[Taganov]

With the current acceleration of technology this is a repeating pattern. The new thing popular with kids is not understood by the parents before it is too late.

It kind of happened for me with online games. They were a new thing, and no one knew to what degree they could be addicting and life damaging. As a result I am probably over protective of my own kids when it comes to anything related to games.

We are already seeing many of the effects of the social media generation and I am not looking forward to what is going to happen to the AI natives whose guardians are ill-prepared to guide them. In the end, society will likely come to grips with it, but the test subjects will pay a heavy price.

[potato3732842]

A whole generation turned out fine after murdering hookers in GTA before the industry came up with loot boxes.

How do we know which era of AI we're in?

[proteal]

I tried the new battlefield game and it’s bizarre how some of my friends play it. There’s this expansive battle pass (pay $20/quarter for access, on top of $70 base game) where you’re given tasks in game to make progress towards cosmetics. My friends only play to complete these tasks - the actual combat gameplay loop almost feels secondary to their enjoyment of the game. The modern trend of games becoming chore simulators is worrisome to me because -call me old fashioned- I believe the core gameplay loop should be fun and addictive, not the progression scaffolded on, even if that gameplay loops is a little “distasteful” like GTA.

[echelon]

Violent video games might not have impacted society, but what about addictive social media and addictive online games?

What about the algorithm feeding highly polarized content to folks? It's the new "lead in the air and water" of our generation.

What about green text bubble peer pressure? Fortnite and Roblox FOMO? The billion anime Gatcha games that are exceedingly popular? Whale hunting? Kids are being bullied and industrially engineered into spending money they shouldn't.

Raising kids on iPads, shortened attention spans, social media induced depression and suicide, lack of socialization, inattention in schools, ...

Social media leading people to believe everyone is having more fun than them, is better looking than them, that society is the source of their problems, ...

Now the creepy AI sex bots are replacing real friends.

[tempodox]

When you’re murdering hookers in GTA, you know what you’re doing (engaging in a fictional activity). Kids who believe “AI” is their friend don’t.

[nh23423fefe]

No they do.

[tempodox]

By definition, when a kid believes an “AI” is their friend, they don’t know it’s fictional.

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

To be fair,you said it yourself: the problem are ONLINE games, why did you generalized that to all videogames?

I'm with you that those are addicting in a bad way, I was there too. But single player games have no incentive in entertaining you forever to generate more money.

I have no problems with my kids playing single or local coop games.

[BinaryIgor]

100%; it's probably wise to default to better-to-be-conservative-than-sorry policy, at least as of now.

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

I think if you do this to a teenager,you might lose them forever. So it's not a safe tradeoff either