Lived Experience Forum

[Neb]

I love computer games, but unsure where to post this....

Do you have a favourite game? I enjoy the role playing genre, a left over from my very ill time. I am very much into " Skyrim" and the modifications one can graft onto the basic game. There is a lot of satisfaction walloping folk with a mucky great axe, although I would dearly love a character who could use a frypan like Sam Gamgee or from Terry Pratchett and the " Wee Free Men" tales.

Bioshock Infinite I also enjoyed but won't play the earlier games which seem potentially triggering.

[Alessandra1992]

Hi Neb, I have only just gotten over the wonder of patience or solitaire on my phone! I also play popwords on the iPad and Charm King and Candy Crush on my phone..I am beginning to see why people love playing even note advanced games...one of my friends is still playing a Dungeons and Dragons game that's been going for at least 30 years..and others who played Sims and SecondLife...too complex for me...

[Neb]

Sandy, you made me laugh with your response, I truely can't be bothered with mobile phones...when they can give you a cappuccino with a press of a button, then maybe. I remember playing space invaders and paceman as a teen, thinking they were the essence of cool.

[JubileeJohnson]

I reckon I am older than both of you. I remember playing Pong in the 70's. I didn't like it as much as I did pinball and air hockey. Is it something to do with my age that I don't get these new-fangled X-pod things?

3D graphics make me nauseaous. Nothing to do with age that; to do with my epileptic tendencies.

My hypnotic activity is drumming. That's when I forget about everything else except the beat. Focus and forget at the same time. And I get the hand-eye co-ordination improvement that you'll get from games.  And that satisfaction of hitting things, not with an axe though, not on my beautiful kit.

Drums are a healing instrument, best played in company. Don't mention electronic drum machines. Evil.

Computer games as a source of fun. Not on your own? Really? Charades is fun. Not on your own.

Sorry Neb, I don't like computer games at all. I don't like them particularly for other people either. I think they might be too hypnotic. I see too many teenagers, too often, too obsessed.

Yours truly,

Disgruntled old man.

[Alessandra1992]

And I thought I was the only grumpy! I loved Pong and playing drums at my bedtie's in Tassie! Is great fun! But I do love popwords and patience...I am impressed by graphics but coz I am a hypocritical gruntly mum, my kids get very little online time..I am a meanie but hubby is too..it's too addictive if left to their own devices.. But we are all fans of Regular Show and Seinfeld..so still feeding them screen time.. Lucky we have a dog that needs lots of exercise or we might be TV heads..hard to resist Fawlty towers, original pink panther movies etc..

[kato]

I have one computer game I play currently I am obsessed woth it its an online game where you build an army play against other real players in real time but very basic so much fun altho I am thinking I need to reconnect With my old fave Diablo lol

[JubileeJohnson]

"...if left to their own devices." You mean your kids don't even have their own devices?

You are a Gruntly Mum.

iPads can be fantasic learning tools. I'd get one for 'Garageband'. If I didn't already have too many devices.

[Alessandra1992]

Oh one of the hem has an iPad do I had to buy one too to at least try and keep up to date..my concerns have been more around the cyber gossiping that so many of their peers are doing. Old school me..you wanna chat? Pick up the landline.. I get lots of eye rolls but thankfully, my kids haven't gotten into any online scrapes yet..coz I lock up to he iPads and turn off the modem..oh yes..Luddite me and hypocritically typing away online most evenings..but for vastly different reasons...the cyber safety workshop the school held for parents reinforced I am on right path..minimise exposure to trolling for as long as possible...seen too much of it with friends older children...

[JubileeJohnson]

Can't relate. Never married, No kids.

Just as well. I'd have gone to that workshop and been judgemental about the parents who didn't attend.

"Where are the ones that need to be here, it's their kids that are....." (Because they were bullied when..)

(And now too depressed to get out of bed.)

"Where are 'Johnny's' parents, don't they care?" (No, they were in bed, not depressed, 'ill').

I used to work with a young woman who had a 'learning difficulty.' Her mother couldn't keep her off Facebook. Understandable. Kids don't need to feel left out. Especially kids like her.

The three of us were all too often in the school principal's office because she was all too often duped into making Facebook 'boyfriends,' and these were kids at the same school. I felt so angry.

Just as well I don't have kids, I say, for now, who knows? Stranger things are happening.

[Alessandra1992]

It is a really tricky time to be a digital native..I mean I have been online me since what 1980's and rremember green screens and old old PC dos. Back in those days there were bulletin boards and subscriber lists.
Facebook..I love it but us oldies use it to share pics and stay connected overseas. The young kids however are responding to friends requests without hesitation. And that's after these kids have attended cyber safety workshops...which advised to Grade 5/6 only accept people you have met face to face in person. Yet many of the kids I know pay no need whatsoever... No doubt I am being a gruntly and a helicopter parent but seen lots of research that supports limited engagement online. Fine at school, let's switch off at home unless its study..