If you aren’t old enough to hang out with strangers, don’t hang out with strangers. The best solution here is to make a kids-only lobby. I don’t like playing with kids any more than their parents...
it’s another “let’s water down every experience to make it safe for children” episode
If you aren’t old enough to hang out with strangers, don’t hang out with strangers. The best solution here is to make a kids-only lobby. I don’t like playing with kids any more than their parents like them playing with me.
Some of the opinions in response to this post are so disappointing - I hate to go all libertarian-esque here but why should anyone have their hands on what kids do with their free time, assuming...
Exemplary
Some of the opinions in response to this post are so disappointing - I hate to go all libertarian-esque here but why should anyone have their hands on what kids do with their free time, assuming it doesn't hurt them? Toxic playerbases aren't something you should shield from a kid; you should encourage them to interact with them. It's an important life skill to be able to interact with and outsmart people who don't have your best interests in mind, and getting that skill in a virtual environment is so much better than the alternative.
And we really shouldn't go on about how kids shouldn't be playing first person shooters and etcetera; there's no correlation between games and violence, and there's really no harm that can come from them seeing a bit of simulated gore. People are babying their children too much nowadays, and I really don't think the solution to it is "the ESRB should be made more effective!"
I could maybe sympathize with that if the result wasn't often the kids adopting this behavior themselves. There are certainly problems with logistics and the feelings of the children themselves...
Toxic playerbases aren't something you should shield from a kid; you should encourage them to interact with them. It's an important life skill to be able to interact with and outsmart people who don't have your best interests in mind, and getting that skill in a virtual environment is so much better than the alternative.
I could maybe sympathize with that if the result wasn't often the kids adopting this behavior themselves. There are certainly problems with logistics and the feelings of the children themselves who probably want to play the games they'll be harassed on, but trying to cut down on harmful behavior is still a goal that should be worked toward.
It's a hard question for other reasons, but I think it's pretty ridiculous to spin "children getting harassed" as a good thing that just builds character. I think we're pretty far from a point where anyone who participates in the world outside their room (including on the internet) is anywhere near not knowing what abuse looks like. It's so idealistic to think that you're creating a bunch of little warriors instead of the next generation of trolls and harassers, with some broken kids in the mix. The world is gonna throw enough at these kids no matter what we do, hardening them up by purposely not reducing that harm is the kind of thinking that excuses any kind of abuse.
It wouldn't surprise me if by educating children as to the dangers of online behavior, before they ever go online, it would help insulate them from the radicalization and other potentially...
It wouldn't surprise me if by educating children as to the dangers of online behavior, before they ever go online, it would help insulate them from the radicalization and other potentially extremely negative effects we've seen emerging in the last decade.
It's easy to say "I turned out okay" when looking back at my career of going online and playing vidya games that were mature from a very young age, but the issue isn't me, but rather the people who do get radicalized.
A reasonable amount of supervision combined with education seems to be a good middle ground to me, but we're in territory we've only just started to begin to understand. It will be a long time before we really know what's best, so caution is always advised.
I appreciate the sentiment but I'm not going to let my 10yo son be called a nigger 5 times a minute because it's an "important life skill" while learning to play CoD. I'm sorry but I'm not buying...
Toxic playerbases aren't something you should shield from a kid; you should encourage them to interact with them. It's an important life skill to be able to interact with and outsmart people who don't have your best interests in mind, and getting that skill in a virtual environment is so much better than the alternative.
I appreciate the sentiment but I'm not going to let my 10yo son be called a nigger 5 times a minute because it's an "important life skill" while learning to play CoD. I'm sorry but I'm not buying into that. I call it critical thinking and it's more than possible to learn without being harassed and belittled in the process. I would rather teach my children to treat other people like they want to be treated themselves instead of perpetuating the behavior from toxic gaming communities. I have met plenty of people "brought up" these places without any parents around. Most of them are socially handicapped to put it mildly. Not all but I'm not gambling with those odds.
I mean there's a mute button for a reason...maybe that's the skill he needs to learn?
I appreciate the sentiment but I'm not going to let my 10yo son be called a nigger 5 times a minute because it's an "important life skill" while learning to play CoD
I mean there's a mute button for a reason...maybe that's the skill he needs to learn?
I agree, but that's sort of the question. If the player base is just obnoxious, obscene, and critical then there's probably not much harm being done. However from my experience these types of...
why should anyone have their hands on what kids do with their free time, assuming it doesn't hurt them?
I agree, but that's sort of the question. If the player base is just obnoxious, obscene, and critical then there's probably not much harm being done. However from my experience these types of communities also have a much larger chance of leading to more persistent targeted harassment which kids without parental guidance can be vulnerable to.
I agree. Let the parents decide if they want to expose their kids to online communities that are potentially toxic. I'm not proud of it, but as a kid I was pretty damn toxic myself. Having a "Kids...
I agree. Let the parents decide if they want to expose their kids to online communities that are potentially toxic. I'm not proud of it, but as a kid I was pretty damn toxic myself. Having a "Kids area" or strictly following ESRB ratings wouldn't necessarily solve the problem, I got banned on children's games for trolling and being inflammatory as well.
But it did in this case right? So if your parents had set some boundaries for you this might not have happened? The problem is a lot of parents 't know jack shit about gaming and the toxicity that...
Having a "Kids area" or strictly following ESRB ratings wouldn't necessarily solve the problem, I got banned on children's games for trolling and being inflammatory as well.
But it did in this case right?
Let the parents decide if they want to expose their kids to online communities that are potentially toxic. I'm not proud of it, but as a kid I was pretty damn toxic myself.
So if your parents had set some boundaries for you this might not have happened?
The problem is a lot of parents 't know jack shit about gaming and the toxicity that follows so they might benefit from getting some warnings from someone who do.
There should be some mechanism where players have the ability to mute, or vote to kick or ban others. Segregating people by age doesn't work, there are trolls in the child population too, and not...
There should be some mechanism where players have the ability to mute, or vote to kick or ban others. Segregating people by age doesn't work, there are trolls in the child population too, and not in small numbers. If there was text chat I had the ability to troll in chat. If there was no chat I had the ability to grief other players. This wasn't something I always did, but it was popular and funny to do at my age back then. The only way to completely insulate people from bad actors online is to not let them online at all, which I don't think is a good solution, but every parent has the right to handle that portion of their children's life differently.
The person you replied to did not explicitly spell it out, but I doubt they truly think that there should be no guidance. What they are saying is not to drop children in the deep end, but rather...
The person you replied to did not explicitly spell it out, but I doubt they truly think that there should be no guidance. What they are saying is not to drop children in the deep end, but rather to teach them to swim so they can deal with the issues. Everyone will deal with these communities from time to time unless they become a digital hermit. It's better to have the ability to cope with a situation than to be protected from it.
Teaching kids that it's okay to cal other people the n****r or f*****t because they hear adults or teenagers say it all the time in online games is hurting children and teaching them to be toxic.
Yeah except that no kid is going to stand up to a group of people and tell then to stop calling people slurs. They are just going to think it is normal behavior and adult that culture.
Would you let your kids hang around a group of neo nazis without any sort of guidance and hope they figure out being a white nationalist is bad?
I'm a little surprised such an article was even published by The New York Times, maybe just because it's coherent and they went to Stanford? The topic of the article is interesting though, there...
I'm a little surprised such an article was even published by The New York Times, maybe just because it's coherent and they went to Stanford?
The topic of the article is interesting though, there are real concerns surrounding how kids and online communities interact. However this article is so completely off-base it'd probably hurt any actual discussion on the topic. My main issues are that toxic communities and kids are pretty independent of a game's rating. Games say they have online functionality, and if they do you know it can have all the trolling and harassment humans are known for. Focusing on improving ratings and involving the FTC isn't going to somehow protect a kid from interacting with assholes.
That being said, I wouldn't be opposed to trying to limit kids interactions with known toxic individuals and improving the mechanisms in games that deal with trolls. For example, if Microsoft could get the rating system on Xbox Live to actually work well, it could be a good mechanism to direct kids to the best and nicest parts of the online community. I'd also like to see more games implement a voting mechanic into their multiplayer games. If one player is being an asshole let the other players vote to kick them, this always seemed to work pretty well from my experience but I haven't seen it in a lot of modern games.
How about we reduce sexual harassment to make it safe for people to play, not just children? "I'm sorry, Ms Jones, but you're 22, you can be sexually harassed. Just live with it, toots."
How about we reduce sexual harassment to make it safe for people to play, not just children? "I'm sorry, Ms Jones, but you're 22, you can be sexually harassed. Just live with it, toots."
I think that's a different problem. I mean, the ideal solution to both problems is the community "grows up" and people stop being toxic trolls to anybody. But I don't think that's something to pin...
I think that's a different problem.
I mean, the ideal solution to both problems is the community "grows up" and people stop being toxic trolls to anybody. But I don't think that's something to pin your hopes on.
An adult that's harassed is better equipped to deal with it. They probably know how to use report features, are going to understand the nature of trolling, and probably not immediately internalize any attacks as being targeted at them versus the troll being an ass in general. There's a system in place to deal with this already, and unless you think women need some sort of guardian to protect them as they play games, in which case let's just roll everything back to the 1700s, I'm not sure what you want.
A child on the other hand is probably going to be more susceptible to these kinds of behaviors. They may not understand a troll isn't targeting them as an individual, but is just lashing out. They may think this behavior is acceptable and start repeating it. And this is the case where it is up to the parents to supervise their child's behavior.
The author is asking video games and video game culture to change so that he doesn't have to do the task of moderating the content his daughter consumes? This reminds me of a Mark Twain quote....
My family moved to the United States two years ago from South Korea. My 3-year-old daughter loves learning English through YouTube videos and by playing puzzle video games. I fear that she’ll be exposed to this toxicity soon, unless we eliminate trolls, put a new ratings system into place and demand better of the video-gaming industry.
The author is asking video games and video game culture to change so that he doesn't have to do the task of moderating the content his daughter consumes? This reminds me of a Mark Twain quote.
'Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it.'
Surely nobody likes trolling. Except trolls. That's the whole point of trolling, to make people dislike you. That said, I'd prefer some trolls to the heavy handed and intrusive moderation that would be required to eliminate trolls altogether.
If most people don't share my opinion, that seems like something the market can satisfy. Create a MOBA with lots of moderation and banning. Perhaps you'll attract an audience.
I think that it would be better if we focus more on how so many games are giving children gambling addiction at a young age. A kid hearing a few swear words or having a toxic teammate wont hurt...
I think that it would be better if we focus more on how so many games are giving children gambling addiction at a young age. A kid hearing a few swear words or having a toxic teammate wont hurt him as much as spending 50$ on a freemium game.
Not trying to go off-topic or use "Whataboutism" here. Clearly all replies here agree that the author of the article is completely off-base.
At the end of the day it is the parent's responsibility to regulate their child's gaming experience, and it is also their responsibility to understand that the mobile game that Jimmy is playing is not actually a harmless free game, but actually costs a ton of money to play.
Fascinating to me that there's a Boston company that's in FDA review for a "prescription video game" to treat children with ADHD. (I have no connection with the company just think it's an unusual...
Fascinating to me that there's a Boston company that's in FDA review for a "prescription video game" to treat children with ADHD. (I have no connection with the company just think it's an unusual idea). If this is too offtopic apologies in advance!
Akili Interactive (www.akiliinteractive.com) is pioneering the field of digital therapeutics, combining scientific and clinical rigor with the ingenuity of the tech industry to develop novel digital medicines designed to treat cognitive dysfunction and brain-related conditions.
Akili's flagship product, AKL-T01 in pediatric ADHD, is now under review by FDA for clearance following Akili's recent filing. Akili previously announced positive top-line results of a multi-center, randomized, double-blind, controlled pivotal study evaluating the safety and efficacy of AKL-T01. If cleared by FDA, AKL-T01 would be the first prescription video game to treat a medical condition and the first prescription digital medicine for children with ADHD. The product is based on technology developed at UCSF that was featured as the cover article in Nature under the headline "Game Changer."
They came so close, and still somehow completely missed the parents' responsibility. No, we don't allow children to watch adult content on television, because as adults we should monitor what...
We don’t allow our children to watch things on television that contain this kind of language or behavior, and we certainly don’t want them to think that the language and behavior of the trolls is acceptable.
They came so close, and still somehow completely missed the parents' responsibility.
No, we don't allow children to watch adult content on television, because as adults we should monitor what children watch. There's a rating system, and nothing to physically stop a child from using a remote to access more adult shows or late night movies, beyond parental monitoring and controls. All these systems already exist for gaming.
I get it's an opinion piece but damn I wish the NYT wouldn't allow any idiotic idea to be published on their site.
I agree with your points here, and as someone who didn't play those eSports games in middle school, I think my parents made the right call. Those live streams, though, were not big then. Do you...
I agree with your points here, and as someone who didn't play those eSports games in middle school, I think my parents made the right call. Those live streams, though, were not big then. Do you think an age rating system for streamers might be useful for some parents to decide what their kids can watch? I don't think the 'dynamic content filtering' the article mentioned would ever work, but would that step be helpful? Thanks for your comment, I wondered what the community would think of this piece.
I can let my child watch CBeebies or CBBC all day every day and he's never going to hear someone yell "die you fucking nigger". That's not a parenting failure. It's a failure by the video...
That being said, I would never let my kids play an online multiplayer game with chat enabled in any way. Nor would I let them watch a "gaming personality" stream on YouTube without supervision. The onus is on the parents to monitor their children's internet usage.
I can let my child watch CBeebies or CBBC all day every day and he's never going to hear someone yell "die you fucking nigger". That's not a parenting failure. It's a failure by the video platforms. Many parents don't care if thoroughly objectionable content is available on the platform. They just want to be able to avoid it and don't want it pushed to their children.
Youtube is a great example here. COPPA means that under 13s cannot have an account, but they want an account to sub and like, so they use their parent's account. This means that YT thinks this person is over 18 and it pushes ads for alcohol and gambling (even though this is unlawful in the UK) to that viewer. You can research "family freindly youtubers", and that one guy is fine for the first hundred videos but then there's the live stream video that got posted to YT with other people yelling stuff; or his second edgier channel gets recommended heavily.
It's simply not possible to pre-watch all the content a child wants, and frankly it shouldn't be necessary.
If you aren’t old enough to hang out with strangers, don’t hang out with strangers. The best solution here is to make a kids-only lobby. I don’t like playing with kids any more than their parents like them playing with me.
Some of the opinions in response to this post are so disappointing - I hate to go all libertarian-esque here but why should anyone have their hands on what kids do with their free time, assuming it doesn't hurt them? Toxic playerbases aren't something you should shield from a kid; you should encourage them to interact with them. It's an important life skill to be able to interact with and outsmart people who don't have your best interests in mind, and getting that skill in a virtual environment is so much better than the alternative.
And we really shouldn't go on about how kids shouldn't be playing first person shooters and etcetera; there's no correlation between games and violence, and there's really no harm that can come from them seeing a bit of simulated gore. People are babying their children too much nowadays, and I really don't think the solution to it is "the ESRB should be made more effective!"
I could maybe sympathize with that if the result wasn't often the kids adopting this behavior themselves. There are certainly problems with logistics and the feelings of the children themselves who probably want to play the games they'll be harassed on, but trying to cut down on harmful behavior is still a goal that should be worked toward.
It's a hard question for other reasons, but I think it's pretty ridiculous to spin "children getting harassed" as a good thing that just builds character. I think we're pretty far from a point where anyone who participates in the world outside their room (including on the internet) is anywhere near not knowing what abuse looks like. It's so idealistic to think that you're creating a bunch of little warriors instead of the next generation of trolls and harassers, with some broken kids in the mix. The world is gonna throw enough at these kids no matter what we do, hardening them up by purposely not reducing that harm is the kind of thinking that excuses any kind of abuse.
It wouldn't surprise me if by educating children as to the dangers of online behavior, before they ever go online, it would help insulate them from the radicalization and other potentially extremely negative effects we've seen emerging in the last decade.
It's easy to say "I turned out okay" when looking back at my career of going online and playing vidya games that were mature from a very young age, but the issue isn't me, but rather the people who do get radicalized.
A reasonable amount of supervision combined with education seems to be a good middle ground to me, but we're in territory we've only just started to begin to understand. It will be a long time before we really know what's best, so caution is always advised.
I appreciate the sentiment but I'm not going to let my 10yo son be called a nigger 5 times a minute because it's an "important life skill" while learning to play CoD. I'm sorry but I'm not buying into that. I call it critical thinking and it's more than possible to learn without being harassed and belittled in the process. I would rather teach my children to treat other people like they want to be treated themselves instead of perpetuating the behavior from toxic gaming communities. I have met plenty of people "brought up" these places without any parents around. Most of them are socially handicapped to put it mildly. Not all but I'm not gambling with those odds.
I mean there's a mute button for a reason...maybe that's the skill he needs to learn?
Of course but I'm just more focused on teaching people how to act and not how to avoid how people act.
I agree, but that's sort of the question. If the player base is just obnoxious, obscene, and critical then there's probably not much harm being done. However from my experience these types of communities also have a much larger chance of leading to more persistent targeted harassment which kids without parental guidance can be vulnerable to.
I agree. Let the parents decide if they want to expose their kids to online communities that are potentially toxic. I'm not proud of it, but as a kid I was pretty damn toxic myself. Having a "Kids area" or strictly following ESRB ratings wouldn't necessarily solve the problem, I got banned on children's games for trolling and being inflammatory as well.
But it did in this case right?
So if your parents had set some boundaries for you this might not have happened?
The problem is a lot of parents 't know jack shit about gaming and the toxicity that follows so they might benefit from getting some warnings from someone who do.
There should be some mechanism where players have the ability to mute, or vote to kick or ban others. Segregating people by age doesn't work, there are trolls in the child population too, and not in small numbers. If there was text chat I had the ability to troll in chat. If there was no chat I had the ability to grief other players. This wasn't something I always did, but it was popular and funny to do at my age back then. The only way to completely insulate people from bad actors online is to not let them online at all, which I don't think is a good solution, but every parent has the right to handle that portion of their children's life differently.
The person you replied to did not explicitly spell it out, but I doubt they truly think that there should be no guidance. What they are saying is not to drop children in the deep end, but rather to teach them to swim so they can deal with the issues. Everyone will deal with these communities from time to time unless they become a digital hermit. It's better to have the ability to cope with a situation than to be protected from it.
You obviously have never played video games.
I'm a little surprised such an article was even published by The New York Times, maybe just because it's coherent and they went to Stanford?
The topic of the article is interesting though, there are real concerns surrounding how kids and online communities interact. However this article is so completely off-base it'd probably hurt any actual discussion on the topic. My main issues are that toxic communities and kids are pretty independent of a game's rating. Games say they have online functionality, and if they do you know it can have all the trolling and harassment humans are known for. Focusing on improving ratings and involving the FTC isn't going to somehow protect a kid from interacting with assholes.
That being said, I wouldn't be opposed to trying to limit kids interactions with known toxic individuals and improving the mechanisms in games that deal with trolls. For example, if Microsoft could get the rating system on Xbox Live to actually work well, it could be a good mechanism to direct kids to the best and nicest parts of the online community. I'd also like to see more games implement a voting mechanic into their multiplayer games. If one player is being an asshole let the other players vote to kick them, this always seemed to work pretty well from my experience but I haven't seen it in a lot of modern games.
How about we reduce sexual harassment to make it safe for people to play, not just children? "I'm sorry, Ms Jones, but you're 22, you can be sexually harassed. Just live with it, toots."
I think that's a different problem.
I mean, the ideal solution to both problems is the community "grows up" and people stop being toxic trolls to anybody. But I don't think that's something to pin your hopes on.
An adult that's harassed is better equipped to deal with it. They probably know how to use report features, are going to understand the nature of trolling, and probably not immediately internalize any attacks as being targeted at them versus the troll being an ass in general. There's a system in place to deal with this already, and unless you think women need some sort of guardian to protect them as they play games, in which case let's just roll everything back to the 1700s, I'm not sure what you want.
A child on the other hand is probably going to be more susceptible to these kinds of behaviors. They may not understand a troll isn't targeting them as an individual, but is just lashing out. They may think this behavior is acceptable and start repeating it. And this is the case where it is up to the parents to supervise their child's behavior.
The author is asking video games and video game culture to change so that he doesn't have to do the task of moderating the content his daughter consumes? This reminds me of a Mark Twain quote.
Surely nobody likes trolling. Except trolls. That's the whole point of trolling, to make people dislike you. That said, I'd prefer some trolls to the heavy handed and intrusive moderation that would be required to eliminate trolls altogether.
If most people don't share my opinion, that seems like something the market can satisfy. Create a MOBA with lots of moderation and banning. Perhaps you'll attract an audience.
I think that it would be better if we focus more on how so many games are giving children gambling addiction at a young age. A kid hearing a few swear words or having a toxic teammate wont hurt him as much as spending 50$ on a freemium game.
Not trying to go off-topic or use "Whataboutism" here. Clearly all replies here agree that the author of the article is completely off-base.
At the end of the day it is the parent's responsibility to regulate their child's gaming experience, and it is also their responsibility to understand that the mobile game that Jimmy is playing is not actually a harmless free game, but actually costs a ton of money to play.
Fascinating to me that there's a Boston company that's in FDA review for a "prescription video game" to treat children with ADHD. (I have no connection with the company just think it's an unusual idea). If this is too offtopic apologies in advance!
Akili Interactive (www.akiliinteractive.com) is pioneering the field of digital therapeutics, combining scientific and clinical rigor with the ingenuity of the tech industry to develop novel digital medicines designed to treat cognitive dysfunction and brain-related conditions.
Akili's flagship product, AKL-T01 in pediatric ADHD, is now under review by FDA for clearance following Akili's recent filing. Akili previously announced positive top-line results of a multi-center, randomized, double-blind, controlled pivotal study evaluating the safety and efficacy of AKL-T01. If cleared by FDA, AKL-T01 would be the first prescription video game to treat a medical condition and the first prescription digital medicine for children with ADHD. The product is based on technology developed at UCSF that was featured as the cover article in Nature under the headline "Game Changer."
I think you accidentally ended up formatting your first paragraph as a header. Maybe you put an underline-like thing underneath it?
Yup, was trying to put in a Horizontal rule, my bad!
They came so close, and still somehow completely missed the parents' responsibility.
No, we don't allow children to watch adult content on television, because as adults we should monitor what children watch. There's a rating system, and nothing to physically stop a child from using a remote to access more adult shows or late night movies, beyond parental monitoring and controls. All these systems already exist for gaming.
I get it's an opinion piece but damn I wish the NYT wouldn't allow any idiotic idea to be published on their site.
I agree with your points here, and as someone who didn't play those eSports games in middle school, I think my parents made the right call. Those live streams, though, were not big then. Do you think an age rating system for streamers might be useful for some parents to decide what their kids can watch? I don't think the 'dynamic content filtering' the article mentioned would ever work, but would that step be helpful? Thanks for your comment, I wondered what the community would think of this piece.
I can let my child watch CBeebies or CBBC all day every day and he's never going to hear someone yell "die you fucking nigger". That's not a parenting failure. It's a failure by the video platforms. Many parents don't care if thoroughly objectionable content is available on the platform. They just want to be able to avoid it and don't want it pushed to their children.
Youtube is a great example here. COPPA means that under 13s cannot have an account, but they want an account to sub and like, so they use their parent's account. This means that YT thinks this person is over 18 and it pushes ads for alcohol and gambling (even though this is unlawful in the UK) to that viewer. You can research "family freindly youtubers", and that one guy is fine for the first hundred videos but then there's the live stream video that got posted to YT with other people yelling stuff; or his second edgier channel gets recommended heavily.
It's simply not possible to pre-watch all the content a child wants, and frankly it shouldn't be necessary.
I'm curious how many kids you have.