As someone who has never had an interest in computer games I struggle to understand the why people get so caught up in it. That said, the world would be a pretty boring place if we were all the same.

The game of the moment seems to be Fortnight. I have spoken with other adults who indicate that their children or ones that they know about allow kids as young as 6 to play it. From what I understand the age for this game is 12+. It is a struggle as a parent with similar aged kids to explain to my own kids on a regular basis as to why they can not have it, or in fact any computer console, gaming box or whatever.

My kids have everything that floats or rolls and I am always more than happy to spend cash on these items. If it is a game based device then the answer is a flat no. It has caused constant issues for me as a parent and I know we are up against an ever growing issue. My eldest has even changed friend groups over not being part of a friendship circle as he could not talk the talk with regards to Fortnight. His mates have the clothing range and the high tech consoles to play it.

I have had parents happy to know their kids are next door in the gaming room where they are "safe" and not outside on the streets where they are exposed to high risks!! FFS.

So out of curiosity I Googled information on Fortnight and watched Youtube clips of people playing it. In summary, people run around shooting other people and from what I get, it is a last man standing game. There is even a significant professional player earning well over $500 000 per month playing and Youtubing his efforts. People donate money to the "poor" guy to recognise his efforts!!!

Anyway, chatting to teenagers, some of them admit to spending hundreds and even into the thousands upgrading this game to improve their combative advantage. Wow.

Streets have become empty from the once kid filled environment of bikes, ball games and trampolines.

Spend your money on what you value...I get that, but these things are not tangible or contributory to a healthy lifestyle.

The future is not bright out there.

Can you imagine the spike in suicides if the power network were to go down for an extended length of time?!

The kids should be down at the park punching cones, getting alcohol poisoning and either sleeping it off on the bench or fighting amongst themselves.
being behind the screen of a computer is no place for a child. Someone will pay them to sit in an office all day when that are older, try and explain to them that's when you have time to play computer games.

I would be interested to know how old are your children.
My kids play it so do there friends but its not to the point of being fanatical.
Footy & basketball are the main sports my kids & there friends play .
Ive always got other kids at my place its the hangout for all there mates they might play the game for a while theres enough computers & playstations to go around &then go play basketball or footy or go on trampoline or swim or scooter on ramps in backyard
Ive never imposed any restrictions on my kids in that way I have let them decide for themselves & I must say it has worked out brilliantly they have grown up to be responsible teenagers that were both proud of as parents.
We encourage them with everything they want to do & they reward that by really dedicating themselves to there interest.
But we have never treated our kids as kids we have always treated them as young adults so if something did come up that wasn't allowed it would be explained why & not the because I said response that seems to come with the over nannying that some parents use .
Why do you impose these restrictions what benefits do you think your achieving?
You have already stated you have alienated your kids from there peer group .
Ive seen this behaviour before from parents and all I've seen is rebellious behavior come out of it from the children as they grow up .

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Razzonater said..
The kids should be down at the park punching cones, getting alcohol poisoning and either sleeping it off on the bench or fighting amongst themselves.
being behind the screen of a computer is no place for a child. Someone will pay them to sit in an office all day when that are older, try and explain to them that's when you have time to play computer games.

And that's how it was done when we were kids

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Buster fin said..
Can you imagine the spike in suicides if the power network were to go down for an extended length of time?!

It will


Solar flare - total return to the dark ages (no pun intended) on half of the earth in an instant. A decade to rebuild if lucky.....

Gamers and "look how pretty I am on Facebook" types will be extinct.

Get them another addiction


Or



Expensive but worth it in the long run.

yeah but can you floss ?

I have 3 kids
all different interests all though I instill most must contain salt water
all raised the same
2/3 very active
one lazy bugger , I recon takes after mum but no reason , all different under the same house .
Maybe chill a bit and let the find there way

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THE PIN PULLER said..
yeah but can you floss ?

Not sure I understand. Bit simple like

It's a hard one. Speaking to some year 10s the other day (in the very top maths class) and the hours they spend on these games is scary. Its fun and highly addictive. They are very aware of the bad effects it has on them, their sleep etc but they get "sucked in" they say. Fair enough to, if we like something we keep doing it.

We allow fortnight friday where he can play with his mates but that's it. Although I know the little bugger sneaks a few games in when he can.

But it's your household, you are the alpha male so make the decisions and do what you think and stick to it. Fck what anyone else says or the consequences like friendship groups. And Fck what ya kids think to, they will just do as they are told.

Those games are a fckn menace but there's gotta be something in them.

ps we have that family zone program installed and have full control over how much internet time they have each day and what they can access. Started a couple of months back because I had the same issues you are having now although they were different for the girl...social media bollocks.

My answer was more draconian control...lol.

Those that think kids should be trusted to learn to self moderate haven't spent enough time with enough children in enough different circumstances.

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Mark _australia said..

Buster fin said..
Can you imagine the spike in suicides if the power network were to go down for an extended length of time?!

It will


Solar flare - total return to the dark ages (no pun intended) on half of the earth in an instant. A decade to rebuild if lucky.....

Gamers and "look how pretty I am on Facebook" types will be extinct.

What would you do Markie if that happens????? No Seabreeze facebook addiction for you, extinction ?? lol.

Eppo google family app good but it bans youtube which they will probably complain about (only little kids youtube) but worst thing is the day the turn 13 it turns off! Anyway i now use mmguardian. Seperat child and parent apps on each phone. Very good.
My kid loves fortnite and we hate it. We have limits in place. He still does other stuff but would play lots more if we allowed it. I remember a kid getting bullied at school because he couldn't watch night rider (still know him). U dont want to turn them into pariahs.

Eppos family zone report;
Daughter 1.5hr facebook
Son 2hr Fortnite
Eppo 18hr seabreaze

Bahahaha

Lol

Gaming is good for you, it's been scientifically proven. Social media isn't, also science.

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Mark _australia said..

Solar flare - total return to the dark ages (no pun intended) on half of the earth in an instant. A decade to rebuild if lucky.....

Gamers and "look how pretty I am on Facebook" types will be extinct.

They happen all the time, what's your point?

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Kamikuza said..

They happen all the time, what's your point?

Large solar flares can induce DC currents in long transmission lines. Some equipment on the network, such as transformers, doesn't like the DC current and they can trip out or be damaged. The most famous recent incident was the 1989 blackout of Quebec.

However, the 1989 solar flare was nothing in comparison to the massive solar flare that occurred in 1859 and is now known as 'The Carrrington Event'. Electricity grids back then were not long and interconnected like they are today so it wasn't such a big deal, but a similar event today could blackout half the world or worse, and if enough high voltage transformers are damaged it could be years until they can all be replaced.

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lotofwind said.. What would you do Markie if that happens????? No Seabreeze facebook addiction for you, extinction ?? lol.

I come here for 15mins a day which hardly compares with the millenials' hours a day. To look for threads of interest.
I'm too busy for any more internet time than that.

I think you'd be in trouble. You only come here to look for anything I've written, what a sad little existence.

Back to serious convo (as if Loto ever could) - overuse of gaming and internet addiction is a serious issue. Potential solar flare is a major catastrophe that we are ill prepared for. Any thoughts on either without the predictable p!sstakes, or is that all there is in the Loto repertoire?

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Kamikuza said.. They happen all the time, what's your point?

I'm talking about a big one.
Apparently a slim chance of one bad enough, but if we lost all power to half the earth for more than a few days it would be chaos like we've never seen. For a start, no info to people and they panic.

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Harrow said..

Kamikuza said..

They happen all the time, what's your point?

Large solar flares can induce DC currents in long transmission lines. Some equipment on the network, such as transformers, doesn't like the DC current and they can trip out or be damaged. The most famous recent incident was the 1989 blackout of Quebec.

However, the 1989 solar flare was nothing in comparison to the massive solar flare that occurred in 1859 and is now known as 'The Carrrington Event'. Electricity grids back then were not long and interconnected like they are today so it wasn't such a big deal, but a similar event today could blackout half the world or worse, and if enough high voltage transformers are damaged it could be years until they can all be replaced.

Sheesh probably gave everyone the equivalent of many years background radiation. I faresay cancer rates would have spiked

Sounds like everyone has been playing too many video games, radiation , solar flare, electricity..........

An interesting TED talk about the brain and gaming.

www.ted.com/talks/daphne_bavelier_your_brain_on_video_games?awesm=on.ted.com_8Ch7&utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_content=site-basic&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare

DM

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Harrow said..

Kamikuza said..

They happen all the time, what's your point?

Large solar flares can induce DC currents in long transmission lines. Some equipment on the network, such as transformers, doesn't like the DC current and they can trip out or be damaged. The most famous recent incident was the 1989 blackout of Quebec.

However, the 1989 solar flare was nothing in comparison to the massive solar flare that occurred in 1859 and is now known as 'The Carrrington Event'. Electricity grids back then were not long and interconnected like they are today so it wasn't such a big deal, but a similar event today could blackout half the world or worse, and if enough high voltage transformers are damaged it could be years until they can all be replaced.

How was it just Quebec got zinged? Why not half the world?

We've had lightening strikes within a few dozen meters of the house on several occasions. One time I was gaming another time watching a DVD cos the satellite TV was borked. Nothing got fried... Gotta be something else going on, off o Wikipedia I go.

How was Puerto Rico after the hurricane, they were without power for ages, so was Christchurch and Tokyo in 2011. People coped fine.

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Kamikuza said..

Harrow said..

Kamikuza said..

They happen all the time, what's your point?

Large solar flares can induce DC currents in long transmission lines. Some equipment on the network, such as transformers, doesn't like the DC current and they can trip out or be damaged. The most famous recent incident was the 1989 blackout of Quebec.

However, the 1989 solar flare was nothing in comparison to the massive solar flare that occurred in 1859 and is now known as 'The Carrrington Event'. Electricity grids back then were not long and interconnected like they are today so it wasn't such a big deal, but a similar event today could blackout half the world or worse, and if enough high voltage transformers are damaged it could be years until they can all be replaced.

How was it just Quebec got zinged? Why not half the world?

We've had lightening strikes within a few dozen meters of the house on several occasions. One time I was gaming another time watching a DVD cos the satellite TV was borked. Nothing got fried... Gotta be something else going on, off o Wikipedia I go.

How was Puerto Rico after the hurricane, they were without power for ages, so was Christchurch and Tokyo in 2011. People coped fine.

Tokyo was fine. Mobile phone networks were overloaded initially, but fine within hours as expected.

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Buster fin said..

Tokyo was fine. Mobile phone networks were overloaded initially, but fine within hours as expected.

You have a funny definition of what "fine" means I said Tokyo because nobody would know what Tohoku is and the forum censors ****ushima The quake stranded over a half million people in the center of Tokyo and 4 million homes without power, and however many millions without communication...

Point being that it wasn't the apocalypse, despite the chaos to the infrastructure. We got a new social media app out of it though...

People are pretty resilient. Either that, or just brain dead

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Gazuki said..
Eppos family zone report;
Daughter 1.5hr facebook
Son 2hr Fortnite
Eppo 18hr seabreaze

Bahahaha

Yep the hypocrisy'... lol.

Kamikuza I was referring to all electrical devices on half the planet rendered useless. That is a bit different to one city with no power, where the rest of the country sends generators and food and water.

No power in all of Oz for a week would be catastrophic. Now imagine it in the half of the world that has a lot more population than us....

Your analogies would not even constitute practice for a big one.

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Kamikuza said..
How was it just Quebec got zinged? Why not half the world?

A couple of factors. Depending on the duration of the geomagnetic storm, certain parts of the earth will be hit harder than others depending on the orientation of the earth at the time it arrives. Also, Quebec has a lot of rock underneath it, so the induced electrical current found it easier to run through the transmission lines than the soil. There were also a lot of problems in other parts of the North America power supply in the 1989 event, but Quebec was the only place that suffered a total knockout of their power grid. However, it would be a different story if it was the same magnitude as the 1859 event.

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Mark _australia said..
Kamikuza I was referring to all electrical devices on half the planet rendered useless. That is a bit different to one city with no power, where the rest of the country sends generators and food and water.

No power in all of Oz for a week would be catastrophic. Now imagine it in the half of the world that has a lot more population than us....

Your analogies would not even constitute practice for a big one.

If a solar flare is powerful enough to disrupt "half the planet", cell reception and where to charge it will be the least of your worries

Analogies LOL that's what happened in reality, fella. And even the big city folk didn't fall apart, and they can't go camping without a generator, and portable air-conditioning.

Stop being so alarmist

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Harrow said..

Kamikuza said..
How was it just Quebec got zinged? Why not half the world?

A couple of factors. Depending on the duration of the geomagnetic storm, certain parts of the earth will be hit harder than others depending on the orientation of the earth at the time it arrives. Also, Quebec has a lot of rock underneath it, so the induced electrical current found it easier to run through the transmission lines than the soil. There were also a lot of problems in other parts of the North America power supply in the 1989 event, but Quebec was the only place that suffered a total knockout of their power grid. However, it would be a different story if it was the same magnitude as the 1859 event.

It looks like Quebec had issues anyway -- second outage in a year. Weak spots are weak.

Even the Carrington Event, telegraph signals were still being sent.

Of all the reasons I could be digging a shelter in the backyard and stocking it with tinned goods and ammo, solar flares and geomagnetic storms are not among them.

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Harrow said..

Kamikuza said..
How was it just Quebec got zinged? Why not half the world?

A couple of factors. Depending on the duration of the geomagnetic storm, certain parts of the earth will be hit harder than others depending on the orientation of the earth at the time it arrives. Also, Quebec has a lot of rock underneath it, so the induced electrical current found it easier to run through the transmission lines than the soil. There were also a lot of problems in other parts of the North America power supply in the 1989 event, but Quebec was the only place that suffered a total knockout of their power grid. However, it would be a different story if it was the same magnitude as the 1859 event.

That... and our magnetosphere (that thing that stops the other levels of our atmosphere being stripped by the suns CME bursts) converges at the poles (visible as the North/Southern Lights) and provides the least resistance/protection to the CMEs.

The lower latitudes are more protected... the higher latitudes, CME activity is funnelled and concentrated.


Most of the 1st worlds population (1st world is most impacted by CME, ie reliant on power, comms,and commerce) is within the range of Auroras in the Northern Hemisphere.
Southern hemisphere has comparably, next to none...

North
Stockholm 56.2"
Moscow 55.7"
London 51.5"
Paris 48.8"
Qu?bec 46.8"
New York 40.7"

South
Perth 31.9"
Cape Town 33.9"
Buenos Aires 34.6"
Melbourne 37.8"
Christchurch 45.5"
Punta Arenas 53.1"




So...
If you're in pretty much any northern 1st world country... start digging and get your apocalypse bag ready.
If you're in any southern 1st world country... as you were.*




*Assuming you don't need internet, GPS, banking or pretty much anything else that's run out of the northern hemisphere.