[lookbothways]

The elephant in the room here is that children in the 21st century have little to no freedom or personal control. The days of packs of children running around town or exploring the woods are long gone, due to fears of dangerous men and accidents. Children wake up, are shuttled to school, then either come back and are locked in their homes for the rest of the day, or else are shuttled off to another extracurricular activity. Nothing is unsupervised, and nothing is spontaneous. No where is this more clear than in the concept of a "play date," that a parent must schedule a meeting between two children instead of just, you know, letting them walk down the street and ring a doorbell when they feel like it.

The internet is like a parallel universe based around the exact opposite rules. You can look at whatever you want, talk to whoever you want, say whatever you want, do whatever you want, and no one is going to stop you. There is no wonder that so many suburban children become "internet addicts" these days, given that it is the sole element of freedom in their lives.

And Minecraft is the ultimate embodiment of this freedom. There is no structure or goal to it, just the freedom to wander about a crude approximation of the natural world, go on adventures by yourself or with friends, and build things with your own two hands. In short, it is a safe, sterilized version of the ancient childhood experience of wandering the woods, building forts, and carving out a society secret from the adults. It is the solution to problems we created ourselves out of fear of the world.

[dopamean]

I got my first skateboard in 1996. I was 10 years old at the time. I grew up in a small town on Long Island and because I was obsessed with going out to skate with my buddies my mother let me walk into town on my own. Spend all afternoon doing whatever I decided to do (usually skate) and then come home. The only rule she had for it was to call her if I was going to be late and explain why. Sometimes I'd take the LIRR (local commuter train) to Montauk, which took about 30 minutes, to go to the skatepark there.

A month after my 16th birthday my little brother was born. He's 13 now and when I look at how little freedom he has compared to what I had when I was a kid I sometimes wonder how he's going to figure out how to do anything for himself.

To echo your point about the internet... My brother is online, often playing Minecraft, all the time. He loves the internet. He loves that he doesn't have to ask permission to look at anything. He enjoys meeting random people to chat with online about video games and weird youtube people that teenagers are into now. I think it's pretty awesome. He has a sort of digital version of what I experience IRL.

The contrast is actually kind of amusing when you consider that in 1996 I also got my first computer. A Mac running System 7. At the time the internet was considered dangerous for children and my parents heavily monitored my activity on it much like they monitor my brother's real life experiences.

I wonder what I'll be worrying about when I have kids.

[afarrell]

I'm worried that this will be even more the case when I am raising kids. I don't want my daughter taken away because I let her go camping.

[kordless]

> I don't want my daughter taken away because I let her go camping.

From the parent comment:

> The days of packs of children running around town or exploring the woods are long gone, due to fears of dangerous men and accidents.

Fear is fear. What you fear will manifest itself further if you and others continue to fear it.

[afarrell]

This is a collective action problem. My own lack of fear will have no effect of the actions of CPS if they decide I am a negligent parent because other people could have been afraid to let their kid go camping.

[kwhitefoot]

I think _why_ of it is probably a bit more complicated but still I think you have got the _what_ down pat.

When I was growing up in the sixties I spent most of the summer outside from breakfast time to teatime at least. My parents had no idea where I was, who I was with, or what I was doing. If the sun was shining and I was still indoors my mother would want to know if anything was wrong and once she had decided that there was nothing wrong I would be shooed out to get on with my life while she got on with hers.

But now children have no society of their own; they have invaded the adult space and adults have invaded their space. Fifty years ago children learned about the world from other children and transmitted their own culture to each other but now there is nowhere to hide and nowhere where you cannot be contacted by outsiders (adults).

Damn, I don't really know where I'm going with this. I suppose I'm just glad I was born where and when I was and I feel sorry for those who will never feel the freedoms that I felt; I just hope that I'm missing something and that today's children will look back in fifty years on their own golden age.

[jimmaswell]

I'm glad I was born when and where I was, growing up in the 2000s. Random outside wandering never appealed to me at any age - it felt fairly boring in comparison to indoor persuits like video games, cartoons, lego, drawing, internet browsing, books, and so on. The scenery was nice outside but the novelty didn't last long.

I remember my thought process at the time was like "I can't jump very high or fly out here like Spyro, there are no items to collect, no puzzles or enemies or portals.."

Video game worlds in general always felt more interesting, fun, and cool to explore at the time. Structured and rewarding, a lot more things you can do, characters and stories intertwined to be invested in. You don't get tired, you don't have to struggle to keep up with faster-running others, and you don't get bug bites or broken bones. Kids today have online games and skype for a nicer experience.

Nowadays I do appreciate some hiking or other nature walks but I'd never choose that as a replacement for computer usage. I don't get why people think it's so important for kids to run around unsupervised and get bruised up.

Someone earlier complained about "play dates" rather than randomly ringing friends' doorbells. You should always know where your kid is, and who would rather walk than be driven?

The attitudes on this issue I always see on the internet are baffling.

[throwaway12309]

The main problem is that we don't know a lot about what will happen to kids that grow in this kind of environment (video games, indoors, 24 hour cartoons, etc). From anecdotal experience and observation, 'indoor' kids seem to be less social, have slightly less verbal vocabulary and more fearful of things and people (both adults and other children) vs. the outdoor kids. My kid is a mix, he likes to stay indoors watching cartoons or playing with the iPad and will do it all day if we let him, but we 'force' him to go outside, jump in the pool, climb some trees, talk with strangers, etc. There are few places where he isn't the most social, most outgoing, most friendly kid around (only ones topping him are the ones that go to the local waldorf school). Now, is this important and should be our goal as parents? I don't know, but having learned about the world after 30 or so years, I think this kind of personality is better suited over introvert/indoor type (maybe I'm wrong though)

[jimmaswell]

Also anecdotally, I had extremely good vocabulary and reading skills according to some kind of testing in early elementary school, and grew up as I described. I guess we'll have to wait for more objective studies.

iPad games are a lot less constructive than normal ones, though, usually.

[lfam]

> You should always know where your kid is

This attitude is the difference. Children are human beings with rights, too, and they are capable of much more than contemporary American parents give them credit for.

[agildehaus]

It becomes much harder as you age to run around and get bruised up. Kids can take more damage than adults.

It's important, I think, to do that while you can. There's always time for the rest.

[superuser2]

>and who would rather walk than be driven?

People who want agency.

[jimmaswell]

Both get you there, one faster and climate controlled, the other tiring. Why would I care about "agency" in that specific situation at a young age?

[runamok]

Because life is about the journey and not the destination. The destination (barring religious ideas) is the same for all of us. I enjoy running and walking as an adult since about hs age. As a kid I loved riding my bike too. Going at a slower pace leaves you open to whim. Let's you observe and digest your surroundings. Maybe you would see Cory. Maybe the neighbor kid you don't like that much had a bunch of friends playing frisbee in his yard so it was worth it to join. Or see there was a new kid and a moving truck. Or a turtle in someone's yard.

These days when I go for a walk, there is almost no kids playing or riding bikes or anything and it's kind of eerie.

[superuser2]

Because one of those things is you acting on your own initiative under your own control, and the other is dependent on someone more powerful than you to grant permission and decide it's worth their time.

[jdietrich]

I agree with you wholeheartedly. I think that the popularity of Minecraft speaks to a very real deprivation amongst many middle-class westerners.

I have read any number of thinkpieces about the hazards or the educational value of Minecraft, but not one of them meaningfully described the sheer beauty and joy of the game. I'm an adult with plenty of life experience and I find Minecraft to be an intoxicating experience; I can only imagine the effect it would have on a battery-farmed kid from a sterile suburb.

If you're worrying about your child being obsessed with Minecraft, ask what sort of experiences they're getting from the game that are lacking in their real life. Watching the sun rise over a soaring mountain range. Illuminating a newly discovered cave system and seeing a vast cavern reveal itself. Planting seeds, watching them grow and harvesting the crop. Building something for the pure pleasure of creativity and showing it to your friends.

[superuser2]

I'll go even further - the internet has displaced the automobile as the place and symbol of freedom for modern teenagers.

For my dad, it was his car. For me, it's my Macbook.