Parenting intervention would still be required. I generally keep the controllers away from the kids till they have done their homework and chores. But any timer would be helpful to help me regulate their gametime. The automatic shutoff can make imposing the the limit less stressful to the parent and backs up the parent's claim that the child has been on the game long enough.
"It hasn't been an hour yet! I just started!"
"Xbox 360 says differently. Sorry, one hour a day at most is the rule and the Xbox is just helping you comply."
I've found that by placing more automatic controls, the kids are less emotional about being kicked off by a looming parental presence. I already implemented my own controls to deactivate computer accounts automatically on a daily basis and shut off internet access (for the kids' computers) at midnight. And the kids can always bargain for more time, while parents have the right to award more time as a reward for good behavior or to withhold that time as a consequence for bad behavior.
Not really, philosophy spawned science once enough evidence was collected to develop hypotheses. Philosophical inquiry was the precursor to science and scientific method. This is why the first scientists were called philosophers.
Judging by your hostile response, you are most likely either a child or don't have kids. But if you do PR work for your business, your business is most likely in trouble.
Then again this may be a particularly American problem, given both our culture of violence and the lack of a comprehensive social welfare system like Sweden's. Laws to protect children will not kill our websites and even if they do, I doubt our children will rush to log on to Swedish websites.
I'm thinking that while it is laudable that MySpace would voluntarily step up to offer parents child protection software (so much better sounding than spyware), it would be better to have a law that mandates all social networking sites to provide the means for parents to check up on their minor children. This removes the threat of kiddies abandoning MySpace for a less restrictive (and perhaps less responsible) site. Privacy is always a delicate issue with parents and children. But children's privacy will always be trumped by parents' need to keep their children safe. It doesn't mean that parents, step parents, or legal guardians should arbitrarily invade a child's privacy. But if an issue of safety arises that requires it, good parents should have help doing it, especially online.
I'm blaming Blizzard Entertainment's IT for my divorce. Damn that StarCraft!
But seriously, I also work in the IT industry, am divorced and have shared custody of my son with my ex-wife. But as much as I might be tempted to blame my on-call rotation for diverting my attention from what should have been the most important things in life -- the failure in my marriage had nothing whatsoever to working in IT.
Now if I had been working as a web developer for an adult web site, there might have been a stronger relationship between the divorce and my profession. I probably would have worked more from home too...at night...behind closed doors.
I did, but didn't find what I was looking for (Jaron Lanier on Wikipedia). I also submitted the article after hearing a July 8 podcast. It was purely an emotional response I admit. But I was offended by both Lanier's and Alan Saunder's arrogance about what they considered to be this wisdom-of-the-crowdness of Wikipedia and of course a message of elitism that only certain kinds of people can participate in collecting and presenting encyclopedic knowledge. But more than anything, I like Wikipedia (best freely available web encyclopedia) and the "wiki" idea -- collaboration with cool collaboration software -- so much, that I will risk wasting your precious time and perhaps boring you to tears to defend it. So this discussion will be yet another and I hope not the last discussion to promote the Wikipedic ideal and smite its enemies!;)
I am a step/father to eight kids, six of which are under 18 and live at home. All of them have been bitten by the technology bug and would spend every waking hour at the computer or playing console games, listening to streaming music, or IM-ing if they could. I have to employ a combination of approaches and controls to make sure they spend more of their time in the real world than in the virtual world. The summer is a really big challenge with the kids not being in school. We have a no tech period(no TV/no computer/no Video Games) during the day (from 10 am till 4 pm) on weekdays when they have to play outside or do art or play board games, anything that forces them to engage the real world rather than a screen. And there's chores, or course. I have to secure controllers during that time. I have the ability to remotely shutdown the common computer from my room (where I have my work computers;) ).
Last summer I scheduled a task to disable internet access between midnight and 6 am. One of my kids realized that by changing the computer system clock he could circumvent those controls. I didn't know whether to be proud of him for his ingenuity or revoke his computer privileges.
But resorting to ubergeekish, control-freak behavior is not enough. It's more important to show kids that the real world can be just as interesting and engaging as the simulated ones. And of course this involves the presence of the parent him/herself and engagement with the kids.
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Parenting intervention would still be required. I generally keep the controllers away from the kids till they have done their homework and chores. But any timer would be helpful to help me regulate their gametime. The automatic shutoff can make imposing the the limit less stressful to the parent and backs up the parent's claim that the child has been on the game long enough. "It hasn't been an hour yet! I just started!" "Xbox 360 says differently. Sorry, one hour a day at most is the rule and the Xbox is just helping you comply." I've found that by placing more automatic controls, the kids are less emotional about being kicked off by a looming parental presence. I already implemented my own controls to deactivate computer accounts automatically on a daily basis and shut off internet access (for the kids' computers) at midnight. And the kids can always bargain for more time, while parents have the right to award more time as a reward for good behavior or to withhold that time as a consequence for bad behavior.
I think this is how 'The Terminator' started isn't it?
Not really, philosophy spawned science once enough evidence was collected to develop hypotheses. Philosophical inquiry was the precursor to science and scientific method. This is why the first scientists were called philosophers.
Judging by your hostile response, you are most likely either a child or don't have kids. But if you do PR work for your business, your business is most likely in trouble.
Then again this may be a particularly American problem, given both our culture of violence and the lack of a comprehensive social welfare system like Sweden's. Laws to protect children will not kill our websites and even if they do, I doubt our children will rush to log on to Swedish websites.
I'm thinking that while it is laudable that MySpace would voluntarily step up to offer parents child protection software (so much better sounding than spyware), it would be better to have a law that mandates all social networking sites to provide the means for parents to check up on their minor children. This removes the threat of kiddies abandoning MySpace for a less restrictive (and perhaps less responsible) site. Privacy is always a delicate issue with parents and children. But children's privacy will always be trumped by parents' need to keep their children safe. It doesn't mean that parents, step parents, or legal guardians should arbitrarily invade a child's privacy. But if an issue of safety arises that requires it, good parents should have help doing it, especially online.
I'm blaming Blizzard Entertainment's IT for my divorce. Damn that StarCraft! But seriously, I also work in the IT industry, am divorced and have shared custody of my son with my ex-wife. But as much as I might be tempted to blame my on-call rotation for diverting my attention from what should have been the most important things in life -- the failure in my marriage had nothing whatsoever to working in IT. Now if I had been working as a web developer for an adult web site, there might have been a stronger relationship between the divorce and my profession. I probably would have worked more from home too...at night...behind closed doors.
I did, but didn't find what I was looking for (Jaron Lanier on Wikipedia). I also submitted the article after hearing a July 8 podcast. It was purely an emotional response I admit. But I was offended by both Lanier's and Alan Saunder's arrogance about what they considered to be this wisdom-of-the-crowdness of Wikipedia and of course a message of elitism that only certain kinds of people can participate in collecting and presenting encyclopedic knowledge. But more than anything, I like Wikipedia (best freely available web encyclopedia) and the "wiki" idea -- collaboration with cool collaboration software -- so much, that I will risk wasting your precious time and perhaps boring you to tears to defend it. So this discussion will be yet another and I hope not the last discussion to promote the Wikipedic ideal and smite its enemies! ;)
I am a step/father to eight kids, six of which are under 18 and live at home. All of them have been bitten by the technology bug and would spend every waking hour at the computer or playing console games, listening to streaming music, or IM-ing if they could. I have to employ a combination of approaches and controls to make sure they spend more of their time in the real world than in the virtual world. The summer is a really big challenge with the kids not being in school. We have a no tech period(no TV/no computer/no Video Games) during the day (from 10 am till 4 pm) on weekdays when they have to play outside or do art or play board games, anything that forces them to engage the real world rather than a screen. And there's chores, or course. I have to secure controllers during that time. I have the ability to remotely shutdown the common computer from my room (where I have my work computers ;) ).
Last summer I scheduled a task to disable internet access between midnight and 6 am. One of my kids realized that by changing the computer system clock he could circumvent those controls. I didn't know whether to be proud of him for his ingenuity or revoke his computer privileges.
But resorting to ubergeekish, control-freak behavior is not enough. It's more important to show kids that the real world can be just as interesting and engaging as the simulated ones. And of course this involves the presence of the parent him/herself and engagement with the kids.