I dont think we've seen the full breadth of consequences of disturbingly tech-savvy children. After all, even twenty somethings have not had the exposure to video games of a caliber that current generations seem to enjoy. Children now are proffered stimulating and compact consoles that make even the most privileged computer of ten years ago into overglorified calculator. portable, too. the only thing i used to be able to take on family vacations was a book, which would serve as a buffer between my brother and i to mitigate the effects of the sudden and always shockingly brutal territorial conflict. Whatever the effect on children, the question at hand should also be, how will it effect them as adults? will decision making be hyper-active, consequential considerations dulled, imagination dessicated? Or maybe nothing remarkably different.
I know someone who posits that video games, particularly 1st person, are actually a potential benefit for children, because it forces upon them a set of problem-solving skills that become more rigorously practiced than if the child were left alone. I have my doubts at this, stemming from the parameters inherent in video games (that is, the limited mobility and range of decisions available to the avatar) which would seem to actually be a limiting factor when contrasted with the nearly infinite range of options reality presents. children dont want to do nothing, and if left alone, they will come up with something. but, like anything, this probably needs practice and some effort. my concern is that with the recent shift we have had from treating ourselves to occasional shows, to constant and ubiquitous video ipods and the various minature screens (i saw one guy taking out his rage from work on the commute home as a disturbingly efficient sniper, dropping amorphous bright spots on the night-vision screen) children will be conscious of the effort they put into non-video game play, because they will have to create the parameters themselves.
Children have never needed a screen in front of them; that was the parents solution. of course, none of this is science, and i would be interested to see a study done on children who have a certain amount of saturation in these games. Not just TV; the deleterious effects of too much TV have almost become mantra among the less, whats the word, cool, (ie: mine) parents. but interactive video media, online or otherwise, is becoming extremely pervasive, considering we havent felt fully the ramifications of a generation raised by playing with the flickering bluish glow. then again, thinking back to the sibling abuse that classified family trips, i would have been willing to accept a certain degree of more visibly docile snipering, though im pretty sure my parents would have missed the war cries and screams of existential pain. they liked it so much, they once even let us walk the length of one of the lesser keys in florida until we had calmed down.
