Why do you consider things like painting, acting, and music "creative" things, but not gaming?
When I was around 10 years old I was playing Command and Conquer pretty much every moment I could get. I was creating worlds, coming up with my own "metagames", abusing the minimap to draw things in the game. Hell I'm pretty sure I even made up my own story line because I either didn't care about or didn't understand the real one. Even when I was older playing World of Warcraft or any other number of games, it was an experience exploring worlds, creating things, and socializing with friends.
When I've seen younger family members playing Minecraft, or Halo, and even Fortnite, I'd argue that it's an extremely creative activity, especially when they are playing with friends online in it.
I'm not going to say that constant screens are a good thing, but in moderation (like just about everything), I think they can be a fantastic outlet and an awesome canvas for kids to grow up with.
Plus games are often inspiration for learning programming, design, art, music, writing. Video games are a combination of all these.
Ultimately games are no different than any other medium. Like books, you've got your Twilights and you've got your The Old Man and the Sea. Like film you've got your Transformers and you've got The Godfather.
Gaming isn't "Bad" -- I'm a game developer as well as a parent -- but it's probably a bit over simplified to suggest that it's just another activity. It's not better or worse than painting, for example, but it's important to recognize that it is characteristically different and as a parent it's your responsibility to be intentional about how those differences impact your family.
But there is something off about kids right now is affecting them in disturbing ways (to a parent). The change is also been really rapid; it was different even 10 years ago.
It seems to me like a large number of parents seem to be struggling with it.
I can’t think of any other activity that comes close to gaming in that regard. Most stuff gets boring after a while. Sure, you can dive in a book and come back two days later when it’s finished. But after doing this a couple times, it gets boring rather quickly.
With gaming, especially never ending competitive online games, one can easily sink hundreds or thousands of hours.
So, as a gamer being honest with myself: I will restrict video game time and media consumption of my kids, because they don’t know yet how to deal with these immense dopamine triggers.
Which is true, but doesn't change the fact that I look back at all gaming I did as a massive waste of time, wishing I spent even 10% of that time doing anything else. And even in my early 20s, I couldn't get out of that "just one more game" compulsion many nights and it would impact my work performance and social life. Not really something I want for my children.
I'm in my 30s now and have healthy hobbies again like language learning, reading, and drawing.
I have a feeling a lot of these "gaming are no different than reading or playing a sport" are from young HN gamers. I would've argued the same thing when I was a kid. Not til later did I start wanting to live my life to maximize my sense of fulfillment and minimize regret, and I have a hard time believing gaming does that for anyone.
Managing their exposure to this type of media is important. They’re going to be exposed to it, and they enjoy it, so instead of fighting it we found a middle ground where we all win.
My favorite book series is 14 beefy books (800 pages some of them), I started reading them when 9 were out.
I read the first 9 in 1-2 months, doing ONLY THAT because I loved it so much. Same goes for the previous book series I read (I was 12 at the time, so my memories are not as solid).
I can play games for long hours, but I never end up in that same state where I don't do anything else for an entire month. Sure, there have been a few days where I played all day, but never months.
And I stopped playing games without looking back when I stopped liking them, or when I figured out they were bad for me (mmorpgs especially)
Those asking you for "evidence" that the screen zombie children are worse off are either 1. not parents, 2. parents of screen zombie children, or perhaps 3. experiencing something much different than what I've encountered.
When my children play video games, especially to excess, they experience something similar to the "brain fog" I experience when I am tired, my diet is off, etc. They also are notably more distracted, selfish and generally unruly. My hypothesis is that this is due to dopamine withdrawal causing their brainpower to be devoted to thoughts about gaming.
Ultimately I reserve judgement of parents as long as their kids are maturing reasonably. A variety of parenting choices means a variety of perspectives and experiences in adulthood.
Nor that you might have been able to use that time to develop physical fitness or other life skills?
If video game time were limited more substantially, I doubt I would have suffered directly. However I may have not found my passion for technology. If nothing else, this would have significantly reduced my economic opportunities. Not many other industries were someone under 25 can expect to make over $200k (including equity, mind you). True, money doesn't buy happiness of self-worth. Financial instability is a common cause of unhappiness and economic power better equips people to find happiness. So in that sense video games unlocked a passion that has allowed my employment to be both fun and lucrative.
As far as physical fitness, it doesn't take much to stay in shape at least for me. I'm not overweight (~170lb, 6'2"), I can run decently well (~5 miles in an hour). Sure, if I spent my time playing video games at the gym I could be much more muscular. But I'm not really sure how that level of fitness would significantly improve my life. My strength is sufficient for essentially all the activities I encounter. I suppose it'd make me more physically attractive, but I'm content with the degree to which women are attracted to me already.
I also can't really think of any life skills that I really lack. My dad was pretty handy and passed off a lot of those skills to me. Time spent on gaming didn't inhibit this. Heck if anything it augmented it: e.g. I wanted to lay down Ethernet cable to the game room to play Xbox live so my Dad had me run the cables through the crawlspace and taught me the basics of what modems, routers, and switches are and what they do. That plus other life skills like basic carpentry, changing cars and motorcycles' oil, brake pads, spark plugs.
Socially, games also helped me considerably. Making friends with other gamers helped me build a circle of friends that mostly shared the same passion for technology. We helped each other explore that interest, most of them also gravitated towards STEM fields. Academically, games didn't help but it certainly didn't hurt either. I always put academics first, and took something like 10 AP classes and got a near 4.0 GPA.
I suppose life could be better if I dedicated all my video game time towards learning programming and software development. But that's essentially relying on the power of retrospect. I didn't find my passion for computer technology until I dove so deep into gaming that I entered modding and amateur game dev circles.
Ultimately no one can really know what my life would have been like if I placed my time spent on gaming towards something else. But I do know that it played a pivotal role in helping me find a subject that is both interesting to me and pays very well. That's something that I'm incredibly fortunate to have, and it's not certain I would have found the same success if it weren't for the role video games played in my life.
Today's primary use of devices by children is consuming (Games, videos, etc) and not creating.
I think we have to get back to creating.
The connectedness during the early "broad" internet generations in the mid to late 90's was really special. I'm probably not alone in still having some of those friendships to this day.
I spent part of my teens on apple, atari st's and then PCs. Creating with multiple platforms is something I'm very thankful for.
Games were evolving but had limited power, the imagination was still better graphics. The recent story about the Sierra source code was cool. Online gaming wasn't fast enough, and so other forms of interaction took the day.
There's lots of tools today to build games, it doesn't seem a rite of passage anymore to try and write a game or animate something.. Instead it's writing a todo app today.
For example, as parents we make every effort not to be on our phones around the kids. Some kids truly believe they are competing with a mobile device for their parents' attention, it's quite sad.
Second, we just do fun stuff. Over time they just developed the innate desire to be active and not be dumbed down by screen time. It's just nature. Why would a kid prefer to sit on a couch and stare at an iPad when they can run wild in the backyard or be active as a gymnist or at theater? Screen zombie is a learned behavior, I feel like it is usually a result of uninvolved parents.
Lastly, just don't have the screens at home. We don't have a TV. How is my kid going to be addicted to a TV without... hmm, a TV? Same goes for other screens.
Start young... our kids also eat healthy. At this point they know to politely refuse unhealthy snacks, candy, etc. at playdates and other social events. They know they're not really missing out on much. When they do "splurge" and eat crap, they feel like crap. Our kids are very in tune with their bodies, physical and mental state. Just because other kids play Fortnite, do I need to give in as a parent? No. Same goes for dietary restrictions and other choices parents have.
I also question the need to always be productive. Do your kids ever get downtime? Some of my favorite childhood memories are watching movies with my family or playing games with my friends or brother.
And yes, they get plenty of downtime. We don't force any activity on them or force them to be "productive". Anything really that they do is more productive than playing a video game - even sitting in the backyard staring at the sky.
But you do limit their activities? They're in theater? Imagine some of the amazing storytelling they're missing out on in video games simply because of the medium in which the story is told. The same for painting. If it wasn't for my love of video games and Neopets, I never would have picked up Photoshop and started making graphics for other people I met on forums when I was a kid even if I was glued to a screen.
They also play sports. Plenty of parallel lessons you could learn in competitive video gaming that doesn't carry as much of a stigma as something like chess or even less physical, traditional sports.
While I certainly think exercise is important, what is the perceived harm of "too much" screen time?
I don't know people who would sleep deprive themselves to the same level due to drawing, reading, sport or craft.