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silveradept[This is part of a series on video games, their tropes, stories of playing games, and other related topics. If you have suggestions about where to take the series, please do say so in the comments. We have a lot of spaces to fill for this month.]
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no screen time for children under 18 months, almost none for children between 18 and 24 months, and very limited, high-quality, grownup-present-and-interacting screen time for children from 2-5 years. And they also recommend making sure that children over 5 don't substitute screen time for other essential activities and that there be both times and places where screens are not permitted for children.
All of these recommendations are intended so that screens don't end up substituting for actual interaction with humans and that the developmental pathways of smallings are appropriately put through. Research on television is pretty thorough about what might be an appropriate way of interacting with very small children. For the very youngest, they don't understand that the person on the television isn't actually present in the room. This becomes a problem when the child starts expressing cues that need the attention of a human, like needing to be fed or changed or soothed, or anything else, for that matter. One of the few things that the new high-tech teenage pregnancy-dissuasion devices do correctly is they teach a caregiver about how much children need the presence of a caring adult so they can form secure attachments and learn at a fundamental level that they will not have to fend for themselves in a cold cruel world. Adverse childhood experiences such as a negligent parent makes it much harder for a child to concentrate on anything that requires higher cognitive functions, like school. Which is not to say that failing to immediately respond to a child's needs will have them turn out terrible, but if it becomes a habit that a child is being ignored in favor of something else, that will turn out poorly for the child. What the children need is someone who will respond appropriately to the cues they are given, and no matter how sophisticated a program or piece of software is, there's no way currently that it can respond appropriately to the needs of a very small child. Perhaps when we have developed robot caregivers that can scan and understand a small child's cries and gestures, that guidance will be revisited, but even then, I suspect, the recommendation is still going to be about humans having human contact with other humans as much as is possible.
At a certain stage of development, which is usually at about 24 months of age, children have learned a certain amount of distinction between who is bodily present and who is on the screen, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they've learned a lot about the abstractions that guide human interactions with computers. While at this stage of development they can do things that have touch controls, but that doesn't necessarily mean they fully understand what's going on. For the most part, interactive games and programs still work on the idea of "pictures under glass", which loses a lot of the important connections that can be made with manipulating objects through touch and feel and other such senses around actual objects, rather than tapping, swiping, or sliding their finger to provoke pre-recorded, pre-determined responses. Additionally, even with content that would be appropriate for a small audience such as that, there's a lot of work that a caring and present grown-up can do around the use of screens and programming. A lot of it is still attending to what the child is broadcasting, but as they get older, what the child is broadcasting is a bigger set of possibilities, including language, emotional states, feelings, thoughts, and other developmentally appropriate things for caregivers to talk about with their children as they experience the programs together. All of the advice that I see on the matter very specifically points out that screen time with children is supposed to be set up where both child and grownup can be fully engaged with what is going on. Doing things together with your kids is often the most important part of everything, and since there are so many things that a kid can be doing with a grownup that will help with their development, including walking, talking, manipulating, listening, reading, and so forth. It doesn't necessarily mean that someone has to go to a public library to get all of those things, although librarians do put on programming to help with all of those things. It can be done through watching programming, through games on tablets, through stories being read together, but the point really is that these things should be experienced together.
That requirement doesn't go away as they get older, either, The mouse and keyboard are definitely learned things, not intuitive, and it takes a certain amount of fine motor control to be able to use them effectively. That fine motor control isn't present until there's about enough skill to be able to write squiggles that look like letters. Or, if you're thinking that the small child is going to end up being a musical genius, about the time that you can start playing chords on a piano by moving the fingers independently of each other. That's really much closer to the ages where someone is ready for school, not toddlerdom. Sesame Street, the absolutely most-researched show on television, generally targets the early preschool age with their programming, and what's appropriate for preschoolers, and what we know now about their brains and their capacities has changed a lot since the Street started airing. (A moment of silence, please, for the passing of Caroll Spinney, voice and puppeteer of Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch, at 85 years of age.)
Right about now is where we take a quick break to point out that every definition of quality programming and/or games for very young children involved means ad-free programs. Advertisements are a bane on the possibility of good programming, because they are either constant eyesores and distractions, or they interrupt the program every so often to attempt to sell someone something, and the presence of ads on any given program is an almost-certain sign that there is data-mining or other tracking going on. We do not want advertisers building profiles of our smallings (nor are they really allowed to) and furthermore, we don't want a child to tap an ad and go somewhere else on the Internet, or accidentally purchase something else using a saved card. (Not to mention the possibility that some troll has spliced in awful content to an otherwise child-appropriate video.) Ads have no place in anything that wants to call itself appropriate for children. Sesame Street doing things like "brought to you by a letter and a number" was in relation to how sponsorship was spoken on television at the time. Nowadays, it seems much more like a relic of the past, but there's still something useful out of it.
Right, anyway, in late preschool into elementary school we have different things that we need to worry about with regard to games. Now it's not just ads, it's lootboxes and other things that are designed to entice people into playing (and paying) far more than they would otherwise want to. In this case, it's a lot easier to see it in more casual games, like Candy Crush, where even though there are life systems implemented, lives regenerate at about the speed of succeeding (or at least having a good run at) a level. And those unlock progressions on games where rounds last only a few minutes are always enticing to play just a little bit more. Or games that reward you with time-limited bonuses when you succeed that will be very helpful in continuing to succeed. So long as you keep the streak going, the levels seem to fall pretty easily, and before you know it, what was supposed to be a couple of rounds to wind down to bed has turned into a couple hours of progress. Or attempts at progress, anyway. At a certain point, the levels stop playing nice and start being the kind of thing where every move has to line up perfectly if you want to pass the level without using powerups of any form. Which is an enticement to spend that $.99 on something that will make the level easier, because Prime knows they don't give the rewards out for anything after the nice levels. Or that $2.99 pack of powerups that should make this level go easier and get those streaks back. (And now you know why King made Activision Blizzard so much money.) In other games, it's that the exclusive loot is in the premium currency lootboxes that you can only get for a limited time, but of course, they're not guaranteed to come in any lootbox, and so, like any proper Skinner box, when the rewards are intermittent, there's a higher risk of spending more than anyone ever might have wanted to. (There's a reason that people who are against lootboxes and want them cleaned up are explicitly linking them to gambling devices that need the same kind of regulation. Because, surprise, they work on the same principles as slot machines, but without the gaming commission that regulates they have to pay out at a particular rate.)
For brains that have developed to the point where they can theoretically understand the risks and make decisions with their own money, there's not as much worry, but a lot of games are simple enough that children can play them, and game companies don't have much of an interest in not selling their product to children, so long as the children themselves can fake well enough that they have parental permission to do it. Or that they're playing on a machine where a parental card has been stored and can use that just as easily. Yet another reason to look at your card statements every month, folks, just in case it's authorized charges from someone in the house. (I have the luck of being able to listen to stories about Dreamwidth, and one of them is that, because Dreamwidth allows content that Moral Guardians would get after payment processors for, DW has to use a processor that also does things like porn websites. And our processor apparently loves us, because we're an "adult" site that, unlike many porn sites, doesn't have a whole lot of people going "oh, no, that charge for services must be fradulent, I don't know how it got there." But we do occasionally have people who aren't old enough using a grownup card to buy themselves paid time, and those grownups do look at their statements and want to know what this strange charge is.)
Oh, quick diversion here. There's no such thing as a digital native. The only reason the younger generations seem to be better at technology than older folk is through exposure. There's something to be said about twitch reaction speed and other physical components as to why someone younger might be slightly better at games that prioritize input speed and fine motor control over other things, but these things can be learned and practiced. And, actually, there's a lot that kids need to learn about games and being online and using their technology, even as they are finding new and unexpected uses for the technology that already exists, often in the service of steganography. (You can see this most clearly in the "anti" phenomenon, as there's a clear disconnect between the group who are now coming of age and those of us who have been there and done that about what content needs to be allowed and what content needs to be restricted, and what steps have been taken in the past to try and restrict that content that older fen have already suffered through.) So there's a good chance that you can teach someone as well as learn from them about the use of technology or about playing games. After all, sometimes having a different perspective on how to play a game means you can provide insight. (The linked comic is the start of the storyline, the point becomes clear a few more strips in.)
So the advice is basically the same across all the ages - play with your kids, or at least be around when they're consuming media or playing games, and make sure that they do other things as well that help them grow up as people who have fun while they game, but don't fall into the pit of toxicity or end up sacrificing other things to play one more round. It always takes an approach of being there and being someone trustworthy that the kids will want to talk to. There's a lot of advice out there about what that means, but as adults who have grown up saturated in the media environment, what it's mostly going to mean is equipping the kids with the tools that are going to be important and then hoping they'll use them once they're not in as much direct contact any more.
I mean, I played games as I grew up, and I had parents who were keeping an eye out for the amount of time I spent playing games versus doing other things. And I turned out...about as okay as I was going to, anyway.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no screen time for children under 18 months, almost none for children between 18 and 24 months, and very limited, high-quality, grownup-present-and-interacting screen time for children from 2-5 years. And they also recommend making sure that children over 5 don't substitute screen time for other essential activities and that there be both times and places where screens are not permitted for children.
All of these recommendations are intended so that screens don't end up substituting for actual interaction with humans and that the developmental pathways of smallings are appropriately put through. Research on television is pretty thorough about what might be an appropriate way of interacting with very small children. For the very youngest, they don't understand that the person on the television isn't actually present in the room. This becomes a problem when the child starts expressing cues that need the attention of a human, like needing to be fed or changed or soothed, or anything else, for that matter. One of the few things that the new high-tech teenage pregnancy-dissuasion devices do correctly is they teach a caregiver about how much children need the presence of a caring adult so they can form secure attachments and learn at a fundamental level that they will not have to fend for themselves in a cold cruel world. Adverse childhood experiences such as a negligent parent makes it much harder for a child to concentrate on anything that requires higher cognitive functions, like school. Which is not to say that failing to immediately respond to a child's needs will have them turn out terrible, but if it becomes a habit that a child is being ignored in favor of something else, that will turn out poorly for the child. What the children need is someone who will respond appropriately to the cues they are given, and no matter how sophisticated a program or piece of software is, there's no way currently that it can respond appropriately to the needs of a very small child. Perhaps when we have developed robot caregivers that can scan and understand a small child's cries and gestures, that guidance will be revisited, but even then, I suspect, the recommendation is still going to be about humans having human contact with other humans as much as is possible.
At a certain stage of development, which is usually at about 24 months of age, children have learned a certain amount of distinction between who is bodily present and who is on the screen, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they've learned a lot about the abstractions that guide human interactions with computers. While at this stage of development they can do things that have touch controls, but that doesn't necessarily mean they fully understand what's going on. For the most part, interactive games and programs still work on the idea of "pictures under glass", which loses a lot of the important connections that can be made with manipulating objects through touch and feel and other such senses around actual objects, rather than tapping, swiping, or sliding their finger to provoke pre-recorded, pre-determined responses. Additionally, even with content that would be appropriate for a small audience such as that, there's a lot of work that a caring and present grown-up can do around the use of screens and programming. A lot of it is still attending to what the child is broadcasting, but as they get older, what the child is broadcasting is a bigger set of possibilities, including language, emotional states, feelings, thoughts, and other developmentally appropriate things for caregivers to talk about with their children as they experience the programs together. All of the advice that I see on the matter very specifically points out that screen time with children is supposed to be set up where both child and grownup can be fully engaged with what is going on. Doing things together with your kids is often the most important part of everything, and since there are so many things that a kid can be doing with a grownup that will help with their development, including walking, talking, manipulating, listening, reading, and so forth. It doesn't necessarily mean that someone has to go to a public library to get all of those things, although librarians do put on programming to help with all of those things. It can be done through watching programming, through games on tablets, through stories being read together, but the point really is that these things should be experienced together.
That requirement doesn't go away as they get older, either, The mouse and keyboard are definitely learned things, not intuitive, and it takes a certain amount of fine motor control to be able to use them effectively. That fine motor control isn't present until there's about enough skill to be able to write squiggles that look like letters. Or, if you're thinking that the small child is going to end up being a musical genius, about the time that you can start playing chords on a piano by moving the fingers independently of each other. That's really much closer to the ages where someone is ready for school, not toddlerdom. Sesame Street, the absolutely most-researched show on television, generally targets the early preschool age with their programming, and what's appropriate for preschoolers, and what we know now about their brains and their capacities has changed a lot since the Street started airing. (A moment of silence, please, for the passing of Caroll Spinney, voice and puppeteer of Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch, at 85 years of age.)
Right about now is where we take a quick break to point out that every definition of quality programming and/or games for very young children involved means ad-free programs. Advertisements are a bane on the possibility of good programming, because they are either constant eyesores and distractions, or they interrupt the program every so often to attempt to sell someone something, and the presence of ads on any given program is an almost-certain sign that there is data-mining or other tracking going on. We do not want advertisers building profiles of our smallings (nor are they really allowed to) and furthermore, we don't want a child to tap an ad and go somewhere else on the Internet, or accidentally purchase something else using a saved card. (Not to mention the possibility that some troll has spliced in awful content to an otherwise child-appropriate video.) Ads have no place in anything that wants to call itself appropriate for children. Sesame Street doing things like "brought to you by a letter and a number" was in relation to how sponsorship was spoken on television at the time. Nowadays, it seems much more like a relic of the past, but there's still something useful out of it.
Right, anyway, in late preschool into elementary school we have different things that we need to worry about with regard to games. Now it's not just ads, it's lootboxes and other things that are designed to entice people into playing (and paying) far more than they would otherwise want to. In this case, it's a lot easier to see it in more casual games, like Candy Crush, where even though there are life systems implemented, lives regenerate at about the speed of succeeding (or at least having a good run at) a level. And those unlock progressions on games where rounds last only a few minutes are always enticing to play just a little bit more. Or games that reward you with time-limited bonuses when you succeed that will be very helpful in continuing to succeed. So long as you keep the streak going, the levels seem to fall pretty easily, and before you know it, what was supposed to be a couple of rounds to wind down to bed has turned into a couple hours of progress. Or attempts at progress, anyway. At a certain point, the levels stop playing nice and start being the kind of thing where every move has to line up perfectly if you want to pass the level without using powerups of any form. Which is an enticement to spend that $.99 on something that will make the level easier, because Prime knows they don't give the rewards out for anything after the nice levels. Or that $2.99 pack of powerups that should make this level go easier and get those streaks back. (And now you know why King made Activision Blizzard so much money.) In other games, it's that the exclusive loot is in the premium currency lootboxes that you can only get for a limited time, but of course, they're not guaranteed to come in any lootbox, and so, like any proper Skinner box, when the rewards are intermittent, there's a higher risk of spending more than anyone ever might have wanted to. (There's a reason that people who are against lootboxes and want them cleaned up are explicitly linking them to gambling devices that need the same kind of regulation. Because, surprise, they work on the same principles as slot machines, but without the gaming commission that regulates they have to pay out at a particular rate.)
For brains that have developed to the point where they can theoretically understand the risks and make decisions with their own money, there's not as much worry, but a lot of games are simple enough that children can play them, and game companies don't have much of an interest in not selling their product to children, so long as the children themselves can fake well enough that they have parental permission to do it. Or that they're playing on a machine where a parental card has been stored and can use that just as easily. Yet another reason to look at your card statements every month, folks, just in case it's authorized charges from someone in the house. (I have the luck of being able to listen to stories about Dreamwidth, and one of them is that, because Dreamwidth allows content that Moral Guardians would get after payment processors for, DW has to use a processor that also does things like porn websites. And our processor apparently loves us, because we're an "adult" site that, unlike many porn sites, doesn't have a whole lot of people going "oh, no, that charge for services must be fradulent, I don't know how it got there." But we do occasionally have people who aren't old enough using a grownup card to buy themselves paid time, and those grownups do look at their statements and want to know what this strange charge is.)
Oh, quick diversion here. There's no such thing as a digital native. The only reason the younger generations seem to be better at technology than older folk is through exposure. There's something to be said about twitch reaction speed and other physical components as to why someone younger might be slightly better at games that prioritize input speed and fine motor control over other things, but these things can be learned and practiced. And, actually, there's a lot that kids need to learn about games and being online and using their technology, even as they are finding new and unexpected uses for the technology that already exists, often in the service of steganography. (You can see this most clearly in the "anti" phenomenon, as there's a clear disconnect between the group who are now coming of age and those of us who have been there and done that about what content needs to be allowed and what content needs to be restricted, and what steps have been taken in the past to try and restrict that content that older fen have already suffered through.) So there's a good chance that you can teach someone as well as learn from them about the use of technology or about playing games. After all, sometimes having a different perspective on how to play a game means you can provide insight. (The linked comic is the start of the storyline, the point becomes clear a few more strips in.)
So the advice is basically the same across all the ages - play with your kids, or at least be around when they're consuming media or playing games, and make sure that they do other things as well that help them grow up as people who have fun while they game, but don't fall into the pit of toxicity or end up sacrificing other things to play one more round. It always takes an approach of being there and being someone trustworthy that the kids will want to talk to. There's a lot of advice out there about what that means, but as adults who have grown up saturated in the media environment, what it's mostly going to mean is equipping the kids with the tools that are going to be important and then hoping they'll use them once they're not in as much direct contact any more.
I mean, I played games as I grew up, and I had parents who were keeping an eye out for the amount of time I spent playing games versus doing other things. And I turned out...about as okay as I was going to, anyway.
