The Opposition is Falling Behind the Times

So on the radio I keep hearing this little ad playing where a kid asks his mom if he can do all sorts of dangerous things, up to and including playing with the chainsaw. Like a good parent, she says no. Then we hear this little gem: "Mom, can I play video games 20 hours a week for the next 8 years, getting no exercise so that my lungs and heart can't function properly, and learning no social skills?" Mom says yes, like a good mom. XD

Now, let's think of this. First off, 20 hours a week? Doing the math that comes out to less than three hours a day. The average family has 3 to 4 hours between dinner and bed time. What does that average family (In the U.S. at least) do during that time? Mostly sitting on their asses watching tv. With the proper mix of games and the proper breaks to avoid hand and eye strain, you'll actually be coming out ahead if you switch from passively watching a tv spoon feed you a story to actively playing games.

Little to no exercise? A smart parent does the research and can find a slew of fitness games. Just make a deal with the kid and those video games can actually steadily improve heartrate and lung function. As for the lack of social skills. . . It's only 2 to 3 hours a day. The kid will still go to school, and will have plenty of time between school and dinner for socializing. Even after dinner, if one of the gaming hours is after homework, waiting for the other students to finish their homework. Besides, those same fitness games are good for competitions, which means friends can get involved.

It just seems silly how little real research goes into advertisements. Relying on knee-jerk reactions is one of the signs of a slipping argument, isn't it?

No social skills?

Erm... Online gaming, anyone?

Yes, online gaming is such a great way to build social skills. Not only are the people likable, but that's also a realistic gauge for how they will act in person as well.

Likeability is sort of the opposite of what you'd want to look for in social practice. You need social skills to deal with the people you aren't naturally comfortable around.

Agreed.

Now, I'll admit that I spend a lot more than 20 hours a week on single-player games, but between working in the service sector, walking around just about every chance I get, and spending much of my computer time on here and in I Ms, I don't think I've run into quite the problems the commercial's trying to lay on vid games.

Online gaming's not the best example of social skills forming from games, but there are ways that kids can maintain their social skills without giving up games. Most of that problem stems from parents not thinking things through and just allowing their kids to play games without looking into options for keeping them in shape.

edited 8th Jun '12 5:30:47 AM by Journeyman

Yes, there are more to social skills than likeability, but online gaming isn't the place to learn them. In most situations you can't simply kill the connection if things aren't going your way, nor will people be so unintuitive as to drive backwards in a race or score on themselves in football and all the other peculiarities that come anonymity/lack of personal recognition. It's like saying a forum is a good place to learn social skills(it isn't). At best, what you learn simply won't apply elsewhere, at worst someone might blunder before they realize it.

I was thinking more along the lines of DDR at an arcade. You compete against other players and are out around other people the entire time. Heck, if you're great at the game, you wind up giving a performance and having others cheer for you. Now THAT'S a cardio workout.

Its really just New Media Is Evil. Honestly, there's still lingering bits of that hanging on *television*, expecting it to go away for even newer media is unrealistic.

Social networking is likely to be the next target. Already I've seen a few religious flyers around my neighborhood which talk about how Social networking is slowly taking place of real-life interactions, making kids socially inept, and puts them at risk of identity theft or some other e-crime. To be fair, the whole e-crime part is actually pretty decent advice, especially for kids, but it still came off like they were trying to imply that social networking overall was bad.

Yeah, not really surprised here.

^^ Not entirely inaccurate. There have been a few studies recently showing that online games, online chatrooms, e-mail, texting, social networking media and such may not be healthy for human socialization skills. (They however concluded further study is required before any recommendations can be made.)

edited 9th Jun '12 3:15:48 PM by MajorTom

There's nothing inherently wrong with social media and online interaction, but they are not a substitute for real life relationships.

That was the thing those studies were concerned about. They were inferior methods of human interaction compared to talking face to face or in a crowd. A poor substitute if you will.

I know the point of the commercial is to drop a bunch of anvils that I don't necessarily agree with, however...

Yes, your child should leave the house for one reason or another a few times a week that aren't school or going somewhere with their parents. Spending your free time gaming is fine, I do it plenty, but spending all of your free time gaming is not.

Now don't get me wrong, I realize free time is, by definition, free.. But you should still do something that isn't videogames a little to balance out all the gaming. If your only non-school social interaction is the internet and your family, your growth as an adult is going to be seriously stunted.

tldr: Too much of anything is bad, on principle I kind of agree.

Exactly. I balance out gaming with a workout every other night, then hanging out with friends when I can on the weekends.

The commercial explicitly stated 20 hours a week. That was the number given. That's only two or three hours a day. You can knock that out between dinner time and bed time. Some families don't eat til 7, even, so there's easily two or three hours each week day that could be spent doing something else. Homework does take some of that time, yes, but unless school is brutal on the child, there's no reason homework has to take the whole two or three hours.

It does more frequently than not. The longest homework spell I've ever had that wasn't a multi-day/week project (those happen in high school and college) was just under 6 hours.

On the average 2+ hours of homework didn't happen every day but it was somewhat frequent from 3rd grade til Junior year in high school. A lot of the time I either panic did it in 15 minutes (usually right before or during those first few minutes of class) or didn't do it at all.

Sadly that's politics for ya. At least in the States. We're falling behind on Math and Science, so instead of gearing up the future generations by starting to improve the curriculum in Kindergarten and working up with a test class, they try to rush in improvements on classes that were already geared toward the old learning ways. A temporary fall-back to get in gear for a comeback isn't that hard to understand, guys and gals! Stop trying to have your cake and eat it too!