My children are less apt to sit passively
in front of the screen and more likely to be interacting w/ the bad
guys w/ a gun, racing a car, going on a quest, conducting a war as a
general, or taking Mario through the trials of Hercules. I don't know
if it is better but I am quite sure it is a significantly different
experience than watching Gerald McBoingBoing as I liked to do.
Their attention span for these interactive games seems to extend
over hours, days, weeks, months, ..... or until they beat the game.
They seem to be doing fine in school and they assure me they will not
grow up to be ax murderers. However, I remain concerned about the
conditioning effect of accepting (extreme) violence imbedded in some
video games.
STeve Cooke
> Is it OK to link threads?
>
> TV rules the roost in many homes, and that fact probably has more
> to do with school discipline problems school than almost anything
> else.
>
> Think about it. Attention spans are decimated by the rapid
> fire image bombardment of television hyper reality. A poor attention
> span means discipline problems. Public schools may have their fair
> share of difficulties, but sending the teachers TV-programmed kids
> to deal with can't be helping matters.
>
> For an excellent look at some of the mental and physical
> problems that TV presents for kids, check out this article on today's
> Seattle Times website:
> The Skinny on TV
> http://www.seattletimes.com/news/lifestyles/html98/peds_021198.html
>
> There IS an off button on the darn thing you know. Tim Lohrmann
>
>
Associate Professor
Dept. of Ag. Economics & Rural Soc.
University of Idaho
Moscow, ID 83843
http://www.uidaho.edu/~scooke/
208-885-7170 (phone)
208-885-5759 (fax)