Wired: Why are so many young people addicted to video games? | Hacker News Reader

Wired: Why are so many young people addicted to video games?

theguardian.com

12 pointsakbarnama12 comments

> Jake particularly liked the Final Fantasy and Soulcalibur series: “Anything with killing,” says Dee, wincing.

This line lost the author a bit of benefit of my doubt. Certainly there is violence in those games, but they’re not particularly gory or murder-oriented. Seems like this article was written by and for people who have never played any video games.

Final Fantasy in particular was a weird callout, since 90% of the games are themed on a combination of coping with the human condition and the power of friendship.

And battling God.

Even ignoring all the "EvilCorp spending $billions to make video games even more addictive" stuff...what else are current-day western children allowed to do, that feels like useful work, and provides short-term senses of agency / accomplishment / self-worth?

In my childhood, we were at least free to roam the neighborhood - which contained plenty of good child playmate prospects, with similar freedom. Or help dad to build & maintain our house. (I can't recall that he ever brought in an electrician / plumber / HVAC tech / whatever, even for major stuff.)

But that mid-20th-century suburban idyll was still a huge self-worth downgrade from my parents' childhoods. They did farm & domestic labor, at scale, in economic circumstances where kids being good workers was very obviously important to their family's access to food, shelter, and clothing.

I think this is 80% of the problem. I quit gaming as an adult once I had a chance to get real things I actually wanted. I had to take up the hobby again just because it's a useful way to relax. But I can only play for a short time before getting restless and wanting to do something more constructive with my time.

Slight tangent to the article, but I wanted to bring up a style of game my son plays, rng games, that are very popular on roblox and other places.

The basic idea is there is very little actual gameplay involved. The user sits in the game, often AFK (often overnight), and the game does rng rolls over and over. You have a very low chance to win "auras" in most of these games (chances can be 1 in a million, but they have all magnitudes of odds). Auras are just visual+audio effects that are on your player that other users can see.

I think we know gambling (can be) bad for people, especially developing brains, and I see very little difference between gambling (slot machines) and these games. The major difference is you cannot win money (at least not directly) with these games. However, what is the defining quality of money that makes gambling different from these games? The users win auras which are social credit, which can be just as important for users in these age brackets.

I worry about my son playing these games. I know the knee-jerk reaction will be: "if you're concerned just don't let him play them". However there is cost to that, as his friends play them so him not being able to play them causes a lot of friction. So I don't want to overreact.

Note: I've loved video games since as long as I can remember, and still play them.

It can be a valid concern however if it's overnight and he's asleep the harm might be somewhat minimized.

However, our world if full of popular things that cause harm which incur a real social cost when you opt out of them. Teaching your child to deal with those situations is part of your job as a parent and maybe this is an opportunity to do just that. Your job as a parent is not to eliminate friction for your child. Your job is to help them learn how to deal with and weather friction.

This particular instance doesn't sound that problematic to me but you know your child and his situation better than me. Just don't avoid dealing with something because you think it will cause friction or hardship for them. Learning to deal with that sort of thing is a large part of growing up.

Thank you for your advice

I remember playing JRPGs late into the night growing up and reading GamePro magazine. Those were my first experiences reading for fun and eventually led to me reading other things, like Dostoyevsky and PKD.

Give kids the mental equivalent of meth

Why are kids so addicted to meth? :O

Some kids need meth (desoxyn for severe ADHD), in fact the kids in that story would have better impulse control on meth. It's not that addictive as long as you follow the posology.

Amphetamines are only really addictive when they are snorted, smoked or injected.

Because they were never taught why to prioritize.

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