[spacehome]

> parents dismiss interactions in video games as less real than those in flesh and blood

But they are. There's a lot less bandwidth in online interactions and it's harder to communicate subtle nuances. I'm sure it's more comfortable for borderline autistics when everything communicated is explicit, but it's not necessarily better for their development.

[girvo]

It's not an either-or proposition here. I was learning to program games and software when I was 10 years old, while participating in sports and doing public speaking competitions. Kids can do more than one thing.

In fact, I think that's why I ended up being a software engineer, and why I love what I do; it may have been something that I loved and enjoyed as a kid, but I did stacks of other activities too so I made an informed choice when I was older. It also helped developed crucial social skills by doing other social activities, and has really helped my career in doing so.

[visarga]

I have two girls, one - when she gets the iPad, she's deaf to us, doesn't hear anything, doesn't clean up her room any more, doesn't want to play with her sister any more, and so on.

The other girl can have her iPad in her room and yet choose to draw, make art, come and speak with us (parents) and still finishes her homework.

So, you see, some kids can't resist the temptation. Other kids can balance them out.

[norswap]

Yes, they have other advantages though. Convenience is a big one. But it also empowers a group to do some activities that are really hard to do in the real world: building things together, acting as a team, coordinating, etc...

In this, my video game experiences were almost always more positive than things in the real world (class projects, sports, ...).