“It’s their world. A digital reality they can manipulate, limited only by their imaginations.
Nothing like the one their parents grew up in.”
This is one of those occasional articles that seems to get it right about gaming, electronic culture and the youth of today.
The author, De La Cruz, skims the main points of effects on kids in terms of homework and aggressive potential. He also, amazingly, describes some specifics of how parents help kids to regulate the time spent in the game and balance family life and school work at the same time.
When lecturing on video games and mental health, I’ve mentioned that keeping kids away from video games is not the answer. In fact, I often have to decipher the question first – which seems to be “what’s causing problems with kids of today?” I don’t have that answer and neither did the parents of the Rock ‘n Roll generation. But, I often mention something akin to:
“There’s a clear moral to this story: whether or not the digital age is a boon to our kids has less to do with the machine than the user.
It’s about the choices our boys [and girls?] make.
To try to stifle a boy’s exploration of the digital world would be like our parents trying to keep us from listening to rock ‘n’ roll because it could lead to reckless behavior.
For our kids, digital fluency is critical to their future.”
