Locked in their bedrooms, playing video games into the small hours, children as young as 10 years old are now addicted to their consoles. Tim Lewis hears how the compulsive games can be impossible to resist – and meets the experts tackling the issue
So many comments on this thread are very dismissive and just wave it off as “bad parenting” or “escapism”. While both of those arguments are valid and probably a very big part of the problem, should we leave everything on the parents?
We don’t allow businesses to sell alcohol towards children because we know it’s extremely harmful and addictive. Should we simply let it free for all and then blame parents for not teaching their children that alcohol is bad and for allowing them to go out to the local shop and buy alcohol? Same goes for multiple other restrictions. Not all parents are responsible and educated enough to know how to parent. Articles like this at least show unaware parents this is a real threat and they could at least keep an eye out or educate themselves on the parental control available.
Parents need to accept responsibility for their children’s behaviour. Obviously a separate example from this article but the recent suggestion that we should ban sales of mobile phones to under 16 year olds was entirely driven by pearl clutching parents who are unable to say “no” to their offspring - or at least spend 5 mins setting up parental controls.
Banning phones is an extreme measure. No restrictions whatsoever is an extreme measure. Articles like these simply start the conversation for the society at large to find a solution and, as I was saying in my initial comment some parents are simply unaware of how addictive video games can be. For many older generation (and even some of the younger parents out there that had no contact with video games) video games are often attributed to children’s toys. The truth however is not that simple - some games are for children and some are engineered from the ground up to be as addictive as possible. Even if the final responsibility lies with the parents, we need to have those parents informed and articles like this do that.
Often times, things are not black or white but multiple shades of grey. Should we demonize video games? Absolutely not, they’re not only fun but they can be a great tool to develop social skills, critical thinking and other adult skill. Should we inherently trust all video games and all parents to “do what’s right”? No again. There is a balance in everything and dismissing unbiased articles like this one isn’t helping anyone.
Kind of disagree that the article is unbiased. However I do agree with your general point that these issues are a matter of shades of grey. For example, lootboxes are 100% predatory and even parents who are older gamers might not be aware of them.
So many comments on this thread are very dismissive and just wave it off as “bad parenting” or “escapism”. While both of those arguments are valid and probably a very big part of the problem, should we leave everything on the parents?
We don’t allow businesses to sell alcohol towards children because we know it’s extremely harmful and addictive. Should we simply let it free for all and then blame parents for not teaching their children that alcohol is bad and for allowing them to go out to the local shop and buy alcohol? Same goes for multiple other restrictions. Not all parents are responsible and educated enough to know how to parent. Articles like this at least show unaware parents this is a real threat and they could at least keep an eye out or educate themselves on the parental control available.
Parents need to accept responsibility for their children’s behaviour. Obviously a separate example from this article but the recent suggestion that we should ban sales of mobile phones to under 16 year olds was entirely driven by pearl clutching parents who are unable to say “no” to their offspring - or at least spend 5 mins setting up parental controls.
Banning phones is an extreme measure. No restrictions whatsoever is an extreme measure. Articles like these simply start the conversation for the society at large to find a solution and, as I was saying in my initial comment some parents are simply unaware of how addictive video games can be. For many older generation (and even some of the younger parents out there that had no contact with video games) video games are often attributed to children’s toys. The truth however is not that simple - some games are for children and some are engineered from the ground up to be as addictive as possible. Even if the final responsibility lies with the parents, we need to have those parents informed and articles like this do that.
Often times, things are not black or white but multiple shades of grey. Should we demonize video games? Absolutely not, they’re not only fun but they can be a great tool to develop social skills, critical thinking and other adult skill. Should we inherently trust all video games and all parents to “do what’s right”? No again. There is a balance in everything and dismissing unbiased articles like this one isn’t helping anyone.
Kind of disagree that the article is unbiased. However I do agree with your general point that these issues are a matter of shades of grey. For example, lootboxes are 100% predatory and even parents who are older gamers might not be aware of them.