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About this siteFor six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul Friday, June 06, 2003Video games and kids: A parent's viewI have a five year old son who's really into first person shooters like Quake III Arena and Unreal Tournament 2003. Does that make me a bad parent? My wife is a little concerned, but consider the upside: We get to spend a lot of time together, playing cooperatively or competitively over the LAN, and for the harder, plot-driven games like Unreal 2 and Half-Life, he actually just wants to watch me play and discuss what's going on ("What did he say to you?" "I think you should go that way because I saw something" and so on). And then there are the recent studies about improving peripheral vision and dexterity, which we've definitely seen happening: The kid is a sponge. As for the violence aspect of these games, obviously we tune that down where possible (some PS2 games are good for this as well, and of course there are non-violent and/or cartoon violent PS2 games that are quite good) but the challenge remains. This is a kid who lives for Jurassic Park though, so Mario ain't gonna cut it. On the social side, he's sensitive, loves his sister dearly, and is generally what I call "life enthusiastic." So what's the answer? I'm as confused as the parents in the NY Times article referenced above, but for me it comes down to this: As long as he isn't compromising outside/active time to play games on a computer, I'm OK with it. And currently, my son is involved with baseball and swimming lessons in addition to daily school and two days of day care for outside play with peers. In the fall, he starts soccer, and he's pretty much so active he wears everyone else out, including his sister. So I'm not worried about it. Yet. [ Posted at 9:05 AM | Permalink ]
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