Interesting article on Kids playing games on PC's

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7559&Itemid=2

What ever happend to playing good old outdoor games ( football / cricket / hide n' seek / tin can ally ). It's no wonder that kids are turning obese. To much tv and sitting in front of the computer (thats my problem I could do with loosing half a stone of fat and turning it into muscle, but after work I'm just to Kn**kard to do "Healthy Things").

I won't let my son near a computer. He can get one when he's an adult. He has to make do with using his grey muscle and doing stuff outdoors like a normal healthy kid should for distraction. Old habits die hard and I'm not having him vegetating his life away.

Well its not just that. Its also the diet at home and at school. School food is pratically fast food anyways...

You can eat plenty of junk food if you get off your arse and run around! Years ago they used to have dripping (hot animal fat) all over bread - makes a Big-mac look like a low-calorie morsel!

I feel sorry for your kid, he's going to have the worst time in school if he can't use a computer. Never mind when he gets into college, he'll just be hopeless then.

"I feel sorry for your kid, he's going to have the worst time in school if he can't use a computer. Never mind when he gets into college, he'll just be hopeless then."

I wouldn't wright off Hujiklos kid (or any kid). If the grey muscle is good then then he wont be serving fry's at Maccy Dee's.

Schools do I.T. courses and any good student that has a intrest in it will do well.

I hope thats not being encourage (the eating plenty of junk part) as long as you run around.

If he never goes near a computer I'll be content...and thankfully unlike some people there will be a much greater chance he'll be able to think for himself - and more to the point I want him to be able to think outside of the box like a man should, instead perhaps of becoming some sort of listless, lifelong adolescent swayed by the latest consumer marketing push and buying into lifestyle choices and all the other pap people accept as normal these days.
...and as if using a computer is hard???

Neuro - goes without saying really!

It's not hard for you, but this is because, get this, you've been using them for long enough! If you ask my roommate how to do anything even remotely complex, including "open a browser" (he does not recognize the word "browser," instead calling software for interacting with things on the net "internet explorer"). Take it from me, people who are relatively intelligent will know nothing about computers unless they work with them for long enough. Your kid will be like my room mate. So, again, I feel sorry for him, because you're inhibiting his education.

It's not hard because it's not hard. It wasn't hard when I first had a computer and it isn't hard now. And it won't be hard for anybody else who has a capacity to think for themselves without curling up in fear. I'll pass your pity on to my son if he promises to keep a straight face. He's 9 years old and can speak 4 languages - 3 of them fluently. I don't think he'd have bothered occupying himself with the effort if he'd been neglected by me to waste his life in front of a screen. Thankfully I've taught him the simple truth that he can turn his hand to what ever he wants if he's willing to try hard enough and toughen up to hard work, as can anybody else with a normal functioning brain.

Everything in moderation I say.

There is nothing wrong with a child using a PC if it is responsibly supervised, regulated to a few hours a week and other activities/hobbies are encouraged.
Anyway, computers are more healthy than TV! at least you are sitting up straight and its excercsing your brain.

I will allow my son (he's 3) to use a computer himself when he is old enough (mabe 5+) as in this day and age "techno-empathic**" skills are a MUST have. These days, to ban your child from using a computer is as bad an idea as not allowing them access to books and pens would have been 10+ years ago (and still is of course).

For you who KNOWS computers, a lot of the time its not fear exactly... its more a lack of machine empathy (and fear of the unknown is a common natural human emotion).

**What i try to mean by this (not sure if its a real term, but sounds good :), is your natural instinct as to how things work, eg, if my mother bought a new video or mobile phone, she would be using the manual for weeks. I myself yould instantly have a 'feel' for it and just use it, mabe slowly at first, but it would be instinctively logical to me, using the manuals rarely, if at all.
If Your son is only allowed to use a computer after age 18, would find himself very behind in modern general technical skills which could be a major dissadvantage in later life.

An unfortunate pan(ic)-epidemic of "stranger danger" and police arresting hopscotcing kids for grafiti & disturbing the peace!

Apparently you don't employ logic in your own arguments. That's a begging the question fallacy, and your argument technically fails because it's invalid by structure. Try again.

Except computers, because you'll slap his hand away. You're contradicting yourself.

My daughter can speak 5 languages, she Graduated with a First from Glasgow university... so far soo good.

As a former University Lecturer in IT I encouraged her to learn basic computer skills...

Well she flarfed about and the day came when she had to find a job..... Every one of the jobs she applied for asked for computing skills, qualifications of some kind, so she started to look into learning about thes biege boxes, she has since told me that it was more stressfull learning about computing after she had 'Grown Up' as the whole subject was totally alien to her.

My twin girls, now aged 14 have taken to computing like ducks to water. I introduced them to computing at an early age, they don't play many games and they are out playing or at youth clubs several times a week.

Computing and IT come easily to some, but it is not easy and lack of knowledge and experience can be a huge handicap no matter how 'clever' an individual may be.

Anyhoo as the old saying goes, each to their own. :)

Cheers
Garion

I don't know what school you've been to, but the cafeteria at Uni was worse than the one in the Marines. School food is the worst quality food in the world - most people wouldn't even feed it to their dogs.

True. However unless your job is "Infantryman, Private First Class" there's no way you're going to be running around enough to eat the occasional junk food (never mind plenty of it). A 2 hour work out in a Gym will probably burn as many calories as most of a Big Mac meal.

How does playing sports outdoors help improve your grey muscle?

Yeah. If that school happens to be MIT, otherwise the I.T. courses offered are barely adequate to teach you how to use Microsoft Office competently, never mind using the computer for anything useful.

And how is he going to do that without being subjected to the opinions of others?

Says the Luddite. Oh the irony.

Yes it is, and it gets harder as time goes by, and computers get more complex, and more integrated in the public sector, people without computers and a good understanding of how they work are going to become second class citizens.

It's not hard to you, because the kinds of problems you're trying to solve are trivial at best.

Cool. If one of them is Arabic, he can become an army translator!

Well that's nice. Except the people who threw away their lives in front of computers in the 80's are the people who write todays banking software. Your son will be able to admire their car as they pull into their mansions and he opens the door for them, so they can go upstairs and bang their trophy wives. Being able to speak 3 languages is going to help him better convey his masters wishes to the French maid and Mexican Gardener.

So you lie to your children too? First of all there are plenty of professions that don't require hard work. What there aren't are plenty of professions that don't require computer skills. In fact the only non-computer oriented jobs that are hard work these days, are those being replaced by industrial robots and immigration labor, or involve dying for your country.

Indeed. Besides, someone has to pave the roads the rest of us drive our cars on.

So FlameDuck is trying to say that my boss who has very little computer know how (if any), who company has a turn over of £10,000,000 a year is a retard. (I would agree on that bit). I could also earn vast amounts of money in stead of the £24,000 a year without over time. By setting up my own, but I like the quite life. Oh and the next time you need a plumber it £90 just for the call out and £350 just to fit a bathroom suite (not in cluding parts)

dawlane: I have no idea what you just said. This is not an insult or attempt at being rude: is English your first language?

Yes English is my first language (and if there is any spelling mistakes or bad grammar then no) LOL (havent got use to this iMac keyboard yet).
** By setting up on my own**

I would like to point out that my nephew only used a PC for playing games when he was younger (and knew very little about the administration/maintenance side of thing's) until he got a job at the local college.
And now he's a desktop technician. (I still earn more than him).

Um, yeah. BTW, food in the Marine chow halls is actually quite good (not the MREs or field rations).

My school cafeteria food isn't bad, but they've got actual cooks and people working it, brought in local bakeries and such to sell bread and pastries, food is actually cooked instead of thawed and given to you, etc. The only problem is that it's the only food we have, so you get sick of it real fast.

That's not at all what I was trying to say. What I was trying to say was that he works less for his dollar, than you do for yours. Thus anyone who encourages their kid to "work hard for their money" is going to end up at the bottom of the food chain.

Well seeing as I don't work as a plumber, I can afford that.

Not in Denmark it isn't. Best as I can figure it was MRE's only prepared in a kickten (so they could spice it up a little). But our MRE's are a lot better than the US ones (at least the ones they had back when I was in the service).