Dogs and video games

[Margot]

I should have called this post, what is happening to kids? I had a funny, but disturbing experience recently.

Butters having a high cute factor tends to attract children.

The other week Butters was at the office with me and a little boy of around 6 arrived. Normally afraid of dogs, he decided he would try to get to know Butters so he asked if he could play with him. I said, of course you can.

So the boy went to fetch his iPod Touch, started a video game and held it in front of Butters face. Butters was not particularly interested so walked away. The boy could not figure it out and followed Butters and again, held the iPod in front of his face. All attempts Butters made to look at something else were thwarted, the iPod followed his gaze.

I asked, what are you doing. He said, I am playing with the dog. I informed him that Butters was not particularly interested in video games but he would like it if he would throw his Frisbee for him in the hall. But no, he continued to try to corner Butters into watching his video game.

What is happening to today’s youth!! Oh dear!!

[Sang]

OMG, that is TOO funny!

[minkysmom]

The shift is, dare I say it, techtonic (and, yeah, I spelled that wrong sort of on purpose)... away from actual physical experience and play towards interaction between self and machine. They say computers have powerful congruence with the human mind. And I have a 13 year old son, so the war is continual trying to wrest him away from the attractive machine where he can role play away in the perfect body with super powers.... I set time limitrs, have a password that only I KNOW, and sometimes I just go into the basement and throw the breaker.
Hey, it works to snap him out of the trance....

And it's a beautiful day, so, I'm headed out to work on book manuscript in the beach chair in the garden.

cheers.

[SchnauzerMan]

I'm going to be a moderate here. The boy was 6. This is the age where he might also grab Butter's ears and twist them. Kids that age are still on instinct mode. My real question: why the heck does a 6 year-old have an IPOD with VIDEO GAMES on it? I do not have one, and I'm a full grown man. Kids don't scare me--their parents do.