Thoughts for the day:
this issue of the escapist deals with gaming and gildren www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/20
Especially fitting is the article. "the missing link", which deals very well with the good and bad sides of introducing a console into a family with 2 little boys.
I believe this is the most important quote from it:
"The two boys are what you would expect of kids their age. They have friends, they run around, they fight, they laugh and they ride bikes. This has not changed to any great degree since the GameCube entered their lives, and according to their mother Martine, this is due mostly to her direct involvement in their gaming lives. Many of their friends, she says, play games all day long and are truly addicted."
A computer, a console to a lesser degree as it is only for gaming, but a computer is a powerful tool tool. People would not give little children a knife or an electrical saw, yet they leave them alone with consoles and computers. Like any tool, the technology is neutral. Its application and use though can have very positive or very negative effects.
As people say, you can use a knife to cut bread as well as to hurt people. Maybe we could give some time discussing how to limit the toxic effects of new technologies and enchance their positive ones.
For me it seems to always end up in one though: parent care and participation. If the parents care and take part in the life of the child, patterns of addiction have much less chance for development, as the principal reasons will be missing.
And I am seriously thinking whether I would like my child to grow up without the computer as doing so today would at least partially cripple its coping with the increasingly digital world.