Digital Addiction

footflaps – You had one of those at home?

Yep, and a ZX80, ZX81, then later a BBC Micro, BBC Electron etc

We even had a dual density, double sided dual disk drive which cost £800, weighted about 15kg and was ‘state of the art for 1980’ and had all of 800k capacity!

All because the place my dad worked at was publishing this, the official course book to the BBC Micro as part of the overall educational programme.

Getting a ZX81 for my birthday is directly responsible for everything I have in life.

I read this and thought that’s surely hyperbole, but on reflection I think you might be right.

I was always into gadgetry, and I was fascinated by how things worked. I was that kid who was forever taking stuff to bits (and failing to put them back together, probably a good job I didn’t get into biology). I remember the first time I saw a “TV game” – one of those home Pong-a-likes – at a cousin’s and it blew my tiny mind. I ultimately got one myself one Christmas and was enthralled.

Later I remember some bloke giving a talk at my primary school, he’d brought in a ZX81 and hooked it up to the school TV (remember the ones with the wood finish, with cabinet doors that opened up in a way that they blocked light pollution from the sides?). I sat there with goggle-eyed wonder, what magic is this? It seemed so… futuristic and so hopelessly unattainable.

Fast forward to secondary school, round at a new friend’s house and he had a 16K ZX Spectrum. We played some crappy game on it and I just knew to my core that I had to have this. My joint Christmas and Birthday present from my parents and grandparents that year was a 48K megabeast and three truly dreadful games. “It’ll help with my homework,” lied every 11-year old in the country.

I spent the next few years hammering the thing. Mostly playing games of course, but typing in listings from magazines and eventually (badly) writing my own. I had a partnership with a mate across the road who also had one; I’d do all the coding and design all the UDG graphics, he’d insist that his name came first on the credits. 🙄

I was never restricted – or at least, never formally restricted, I probably got told to go out and play sometimes, or go to bed – but as Iainc says we had other diversions. We’d ride bikes, kick balls around and generally get into pre-teen mischief. And Lego, man I was Lego-obsessed. But I digress.

From the Speccy I was an early adopter of an Atari ST (after seeing Starglider running on one owned by a mate’s dad and having my mind blown again), went on to study Computing at A’level and then at University. College and Uni introduced me to networks, and I spent four years hacking the shit out of the PR1ME minicomputers they had there. Talking to someone in another room was mind-bending in 1988; the next year we’d managed to illicitly connect to other colleges in the local area; by 1991 at Uni I’d managed to escape the establishment’s walled garden and break out of JANET. Bear in mind, this was pre-web, there were no search engines, no TCP/IP even unless you could find a remote gateway you could PAD to over X25. Remote addresses were discovered by word of mouth, legacy discoveries handed down from the year above, tenacity and blind luck. I remember clearly the sheer unbridled excitement when I first connected to a machine in ANOTHER COUNTRY! Holy crap, I’m on a MUD in Germany!

Then the Mono BBS came along, which I’ve talked about before as it’s very similar in feel to this forum. From online discussions communities formed, then meetups, real friendships. Real relationships. My last two girlfriends’ first contact was via Mono, the latter whom would some years later become me wife.

After University, I started a career in Tech Support. Whilst it was an awful company to work for I learned a lot, and because by then I’d spent a decade frobbing about with tech I had the logic and creativity to earn me a promotion inside of six months, ahead of the lags who’d been there years. I also made a number of good friends, there was a kind of front-line comradery going on as we were “all in it together.”

The ST went in favour of my first PC, a 486DX50 behemoth that cost me 1500 quid. I spent years with my head in CONFIG.SYS, jumper settings, IRQ conflicts, EMM386, and the rest of the trappings that to this day still cause geeks of my age to wake up screaming.

From there I’ve had various jobs (mostly) in and around technology, be that support, development, management, and in the nearly ten years I’ve been with my current company I’ve been attached to every technical department they have (support, implementation, customer ‘cloud’ infrastructure, internal IT, etc etc).

So yes. In a very real way my humble ZX Spectrum, and arguably that Pong console, is directly responsible for everything I have in life. My career would’ve been very different, I’d probably be bumming around still not knowing what to do with myself, my friends circle would’ve been startlingly different and I’d hazard considerably smaller (not least because I’m Aspie and online interaction taught me how to talk to people) and I certainly would never have met the wonderful woman who is my wife. Come to think of it, I’d probably still be single as I’d have been scared to talk to girls.

So give your kid his ****ing iPad back.

My 5yr old daughter loves the ipad and like others on here she gets angry when you take it off her. We’ve learnt to warn her, ‘okay in 2 minutes I’m coming up to get you dressed’ or similar and also we’ve taken a hard line on acting up when it’s time to come off, ‘Put it away quietly without fuss when I ask you or you won’t get it tomorrow’ After a couple of times without it and the reasons why explained to her we have pretty much full compliance.
The ipad is a blessing for sleeping adults though. 😀

Getting a ZX81 for my birthday is directly responsible for everything I have in life.

Theres a probably made up fact that around 1/3 of kids starting school today will begin their working life in careers that don’t even exist yet.

And I’m of the generation who friends with geeky parents had BBC Micros wired up robot arms (and later Sinclair QLs and speech synthesisers) and school lunchtime computer clubs (but only clubs – not lessons). And if their parents weren’t geeks they probably had a spectrum and an interest in tape-to-tape instead. Computers weren’t at that time a career for anyone other than people actively involved in making computers. Accessible, useful computers that helped you do things (rather than being the thing you did) hadn’t yet happened.

Yet when Friends Renuinted came alone (remember that?) it turned out I was the only kid from my class who doesn’t now work in IT

The difference to when i were a lad, and people were worried about excessive TV exposure was that there were only 4 TV channels and frankly, not very many programs that actually held any interest to a child. No that everything is “on demand” we get greedy, and there is more content that you can possibly absorb if left unchecked imo.

No that everything is “on demand” we get greedy, and there is more content that you can possibly absorb if left unchecked imo.

Same with libraries. Blimmin full with free books on demand. Not like the old days when a book cost a month’s wages..

😉

Alright. Some good points have been made, but let me take a different tack…

The other day in Cardiff, in honour of Roald Dahl’s 100th birthday, Fantastic Mr Fox did a tightrope walk between two buildings in city centre. There was almost no one – that is, not a single person – who was actually watching the event unfold. Instead pratically every arm was in the air, holding up an iPhone, recording the thing.

Now, pardon the reference, but I remember back in 1991, when U2 was doing the whole ‘ZooTV’ theme, and Bono gave an interview for US Magazine. In it, he said that when the band was first making a name for itself, kids would try to clamber up the wall at Windmill Lane studios to catch a glimpse of them. Over time, this changed so that kids stopped trying to see them, and started just hold camcorders up to film them. And Bono asked, ‘What’s the point? If they just want to see us through a screen, why not just watch TV?’

So instead of real, direct experience, we’re substituting a technological mediation of experience.

zippykona pretty much makes my point exactly on this thread, when he says:

I appreciate the professional stuff we see on here but it does get to a point of the recording being more important than the actual event.

Over time, this changed so that kids stopped trying to see them, and started just hold camcorders up to film them.

A very minor quibble. They’ve still paid £100 a ticket and gone there for a live experience. Just because they’re holding a phone in one hand, doesn’t make a lot of difference IMO.

So instead of real, direct experience, we’re substituting a technological mediation of experience.

or we’ve traded individual exclusivity of an experience for the generosity to share it.

I’ve seen people recording gigs on full-sized iPads. First against the wall when I’m in charge.

The ST went in favour of my first PC

My bro is still playing with his ST (and other retro stuff)…[/url]

They’ve still paid £100 a ticket and gone there for a live experience. Just because they’re holding a phone in one hand, doesn’t make a lot of difference IMO

It does to the people who can’t see the actual event for all the **** phone screens in front of them.

It does to the people who can’t see the actual event for all the **** phone screens in front of them.

What if the phone screens were all playing little MPGs of cigarette lighters

What if the phone screens were all playing little MPGs of cigarette lighters

Good idea, I miss all the lighters for ballads at rock gigs!

Firstly, digital is not necessarily bad. That article is clickbait. Like anything else, it’s how you parent it. And I don’t believe in arbitrary time deadlines. You wouldn’t want that imposed on you, would you? If you were in the middle of a TV show or near the end of a book, would you want it shut off immediately? That would be awful for us, so it’s just as awful for them.

We play mostly Minecraft on PS3 on the single family telly. This makes it a social activity, and we all join in. Likewise telly. The kids play early on weekend mornings (remember the shite TV we used to watch?) and often after we get back from doing something out and about. The kids are creative types, and they build beautiful stuff in creative mode in the game, so they are treating it like an interactive art medium. Are you going to tell me that’s a bad thing?

It does become addictive and obsessive for our eldest though if we aren’t careful. We’ve talked about it with her. The more she plays, the more obsessed and unreasonable she becomes. But we give her more time than some (sometimes 2-3 hours a day depending) which is enough to allow her to get into it and develop what she wants to do, but enough not to let her get out of control. If she does, that’s when we restrict by not letting her start. In that game, she is in charge, and she is building grand projects to her own designs. She builds stuff for us, and shows us what she’s done which is lovely.

However giving kids free reign on an iPad isn’t anything like what we used to do on our early 8-bit computers. Games then were crude, incredibly limited in scope and not that addictive really. But importantly, we could create our own based on those same concepts, and they’d look similar, so we did. We could do what they did. That’s quite hard nowadays.

You need to manage their experience. After all, on here we go all misty eyed thinking about our middle class kids going all Swallows and Amazons, but are we so enamoured with feral chav kids wandering around getting into trouble?

Being lost in something for ages can be a glorious thing – book, outdoor play, indoor play, game, whatever. We want to foster that feeling, but whilst she’s too young to control it herself we’re monitoring it ourselves.

However giving kids free reign on an iPad isn’t anything like what we used to do on our early 8-bit computers. Games then were crude, incredibly limited in scope and not that addictive really. But importantly, we could create our own based on those same concepts, and they’d look similar, so we did. We could do what they did. That’s quite hard nowadays.

Sure, the world’s changed. A lad I know got into stop motion animation on his phone which he’d publish on youtube. Led to a proper job. The possibilities are endless and not necessarily obvious.

Good point. That kind of thing would have been utterly inaccessible to me when I was a kid.

Instead pratically every arm was in the air, holding up an iPhone, recording the thing.

That’s just people being dicks. Many millions more have the same devices and don’t act like that. See also guns, cars, etc.

How are your kids coming on with the cutting and stacking then OP?

As a fellow parent I try to limit my little cherubs’ axe time to a couple of hours a day. I used to let them have free reign but I was spending too much time down A&E in the end.

It’s great to hear about people developing their love for videogames into a career. Just for balance, I got really into computer games as a teen but had zero aptitude for the programming side of things – and jacked it all in at 17 in favour of pubs, mountain biking and a GF.

That didn’t do much for my career either TBF, but I think it was the right choice.

Sensationalist article, but I don’t think there’s any pressing need to expose kids to computer technology. In my experience they’ll learn how to use a computer in about 5 minutes when they need to.
I think there is value in spending more time on the non electronic options when they are wee. Learning to read books teaches patience, concentration and imagination, because it’s not instant sensory reward. Scribbling on bits of paper involves all sorts of hand eye coordination and motor skills that even the cleverest tablet game doesn’t come close to providing.

What if the phone screens were all playing little MPGs of cigarette lighters

That only happens at shit gigs, so I wouldn’t care 😉

In my experience they’ll learn how to use a computer in about 5 minutes when they need to.

The old idea of exposing kids to computers isn’t such a deal any more (if it ever was). They can use iPad games very easily with 2 mins head start, but that does nothing to help them set up a network, use Excel or write enterprise Java.

Scribbling on bits of paper involves all sorts of hand eye coordination and motor skills that even the cleverest tablet game doesn’t come close to providing.

I wouldn’t bet on that. Simple crap tablet games yeah maybe, but proper games require highly developed timing and co-ordination skills.

Scribbling on bits of paper involves all sorts of hand eye coordination and motor skills that even the cleverest tablet game doesn’t come close to providing.

I lost the ability to write or draw years ago. Last week I discovered I could no longer write my signature (or not the same one in three places in one document).

I doubt writing or drawing will be a thing in 20 years.

We’ve consoles in this house and my kids still ride bikes, play games outside, play cricket, harriers and even stack wood.

It’s utter bollocks that kids sit all day glued to consoles.

molgrips – Member

Games then were crude, incredibly limited in scope and not that addictive really. But importantly, we could create our own based on those same concepts, and they’d look similar, so we did. We could do what they did. That’s quite hard nowadays.

It isn’t really, with modding and game design software. And coding a game from scratch is something practically nobody did in the Good Old Days

I used to code crude little code demos and mini games. Rubbish of course, but they were complete in that they did things. I didn’t have to worry about designing sprites, for example.

I imagine that it’d be a lot harder to use a game API to mod something, although I’e never tried that. I have done a lot of modding things with APIs for work mind.

There’s other related stuff. My 14yo Aussie nephew has a server farm in his bedroom cobbled together from used components that he hosts game servers on (amongst other things).

My bro is still playing with his ST (and other retro stuff)…

Oddly enough, I acquired an STe the other week. Not I just need to work out how to switch it on…

How are your kids coming on with the cutting and stacking then OP?

As a fellow parent I try to limit my little cherubs’ axe time to a couple of hours a day. I used to let them have free reign but I was spending too much time down A&E in the end.

To be clear, when I say stuff like this, I am partly kidding. I don’t want to have to start using too many emoticons, but you lot may force me.

EDIT: 😉

I bought my son a Tesco Huddle when he was 6 1/2. The beauty of the Huddle is the really crap battery life, it basically mean you don’t have to parent them as the battery will run out in half an hour and they don’t put it on charge they just drop it somewhere and go out side for a kick about!!

My bro is still playing with his ST (and other retro stuff)…

Just looked at the site. That’s an ingenious project he’s got on the go.

To the OP: Whilst I agree with your sentiment that kids should find interests outside of digital media, they will still need to learn how to operate and contribute in an increasingly digital World. It wouldn’t do them any favours not to have gadgets lying around for them to play with, IMO.

molgrips: not many people are going to be knocking out the next Call of Duty on their own in their bedroom, but the modding community certainly has plenty of folk putting together some very impressive stuff (e.g. the popular zombie-survival game DayZ was a one-man mod of Arma 2).

For younger kids it’s pretty easy to knock out a basic sprite based game in Scratch[/url].

It’s utter bollocks that kids sit all day glued to consoles.

I can’t agree.
At a recent birthday family meal at a restaurant, paid for by the birthday celebrator , the 15yo son of a guest didn’t blink an eye when he explained to me how, throughout the school summer holidays, he spent everyday, from 8:00am to 10:00pm, online, playing FIFA or COD, with rushed meal breaks the only time off.
His parents seemed to accept it.
I was astounded.
Even during the meal, he left the table to go to the loo but took his phone and only came back some 30 minutes later having caught up online. His absence was so obvious and lengthy that I sort of felt embarrassed for the parents but they sort of shrugged their shoulder, “what do you do…”

having said all that, I am toying with the possibility of getting Rock Jnr a Lego Mind Storm for Christmas as I can’t help but think that aside from trades and vocational skills, there won’t be many careers outside of IT/automation etc.
He wants to be a fighter pilot but even that, possibly, will not be needed in 15 years time.

Stuff like this is an answer to the comment about living someone elses experience in digital. Best use of internet I’ve seen in ages.

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/news-features/son-doong-cave/2/#s=pano37

For the kid playing CoD and FIFA, sounds excessive, but kids playing online games learn communication skills that are invaluable in an office.

For IT support, a voip headset and screen share app is so much more useful than a desk phone, most kids learn this stuff playing games, not to mention some of the Team Skills in MMOs where Co-Op is needed to win.

We have two new graduates at the moment and the gamer has right from the start been able to easily switch communication methods and work in a team, the non-gamer is less able.

Trick is to teach the self control, same trick it’s been for years trying to get kids to learn to do the right thing and the right time and not one thing all the time.

Even during the meal, he left the table to go to the loo but took his phone and only came back some 30 minutes later having caught up online. His absence was so obvious and lengthy that I sort of felt embarrassed for the parents but they sort of shrugged their shoulder, “what do you do…”

Hardly the exclusive domain of kids though, is it. I see people “go for lunch together” at work all the time, and they sit at the same table worrying at their phones for an hour.

Not that I’ve any room to talk, I’m in the kitchen at work right now typing on my laptop whilst waiting for my lunch to ding.

I wouldn’t bet on that. Simple crap tablet games yeah maybe, but proper games require highly developed timing and co-ordination skills.

With a piece of paper, a kid can scribble a drawing, learning the fine motor skills of manipulating a pen or pencil. They can tear it into pieces, roll it up or fold it 3 dimensionally. They can stick it to other things, etc, etc. That activity engages all sorts of imagination and physical spatial skills, and you need to work a bit for your reward.
However clever a tablet game is, you are still pushing pixels in a 2D physical plane, within the boundaries defined by the games programmer. Nothing wrong with computer games at all, but I don’t think they are as important as core play skills.

In my opinion, if you want to develop good enterprise Java programmers, I would start by teaching kids to be creative, imaginative problem solvers. Sticking them in front of a computer is far less important.

Teenager who doesn’t want to spend time doing boring adult stuff. Can’t say that’s new.