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With video game designers using calculated tactics to get kids hooked on online gaming, it’s important to limit time spent gaming and to create spaces for kids to have fulfilling experiences outside of online gaming.
TODAY’S TOPIC
Back to Reality: Helping Your Kids Unplug from Online Gaming
If you’ve ever played video games, you might recall the first video games you ever played as a kid. Certainly video games leave a profound impression on kids, and the effects and gameplay of today’s games are even more astonishing and consuming than the games we used to play. The Child Mind Institute notes that the vast majority of children play video games in some form or another, and these games can be a fun space for kids to explore, problem-solve, and unwind after a long day of school, extracurriculars, and homework. They also encourage parents to set reasonable and consistent boundaries with their kids when it comes to video games. But what happens when the video game itself doesn’t assist you in setting boundaries, and instead works against your efforts to set boundaries? Many games today, like Roblox, Minecraft, and Fortnite, have continually expanding worlds that don’t set meaningful milestones or endpoints. The design of these games is meant to keep kids plugged in as often as possible, to the point where the games can easily become a hypnotic obsession for kids. With near ubiquitous access to technology at school, kids can even find themselves entranced by gaming while at school, affecting their grades and social interactions with peers and adults.
Like many other online applications, online video games are designed to keep the users’ attention hooked, and their target audience is kids and teens. Meta has recently received a lot of attention for aggressively targeting young teens with their products, and gaming companies like Blizzard have recently been revealed to have had ties to human traffickers intent on monopolizing the attention of kids. While games can be a fun outlet for kids and adults, the people behind their production often don’t have your kids’ best interests at heart, and in some cases, they are eager to exploit children’s vulnerability for the sake of profit.
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
Against a handful of companies with a tight grip on the games your kids have access to, it can feel hopeless trying to wrest your kids’ attention away from gaming. As a parent, you’re up against a coordinated effort by these few companies to build meaningful attachments with your kids, and these companies aren’t playing around. So what can you do? Below are a few tips for getting your kids to unplug:
Encourage extracurriculars at school: Whether it’s team sports or dungeons and dragons, having a space to interact with their peers in person is a vital part of development for kids. Hanging out with their peers in creative, competitive, or productive settings helps kids to build confidence in the real world: a feeling that video games mimic but cannot instill.
Set aside time for family game nights or shared activities: The same forces bent on snatching up all of your children’s attention are operating on you too, if you regularly use social media or play online video games. Setting the example of in-person family time as ritual instills in kids a sense of duty to be present with family and with people in the real world. It also demonstrates to kids that their contribution to the family is valued, which helps them to build a strong self-esteem.
Set limits on game time and stick to those limits: If your kids are playing video games, set a specific amount of time that your child is allowed to spend on that game. Depending on your child’s age, you may want to limit game time to around an hour per day, and they should certainly not be on games before their homework is finished and their chores are done! This may mean that you’ll have to keep in touch with their teachers, so you know they aren’t hiding homework from you!
Encourage reading time with physical media: One consequence of having access to continuous entertainment is that we tend to seek content that is entertaining in the short term, but not fulfilling in the long term. Another consequence is that this has impacted literacy levels of kids around the world. Taking the time to read a book from cover to cover encourages kids to practice reading while also finding value in the time and attention they spend completing a book. Check with your local library or book store for reading recommendations if you and your child aren’t sure where to start reading, and set aside time in the evening or afternoon for you and your child to have shared reading time. Some young adult books are fun for teens and adults, so reading the same book or series can help you connect with your teen over a shared experience!
