The state of things...

[Darren Dirt]

Settlers of Catan - I have that at home.  I'd love to play it with another adult sometime.  I'd love to play the new Axis & Allies sometime, too.  I wouldn't mind playing Risk, even.  The problem, as stated earlier, is getting people together to do that.  Can you imagine setting aside, say, every Friday or Saturday night to play boardgames or RPGs or poker with your friends?  Even though in high school, that's probably what most of us did...

I'm up for playing new games -- and I recall playing Axis & Allies about 15 years ago, was more complex than Risk IIRC but Poker takes a few hours so why not something different sometimes?

Wow DD I've seen a trend with you over the last couple of weeks.  Something erking ya buddy?

Sorry, I agree with what you say about "when you can't find a real life person to play with", I didn't mean to sound all Luddite and whatnot.

But generally of late I guess I've had a pretty impossible-to-ignore "awakening" as to how much the "blinking lights" all around us are retarding the normal human development (social, mental, emotional) due to the distractingness, the immediacy, the intensity of stimulation... Partly stuff I've thought about on my own, watching my kids, thinking about how they prefer TV and video games to more physically demanding activities (including board games) and also cuz I've been reading some of the book "The Plug-In Drug: Television, Computers, and Family Life" by Marie Winn, who also wrote this book.


To clarify, I admit that I am pretty damn "guilty" of such distractions myself, of course, and also my kids aren't exactly opposed to going for walks, playing cards, coming up with creative games on their own etc. I guess I am just pretty sad, overall, about how far below the "full potential" the way things are re. the accomplishments, progress, happiness etc. that is possible for individual folks, and really the human race in general.


Summed up: "What might have been if not for the blinking lights?" :-\


I guess I'm an Old Fart, officially, now, aren't I?


PS: Something to think about, esp. those who are worried their kids are too "hooked": http://www.tvturnoff.org/aboutus.htm

[Thorin]

One thing to work on with your kids is to get them to understand that too much screen-time (which includes TVs, computers, handheld games, movies, and text-messaging phones) leads to too little development-time.  And the next thing after that is to start doing what you say.

Funnily enough, my kids actually play boardgames fairly frequently because 1) we have age-appropriate games, and 2) I like to play them with friends and they hang around and watch us and so want to do it themselves.  Although in the last few months there has been very little time for me to play boardgames

On the other hand, I think that society would be worse off without all the blinking lights, because it would mean society stagnated.  People of every generation think that the way they did things is best, since it's what they grew up with.

Talk to a GI Generation member, and they'll tell you about how it's better to live on a farm and kill chickens with your bare hands, instead of spending all your time watching that newfangled news on TV and learning what's going in the world.
Talk to a Baby Boom Generation member, and they'll tell you about how it's better to work hard and get a nice house in the burbs than to spend all your time surfing blogs on the web and learning what peoples' opinions are around the world.

The GI Generation frequently got together and gossiped in person with their extended families.
The Baby Boom Generation frequently got togeher and gossiped over the fence with their neighbours.

What might have been if not for the blinking lights?  Well, maybe there'd be more more gossiping.  Maybe there'd be less tolerance for others, more us-vs-them mentality, more wars.  Maybe people would be less willing or able to change their status in life, and so there'd be more serf-n-lord mentality in the world.  Maybe there'd be more rapes and murders, as the predators go hunting instead of playing video games.  Who knows?  It's all conjecture.

Anything electronic with a screen is always made out to be some Insidious Evil Device, stealing away our humanity a little bit at a time.  But it's not.  At most, it enables us to do better what we wanted to do anyway.

All that said, I wouldn't mind setting up a weekly boardgame night with friends.  Even better if the kids can come along and play with other kids...

[Mr. Analog]

Couldn't have put it better myself Thorin.

I have to say though, when was quality of life any better?

[TheDruid]

Agreed, Especially for the social outcasts in real life. It gives these individuals an opportunity to meet and socialize with people in an anonymous setting that they would not other wise socialize in real life. It's a confidence builder, and i bet it also has been reducing teen suicide to some degree.

Although apparently, school bullying has also moved into the cyber text messaging world as well to create all kinds of new problems. However i think were still better off.

[Tonnica]

and so there'd be more smurf-n-lord mentality in the world.

Fix'd 

[Thorin]

I don't think nor state we're better off, only that life now is *different* from life twenty years ago.  One of the problems of measuring whether life is better now is determining how to measure.  Is worldwide connectivity a measure?  Is physical activity a measure?  (for the first, we're better now, for the second we're worse now; both thanks to the Internet).  Is lack of hunger a measure?  Is obesity a measure?  (flip sides of the abundance of food).

Bullying at school is all about some kids trying to exert power over other kids.  This can be argued to reach all the way back to our primal motivations of self-preservation; if we can get others to do stuff for us, we're more likely to survive.

There has been quite a lot of work done to forestall bullying, but it still happens nonetheless.  Text message bullying is simply the same old routine of passing unsigned notes at school saying nasty things about people, but with the added twist that text messages move a little faster and further than notes.  It doesn't create a new problem, it magnifies an ages-old problem (bullying and nasty notes were common in 19th-century English schools, as well).

Removing the technology won't stop the bullying.  Educating the participants (bystanders, victim, and bully, in that order of importance) about the effects of bullying and *how to stop bullying from occurring when you're around* is the only long-lasting solution.

Suffice it to say, I've talked lots to my kids about why bullies do what they do, how it affects others, and how I expect them to step up and speak up and tell the bully to stop (since 90% of participants in bullying are the bystanders who watch).  Of course, I doubt that they'll do what I tell them - it's almost like kids have a mind of their own

[Melbosa]

MOD: Kind of hijacked the other thread, so split this one.  Sorry if there are some remnants of the previous thread.

[Melbosa]

I tend to agree that our current state of existance has it's benefits and losses.  A simple fact of this world now is that most of us here wouldn't even have a job in IT if the technology level wasn't where it is today.  Is that a good thing?  Well it puts food on my table.

Some things provide us all convinence or betterment in our lives, others a hinderance to our health and well being.  But this is really no different that generations before:  just theirs were usually more visible on the negative side.  Physical injury vs Machinery.  Technology vs Manpower.  Pros and Cons to both.  So I wouldn't say much different that Thorin, I think our lives are improved, and distraught at the same time, just in different ways than the past.

But hey if the world didn't change, there would be no need for imagination and creativity, and what a boring place it would be.  I'll take my chances in this world as it stands.

[Thorin]

I'm up for playing new games -- and I recall playing Axis & Allies about 15 years ago, was more complex than Risk IIRC but Poker takes a few hours so why not something different sometimes?

But when?  That was sort of the point I was trying to make.

Yes, Axis & Allies is more complex than Risk.  Instead of generic armies, you have units.  Whereas in Risk an army can do only one thing, in Axis & Allies the different units can do different things, and cost different amounts.  There were some play-balance issues with the old Axis & Allies that they ironed out with the newest version, and they added a few more units.

In Risk you win by taking over the world - it's you against everyone.  In Axis & Allies (the new version) you win by your side holding a pre-determined number of Victory Cities (Moscow, Stalingrad, Berlin, Rome, Paris, London, Calcutta, Tokyo, Manila, <can't remember the third Japanese victory city>, Washington, and Los Angeles).  You decide at the beginning whether to go for 8, 10, or 12 (at the beginning of the game each side has 6).