashdot. It's a shame they're so easy to start up again.
Parent
No: (Score:5, Insightful)
500 books in the household? (Score:5, Funny)
OMG!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
the bias in the study... (Score:5, Insightful)
But if you're naturally smart or motivated, the opposite is true. I've known people that smoked pot all through college and graduated early with amazing grades. I'm sure amongst the people you know, you can think of the video game addict that gets all A's and the video game addict that flunked out years ago.
These things are just enablers. That's why, especially with pot, you should be of sound mind and body before you turn the machine on or pack the pipe. It makes the difference between expanding your mind and escaping from it.
oh my (Score:5, Funny)
I'm not suprised... (Score:5, Insightful)
I often times would have to work around some equation I couldn't remember and basically derive the equation from smaller building blocks. This gave me a much greater understanding of the actual processes going on. This kind of problem solving/understanding completely disappears when children can use calculators to simply "get the right answer", but the important thing in the maths and sciences is not necessarily the answer, but the process of getting there, and the ability to problem solve, which has completely disappeared in US middle and high schools.
Re:High IQ == High Intelligence? (Score:5, Insightful)
IQ measures a very narrow set of skills which aren't massively useful in real life. You'll get much further in life by being influential in social situations, or by being able to make good decisions for example.
It seems that the temporary loss of IQ test skill was purely due to the questions being popped up at random intervals.
Parent