Children In Thailand Trapped In Virtual World Of Online

[kmj]

As my dad used to say 'TV off, get outside and play'.

playing games on any platform can become addictive, games are written to keep the user coming back, I think it's the parents who need to manage their children s gaming time. And I worked for Sony computer entertainment, as games programmer for 20years, games design (especially online gaming) is based on getting users to play, hence making them addictive...

[robblok]

I played World of Warcraft before but it cost me too much time. But i must say spending my time as a youth behind computers has paid off for me. I am now great with computers and can fix them and set up networks ect.

This has helped me in my accountancy business many times, i even find out new things with excel and link it to my accounting software to save loads of time.

Computers are not all that bad but older people love to demonize everything they are not good with or not familiar with.

Its good to learn how to work with computers and you can learn things from games (especially if you have to install cracked game versions yourself or find patches for your illegal windows). How many older people don't even know where they saved their documents and how to make sure they are safe.

[Donnyboy]

As my dad used to say 'TV off, get outside and play'.

playing games on any platform can become addictive, games are written to keep the user coming back, I think it's the parents who need to manage their children s gaming time. And I worked for Sony computer entertainment, as games programmer for 20years, games design (especially online gaming) is based on getting users to play, hence making them addictive...

a bit difficult in this heat unless its swimming

but i would say during the rest of the year it would be fine

totally agree with most of the posters. Good parenting is needed.

What sort of society is generation y & z coming to, where they mainly spend their lives either online, gaming or watching tv?

[Donnyboy]

I played World of Warcraft before but it cost me too much time. But i must say spending my time as a youth behind computers has paid off for me. I am now great with computers and can fix them and set up networks ect.

This has helped me in my accountancy business many times, i even find out new things with excel and link it to my accounting software to save loads of time.

Computers are not all that bad but older people love to demonize everything they are not good with or not familiar with.

Its good to learn how to work with computers and you can learn things from games (especially if you have to install cracked game versions yourself or find patches for your illegal windows). How many older people don't even know where they saved their documents and how to make sure they are safe.

granted, but computers arent from their generation

they learnt other skills which helped them, um im thinking of an example, say like perserving fruit for winter, or darning socks, baking bread, woodworking that sort of thing.

[thequick7]

"How could you solve this problem?" I had to read it twice. The Thai authorities are aware that on-line gaming addition amongst Thai children is a serious and growing problem. A problem driven by lack of proper mental stimulation at home, and dare I say also in school; a lack of parental control; and, a lack of out of school activities for these chldren. These poor kids probably have a heap of other social problems as well.

The solution: post the regulations by the door so more people can read them (as if they wuld) and give rewards to people who inform on Internet cafes not following them.

The solution requires much more than that. It involves the parents being responsible for their children; it involves the schools; it involves the Internet cafe owners and involves the police enforcing the law. This being Thailand, I dare say a similar article will be published this time next year and nothing will have changed.

Totally agree... Why should it be left up to the owners of Internet Cafe's to police the regulations set out by the government when the schools aren't keeping check where the kids are, or parents letting their children run around all hours of the night? That is just passing the buck. But i would rather find out my kid was addicted to playing computer games instead of racing their bike, smoking yaba, getting knocked up or watching tv!!! ;-)

[tomyummer]

Well, this seems to be the perfect time for some smart programmer to come up with a video game where you're in some country, oh let's say in Southeast Asia, and you go around 'erasing' corrupt or inept politicians and government workers, police, military, bad monks, punk motorcycle racing gangs, pedophiles and cheating husbands and wives.

At least maybe when there's the issue of influencing the gamers' mindset and inability to distinguish virtual reality and real life, the results may prove to be positive nonetheless?

[TAWP]

I like how they tried to link online gaming to onroad racing?! They straight out say they forcibly stopped him from playing, THEN he went out to take up road racing with all his now available time INSTEAD of gaming. Morons, instead of linking the 2 as gaming = road racing deaths they actually proved the complete opposite, if he'd been gaming he wouldnt have been racing on the roads!

Reminds me of the video game violence debate in the US, where the youth-crime stats are overlayed to game console and big game releases, with continued decline in the crime rate for year year for the past 15+ years.

People are gaming instead of being outside drinking, smoking and fighting, as much.

[canuckamuck]

This is an old thread, but I hadn't noticed this statistical analysis before

It was estimated that in the next two years the average age of online game addicts would decline from 11 years old to 5.59 years old, according to the Thai Health Promotion Foundation's website.

If 5.59 becomes the average age of addicted gamer, then I assume half of them would be younger than this. LOL look our for that 2 year old, he'll knife you for 10 baht, he's got it bad.

[Tokay]

Maybe better off they are in a shop playing games than out terrorizing the neighborhood and throwing rocks at cars.

Like most issues, this all boils down to PARENTING. or lack thereof.