To do:

I’d like to think about having sections/parts that flow from the current TOC

 I: intro to what games are, II: Why You Shouldn’t Worry, III: When/Why You Should and How to Handle Those Situations

It feels like a natural progression and can give more sense of structure. These titles are terrible and we should come up with better succinct ones though! 

Let’s talk more about this structure idea. My concerns last time you suggested it was 1) that people would just skip to the third section and skip all the important context and 2) that it didn’t make sense to me to explain why a specific problem exists a hundred pages before describing how to respond to it.  

Chapter 6

• Having Conversations subsection - I think this could be expanded a lot, as it’s a very useful section. I wanted more on what to do / best practice guidance for supplementing parental controls. It could be examples for different scenarios? Given what a huge challenge this particular issue is, I would really welcome more extensive and concrete guidance. I’ll focus on this one in the next couple weeks to give my thoughts

Chapter 7

• More example conversations! This is very practical and useful and could definitely be expanded to encompass more scenarios.I’ll see if I have any to add!

Chapter 10

• Escapism - 'it is probably time for them to find and practice other regulation strategies, like spending time with loved ones, playing with pets, learning a new skill, or taking a long bath’ - this could benefit from expansion, as this is a complex area. Some practical guidance that recognises that it can be hard to get a child to take up a new skill, and taking a long bath doesn’t work for everyone. Are there other strategies that you have found useful with your clients? How do you manage the transition such that those activities become regulating?

• If you think there’s an addiction, what should you do? At the moment, the chapter feels like the conclusion is ‘consult a mental health professional.’ Which is obviously important! But are there practical tips parents can start out with?  This really stood out as a missing piece for me. It’s not always easy to get access to a good mental health professional (especially if you throw autism into the mix), so having expert tips here would be great.

To do list:

• 9:1 compliments

• D&D

• VG aggression doesn’t feel like aggression

• Turn-based

• Other pattern of addiction - rely on it for everything

• Set a goal, if you fail, analyze why

• Quality over quantity time

• Help me cook dinner?

• Cardboard boxes

• Independent living skills, freedom to make mistakes, building resilience? 

• Tease information about project online

• Add to bios

• 10-25k followers is sweet spot for people to look for

How to Raise a Gamer

How to Raise a Responsible Gamer

Raising a Gamer

How to Parent a Gamer

A Parents’ Guide to Video Games

Level Up Your Parenting

Digital Parenting

Digital Upbringing

Introduction

My life changed after my eighth birthday party. I bought Pokémon. I vividly remember carefully removing the shrink-wrap from the cardboard box and gleefully inserting the cartridge into my new “atomic purple” Gameboy Color. 

I devoured this game. I wore out my official paperback manual, brought the game to school, played with my friends, and became obsessed with all aspects of Pokémon. 

To my parents’ dismay, I couldn’t seem to stop playing it. I had been well-behaved to a fault, but now I was staring at a six-inch plastic device for hours instead of coming to dinner when called. 

“I’m in a trainer battle, I can’t set the table yet.” I pleaded. “Give me a minute.” 

I used this excuse so often, “I’m in a trainer battle” remains our family’s mocking shorthand for “I’m too busy doing something unimportant to help.” 

My supportive parents could not understand why I was unable to put down this game. 

What was happening? I wasn’t trying to misbehave; I just needed a few more minutes. I was working on one of Pokémon’s many challenges, and its programming did not allow me to pause the game or save my progress. If I put the game down and my brother knocked it off the table or if the batteries ran out, I would have had to redo everything I had accomplished in the last hour. 

Had I been able to communicate that effectively to my parents, they would have let me complete the five-minute challenge and finish the skirmish, which would allow me to reach a stopping point. Then I would set the table. It would have avoided some frustration on all sides.

Games have gotten much more sophisticated since I was a child. Technology has improved drastically, and game studios have employed behavioral psychologists to make the games more engaging and harder to put down. Parents often have great difficulty helping their children navigate this new virtual world and learn to make healthy decisions for themselves. This lack of a shared understanding of the virtual world ensures that avoidable arguments like I had with my parents continue to happen. 

As a new therapist, my supervisors recognized that I had a knack for building rapport with young gamers. These young teens were sick of working with professionals who didn’t understand their interests. Once I demonstrated that I also liked video games and could keep up with the jargon, they warmed up to me immediately. 

At this time, I became interested in the idea of clinical video game addiction and started reading every book and scientific article I could find on the subject. I was disappointed by much of what I read; researchers often demonstrated that they were biased toward or against video games and many seemed never to have played one. 

I designed this book to help parents and professionals understand what gamers are talking about, protect children from programs designed to take advantage of them, and help raise gamers who can maintain a healthy relationship with video games for the rest of their lives. 

My homemade Halloween costume at eight years old

Acknowledgements

This book would not have been possible without the help of a community of supportive mentors, peers, family, and friends. 

Thank you to Mo Deslandes, PsyD and Natalie Jeung, LCPC for your help writing chapters ***3*** and 6, respectively.  

Thank you also to Laurie Rosin, Ross Fishman, and Jackie Kretchmer for reviewing and editing the manuscript so often. 

Anna Gunning, thank you for your parenting expertise and perspective. 

Simon and Ben, thank you for your help with the glossary. I couldn’t have made it without young experts like you. 

And thank you, Mom and Dad, for supporting me and inspiring so much of the good advice throughout the book. 

Table of Contents

Introduction 4

Acknowledgements 8

Table of Contents 9

Chapter 1: What Are Video Games? 12

Chapter 2: Should You Be Worried about Video Games? 32

Chapter 3: The Benefits of Video Games 49

Chapter 4: Leading with Values 75

Chapter 5: How Do Games Make Money? 84

Chapter 6: Internet Safety 102

Chapter 7: Responding to Outbursts 113

Chapter 8: Physical Health 134

Chapter 9: Managing Screen Time 141

Chapter 10: Gaming Addiction 167

Chapter 11: Professional Gaming 177

Chapter 12: How Can Society Help? 181

Chapter 13: Play Video Games with Your Kids 186

Conclusion 197

Relevant Games 201

Glossary 230

Odds are, you play video games. 

When speaking to groups of parents or professionals, I ask them all to stand and then tell them, “I’m going to list popular video games. Sit down when you hear the name of a video game you’ve enjoyed.” 

They usually snicker. They think they don’t play video games because video games are for kids. 

I start with “Fortnite.” No one moves. 

“Minecraft.” Laughter from the crowd when they notice everyone is still standing. 

“Farmville.” A few sit down. The rest start to look worried. 

“Candy Crush.” More sit down. This isn’t surprising because the game has been downloaded 1.3 billion times. 

“Tetris.” At this point, about a third of the room is sitting. They’re usually looking down at their fallen peers, dreading the next game. 

“Words with Friends.” Sighs from the audience as many more settle back into their seats, defeated. 

“Pac-Man.” That one gets most of the rest. 

By the time I reach Minesweeper, Wordle, Connections, and Solitaire, everyone is sitting. It happens every time.

People don’t realize they have played video games, because they don’t understand what a video game is. Parents see the games that their kids play and assume that those are the only ones that count. 

Video games are not a genre, they’re a medium. In other words, video games are as varied as paintings, movies, or books. Like any art form, there are trashy, terrible games; there are fun, meaningless games; and there are transcendent, beautiful games. 

This book is a guide to help you understand this confusing medium. It contains critical information to make decisions in guiding your children’s consumption, strategies to manage the downsides, and ways to share a part of your children’s lives many parents ignore. 

Chapter 1: What Are Video Games?

Key Points:

• Games have become much more sophisticated, more engaging, and harder to put down since their inception. 

• Video games vary wildly in type, content, and how appropriate they are for children. 

• Gaming holds our attention so effectively that many other aspects of our lives seem to be increasingly gamelike. 

• Features from video games – like points, achievements, and leaderboards – are so compelling, many apps and programs have adopted them. 

• Video games are more fair than the rest of our life. Mastering a game’s specific rules and tricks guarantees success. 

• Games help people meet basic human needs, such as experiencing connection with others, exploring independence, and feeling successful. 

A video game is any game played primarily on an electronic device. Most are played on a cell phone, a computer, or a video game console - a device designed specifically to play games. Popular modern examples of the latter include XBox One, PS5, and Nintendo Switch. 

Video games include everything from classic games like digital versions of solitaire and chess to massive, complex games like World of Warcraft, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and Fortnite. This makes understanding video games as a whole difficult for laypeople. 

Parents often ask me whether they should be allowing their children to play video games. This is a more complicated question than they realize. 

Just as I would suggest a child watch Sesame Street but not Law and Order, I would promote some video games and discourage others. Kirby’s Epic Yarn is a cute, kid-friendly game in which a bouncy pink hero must save a cuddly world made of fabric. By contrast, the “space marine” in Doom Eternal eviscerates thousands. Although both are high-quality, popular games, one would frighten an unprepared child. 

The protagonists of Kirby’s Epic Yarn and Doom Eternal.

A Brief History of Video Games

Although most people believe that video games were invented in the 1970s, an engineer exhibited a primitive computer game in 1940! Users played a puzzle game against an enormous, specialized computer called Nimatron, which lit a series of lightbulbs to indicate the computer’s actions in response to player input. 

Developers began to produce similar games over the next few decades, including ones for tic-tac-toe, checkers, chess, and eventually a digital version of table tennis called Pong.

Arcade games such as Pong, Space Invaders, Pac-Man, and Asteroids were so successful that Japan suffered a coin shortage due to so many people feeding them into gaming cabinets. Even in video games’ infancy, some psychologists warned that gamers were becoming “addicted.” Critics cited physical symptoms like Space Invaders wrist – a repetitive stress injury caused by gaming--and the enormous amount of time fans were spending in arcades as evidence that the games were habit-forming and harmful. 

The sheer size of the game machines limited the market. Although public arcades could house refrigerator-sized machines, few had wanted them in their own homes. When designers created game consoles which could house swappable cartridges, video games became ubiquitous. 

The most successful companies employed psychologists to analyze how consumers were playing to sway them to spend more time and money on their products. This made games more compelling, but also harder to put down. 

Eventually, games transitioned further from home consoles to the internet. Games like Ultima Online and World of Warcraft allowed players to coexist in a fantasy world with millions of players from other computers. Gamers created online personas called avatars, which represent them within these worlds. Now, instead of just playing as a predetermined character like Mario or Sonic, people can create their own unique characters and compete or cooperate with others in online arenas. 

Mobile games took hold in the 2010s with games like Candy Crush and Pokemon GO. Games now lived in your pocket, so access wasn’t limited to being in front of a computer. Many children struggled to pay attention in school knowing that something far more entertaining was within arm’s reach at all times. 

In March 2020, students worldwide started attending school remotely, on screens offering thousands of games. I have not yet met a student who did not play video games or scroll through Instagram during virtual classes. 

I also struggled to resist this temptation during remote meetings for work. I spent many tedious staff meetings with a game covertly covering half of my screen. Sitting through Algebra with an unengaging teacher likely felt similar. 

The Future of Gaming

A team of professionals has crafted every app on my phone to be as engaging as possible to be more successful than its competitors. “Survival of the fittest” also applies to technology. When one company introduces a successful feature, their competitors must add the same or risk losing market share. A design ethicist at Google called this a “race to the bottom of the brainstem.” That is, every design choice reaches for a more primal part of our psyche to exploit. 

For example, people love point systems and achievements. Most apps I use have some form of point system and badges to earn. The coffee I just purchased earned me cash-back points with my bank, loyalty points with the coffee shop, and reward points with the shop’s partner company. The choice of the word points is not a coincidence, the language comes directly from games. 

The Red Cross’s Blood Donor app has forty-five badges to earn by donating blood at different times of year and reaching milestones. Every fast food company that I’m aware of has some system of “stars” or “points” earned by purchasing food. 

Competition also makes activities compelling. Duolingo, the language-learning app, tells me how I compare to my friends and a randomized set of strangers. Every week is a competition to complete more lessons to outperform strangers and rise in rank. The exercise program Peleton features a leaderboard on the screen ranking every member of the class’s performance. 

Features like these increase user engagement. Health apps which feature a point system will likely outperform those which do not. As a result, every aspect of our lives is increasingly a game to play and win. This has benefits; I have donated more blood, exercised more, and studied for longer than I would have otherwise. 

This process feels inevitable. Designers will always try to make their product as engaging as possible and games are the most powerful way to hold our attention. The lines between video games and other activities will likely continue to blur. 

Virtual Reality

“I glanced up and down the hallway. My virtual surroundings looked almost (but not quite) real. Everything inside the OASIS was beautifully rendered in three dimensions. Unless you pulled focus and stopped to examine your surroundings more closely, it was easy to forget that everything you were seeing was computer-generated. And that was with my crappy school-issued OASIS console. I’d heard that if you accessed the simulation with a new state-of-the-art immersion rig, it was almost impossible to tell the OASIS from reality.” 

We are closer than ever to this science fiction dystopia described in Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One. In the novel, those who can afford a computer spend nearly all of their waking hours in a shared virtual space. In the OASIS, they may choose to be heroes fighting an onslaught of computer-generated aliens, race sports cars, and even attend church and school without ever leaving home. We are very close to this technology.

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has explicitly stated this as a goal, even renaming his company “Meta” after a similar technology in a different novel. Nearly every piece of the technology required to create the OASIS already exists. 

To build this system, one would need 1) virtual reality (VR) technology to trick our eyes and ears into perceiving a three-dimensional environment, 2) motion-capturing technology or handheld controllers to allow us to move freely through this world, and 3) a massive online space people can share. 

Engineers have been creating and refining sophisticated virtual reality headset for decades. Circular treadmills and similar technology can already be used to control a digital avatar, although these are impractical and prohibitively expensive for most. Massive virtual spaces already exist. 

World of Warcraft and Fortnite, for example, host tens of thousands of players simultaneously. Several prominent musicians have even used these for live performances. When Travis Scott performed in Fortnite in April 2020, 12.3 million people logged on to watch the 15-minute show. Millions of players took a break from shooting one another to use this same platform to share a concert experience. 

Game companies are currently struggling with a Catch-22. Very gamers have VR headsets because not many VR games exist. Few VR games exist because too few gamers have VR headsets. I suspect that the first inexpensive VR headset will resolve this problem and allow companies like Meta to begin developing what was once only science fiction; an entirely virtual world to live in. 

A digital replacement for reality would be tempting for many of us. Video games meet our needs better than the real world in several ways. The following chapter explains how they do this and what the physical world lacks for many of our children. 

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is still in its infancy and we cannot foresee how it will disrupt our lives. However, AI is the most powerful tool humans have ever created and is not only easy-to-access but also almost entirely unregulated. This terrifying combination means that it will irrevocably change every aspect of society. As I write this, nearly every industry has tried to incorporate it to some extent. 

I anticipate that the gaming industry will do so in three steps:

1. Terrible, AI-generated games will flood the market. Creating “AI slop” like this is so easy and inexpensive that thousands of inexperienced developers will ask AI to make a game for them and release it to the public hoping to cash in. They will collectively make an obscene amount of money.

2. After some time, players will become more savvy and start to recognize that these games have no artistic merit or humanity. It will become uncool to play them. 

3. These games will become less profitable and will (hopefully) go away. However, legitimate developers will have learned how to use AI’s strengths to help them streamline the game-making process. For example, a young developer might ask AI’s help in coding or debugging a tricky part of a game they want to create. It might help someone quickly create a playable first draft of a game so that they can try it out to see which ideas worked and which they can improve upon. 

Hopefully, we can reach this last stage quickly. I think studios, artists, and programmers can benefit from the ability to use AI as a tool rather than something to replace us. 

Why Are They So Popular?

Humans have a few basic needs to survive. In addition to food, water, shelter, and sleep, we need to connect with others and spend time doing activities we find meaningful. In other words, we require autonomy, competence, and relatedness. This combination of needs is referred to as the “Self-determination Theory.” Game developers masterfully design games which target each of these. 

Video games are a salve for life’s disappointments. People can go their whole life making the “right” choices – going to college, getting a job, and working hard every day – and still end up passed over for promotions, laid off unexpectedly, single, lonely, or unhappy. 

These three case studies highlight how video games can meet different needs in positive or negative ways. (Each is a combination of several real-world cases to maintain confidentiality.)

Autonomy

Lara, a fourteen-year-old who lives with her parents, is successful by most measures. She is smart and hardworking and earns good grades. She’s well liked and has supportive friends. So why is she unhappy? 

Lara feels she has no control over her life. Her school counselor set her class schedule, her teachers and school staff tell her what to do, and at home, her parents rarely let her go out with friends because she has so much homework. Lara is becoming interested in dating, but her parents insist she’s too young. She has a few extracurricular interests, but they’re not the ones her parents think would look impressive on a college application. 

Lara feels desperate to experience agency, the ability to make choices. The only time she experiences this is while playing video games. She devours games with complex decision-making and ethical choices, like Life is Strange, The Witcher series, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Until she gains more autonomy in her life, she can experiment in her favorite games. 

Competence

Thirty-five-year-old Madeline works as a barista at a local coffee shop. She has a degree in engineering and got a great job after graduate school but her company downsized and laid her off. She soon landed a position at a similar engineering firm, but it closed down during the recession. Unable to find employment, she applied to the coffee shop as a stopgap. For a decade, she applied for numerous positions in her field but was turned down every time. Discouraged, she stopped looking for an engineering job.

Madeleine is still working at that coffee shop. She’s a capable person, but she feels as if she hasn’t done anything meaningful in years. The only time she gets a feeling of accomplishment is when she advances in a game. Winning a video game is success for her. 

Relatedness

When Jack was eleven years old, his family moved to a new state. Once settled in, Jack doubled the amount of time he was spending on Call of Duty to several hours a day. Sometimes his mother couldn’t get him to stop at bedtime. Concerned that he was replacing his social life with gaming, she sat down with him and asked why he was playing so much more since the move. “My old friends are online,” he explained. “They’re always playing games.” No one in his generation talks on the phone. 

Once she understood that, his staying up late playing video games seemed acceptable. He wasn’t isolating himself; he was spending time with his old friends the only way he could. 

When she knocked on his door the next day to give him fresh laundry, she was delighted to overhear him over his headset talking to his old friends about his new school.

Video games met a need each of these gamers struggled to fill otherwise. For better or worse, each achieved something they could not in the physical world. Whether this is a positive or negative way to do so is up for debate and depends largely on the impact their gaming has on the rest of their lives. 

Others

Of course, these aren’t the only reasons people play games. In 2009, sixty-one percent of CEOs, CFOs, and other high-ranking executives said that they took daily video-game breaks at work. Games are a fun way to relax after a long day and to challenge our dexterity and intellect while adventuring through mysterious worlds. 

About sixty-one percent of American adults report playing video games. I suspect the actual number is much higher; many do not realize that games like Wordle and Solitaire are also video games. 

Some people do play excessively, spending so much time and money gaming that they cannot manage other aspects of their lives. I have counseled several who have dropped out of college after becoming too hooked on a game to go to class. Others have lost employment, been evicted, or lost important relationships due to prioritizing video games. We will discuss some of the main reasons for this behavior in the following chapter. 

Video Games 101

Key Points:

• You will benefit from learning about your children’s interests. 

• Games are played on consoles using controllers.

• Game genres are as varied as movie genres. 

• Gamers on a team typically play complementary roles in the group. 

• Gamers communicate with teammates using in-game chat functions or third-party software programs. 

• Many gamers watch others play video games live online and aspire to do this as a career. 

I would struggle to parent a ballerina. Dance has never interested me, and I’ve never taken a class. If my children expressed interest in ballet, I would need to study. I would be happy to drive them to class and cheer at their recitals, but I would miss many opportunities to connect. I would be thrilled if they came home, beaming that they had learned how to “plie,” but I wouldn’t understand it. I would be supportive, but lost. 

As the parent of a gamer, you will benefit from knowing information about gaming. The best way to do this is by playing alongside one’s children, as we will discuss in chapter 9. What follows here is the most basic information you should learn in order to connect with your children about their interest. 

Hardware

Almost all video games are played on a console, a mobile phone, or a computer. 

A console is a small computer designed to play a variety of video games. Popular examples are Nintendo Switch, PS5, and Xbox. In the same way that a DVD player can play any movie when its disc is inserted, consoles can play any game when its game cartridge is inserted. Cartridges vary in size and shape between consoles. 

In recent years, many companies have shifted to a digital model with an online store. Physically swapping game cards is no longer necessary for these systems because the information is stored internally. 

Handheld controllers communicate with consoles like remote controls with a television. Different consoles have proprietary controllers which are designed for that system. Each is slightly different, but most are held in two hands with buttons and movable sticks under each thumb. 

These buttons and sticks communicate to the device what the player wants to do. In most games, the left hand controls movement and the right hand controls various actions. 

Over the years developers added more buttons to controllers, and game developers have taken advantage of the new features to make more nuanced control schemes. For example, Super Mario Bros., released in 1985, had very simple controls. With just four buttons and a “directional pad” (fig. 1), players had limited options: They could walk or run to the left or right of the screen, jump, and shoot fireballs. 

Figure 1. An NES controller, released in 1983.

Thirty-two years later, Super Mario Odyssey’s controls are much more sophisticated. The Nintendo Switch’s controllers have sixteen buttons, two directional sticks, and internal motion-detecting sensors, so players can direct Mario to perform nuanced and complex actions. 

Figure 2. Nintendo Switch controllers, released in 2017.

Each console is made by a different company, so unique sets of games are available on each. However, most games are available on more than one system, so the choice of which to buy is largely personal preference and brand loyalty. For example, the Legend of Zelda series is available only on Nintendo systems and the Halo series is available only on Microsoft Xbox systems. In contrast, Fortnite operates on nearly any system. 

Instead of buying a console, many players opt to game on a computer or laptop. Computers can run most games, and the keyboard and mouse substitute for a handheld controller. 

Some gamers invest thousands to upgrade the speed and power of their computer so games can run as smoothly as possible and look great. Gaming computers typically have parts which are designed to be replaced for better options. A low-end computer might run a complicated game, but the graphics and performance will suffer. 

A number of different software programs help users purchase and organize games. The most popular of these systems is called Steam, but other options include Epic Games and itch. Each has its own online store with a library of thousands of games. The programs also house and organize the games individuals have purchased. If a young person asks for a “Steam gift card,” they are asking for money to buy Steam games or in-game purchases. 

All smart phones are capable of playing games. Mobile games are typically much less complicated due to technology constraints and screen size. 

Kinds of Games

Games can be single player, multiplayer, or a combination. Games designed for one person tell a story over the course of a game. Games played by a group of people allow players to cooperate or compete with one another. 

Many multiplayer games are designed to be enjoyed with a small group of friends. Some host thousands of players simultaneously. These are called MMOs, short for “massively multiplayer online games.” 

Video game genres are as diverse as any other art form. Just as a movie could be “a Japanese-language, action-packed, romantic comedy spy thriller” or “an animated, dystopian, superhero musical,” video games could be “an 8-bit JRPG platformer with Metroidvania elements” or “a comic top-down, beat-em-up, co-op adventure game.” 

You do not need to learn all of the genres. However, some popular ones include:

• Sports games, which simulate team sports like football or soccer.

• Platformers, in which characters run and jump to avoid obstacles and reach the finish line.

• Role-playing games (RPGs), in which players act as a fictional character, typically within a fantasy world.

• Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs), which are RPGs with thousands of players simultaneously existing in the same virtual world.

• Shooters, which feature combat with guns.

• Puzzle games, which provide complex challenges for players to solve.

• Multiplayer online battle arenas (MOBAs), in which teams of players battle for dominance over an area of land.

Most gamers have a few favorite types of games. I love RPGs and Metroidvanias. You can benefit from having conversations with your children about their favorite genres both as a way to discover what draws your children to video games and to explore ways of expanding these interests. Gamers who choose puzzle games might enjoy the intellectual challenge of learning to code. Gamers who love sports games might be open to joining a local team. 

Player Roles

Many multiplayer games are complex and require sophisticated strategies to win. Because of this, most teams of players, called parties, include people playing different, complementary roles. Just as a soccer team is unlikely to succeed with eleven goalies and no offense, a party with players of only one role is not diverse enough to be viable. 

In adventure games, most parties need three categories of specialist characters. A successful team needs at least one person dedicated to attacking the enemy. This is called a DPS character because the player focuses on inflicting maximum “Damage Per Second.” DPS characters need teammates to protect them from assault. Because the characters who defend the team are designed to be bulky and hard to kill, they are referred to as tanks. While tanks are being wounded by the other team, healers on their team work to keep them healthy and alive by tending to their virtual wounds. These three archetypes; DPS, healer, and tank are the most common, but many other subtypes exist. 

You don’t need to worry about these details, but remember that players depend on one another to succeed. This can create pressure on members of a team to play for many more hours than one planned. A team’s only healer might not feel comfortable going to sleep on time if that means leaving their team without anyone to take on that responsibility. This is a common reason why children refuse to turn games off when asked. I will discuss this further in chapter 14 and how to respond in chapter 15.

Within Games

Most video games are divided into challenges called levels. Once players successfully complete a level, they advance to the next, more difficult task until the game is complete. 

When players are stuck on a level, struggling to complete the next challenge, they can’t progress. The original Super Mario Bros. featured thirty-two distinct levels to finish. 

“Level” also refers to the amount of power a character has. When characters complete challenges, or defeat enemies, they can gain experience points. These points accumulate over time, and when they reach a certain number, the character becomes more powerful. They have become stronger with practice. 

For example, the Pokémon series emphasizes character levels. Players encounter Pokémon at level 2 to 5 in the first region. At first, this is difficult, but by the end of the game, defeating a level 5 Pokémon is laughably easy. By winning so many fights, the player’s own team has typically reached level 60 or higher. 

In addition to getting to a higher level, players can gather better equipment. Like a carpenter using sharper tools, better gear can help players gain a competitive advantage. These often include more effective weapons, more durable armor, and tools that work faster and more efficiently. These are typically either bought in a shop in the game or dropped by slain enemies. For example, when the player slays a marauding bandit in Borderlands, it may drop a gun. It may be better than my current weapon so I will take it as a spoil of war. These randomly dropped items are called drops or loot. The odds of receiving a given item is its drop rate. 

Competitive teams cannot rely on only gear or level. They must strategize and coordinate with one another to gain an advantage. In order to communicate with their teammates, players have a few options. The three most common are in-game text, voice chat, or Discord. 

Many people type messages using a keyboard. When gamers type “need healing,” that message pops up in the corner of their teammates’ screens. Others use voice chat, which requires headsets with microphones to speak to each other while playing. This allows players to keep their hands on the controls. 

Unfortunately, voice chat can become toxic with racial slurs, gender-based insults, and even threats. Even if a game is appropriate for children, the chat may not be. When chat is available, the parental advisory label includes, “Users interact.” (Fig. 3) This is discussed further in chapter xxx. 

Figure 3: Super Kirby Clash is rated “E for Everyone,” but the ESRB notes in the bottom left that users interact with one another. 

Discord is a website and app that facilitates conversation about any topic. Most of these communities are safe places to meet people with similar interests. Like any place on the internet, however, your child must be cautious and use good judgment when deciding whom to interact with and what information to give out. 

Streaming

Many who play video games also enjoy watching others play. Talented or interesting gamers have become wealthy by uploading videos of themselves playing or live-streaming as they play games and chat with fans. 

One streamer who goes by “Ninja” reportedly earned over $100 million between 2011 and 2021. He typically plays Fortnite or other popular games for eight or more hours every day. He earns this money through individual donations, merchandise, and corporate partnerships. 

Like athletes who dream of joining the NBA, many young gamers aspire to become professional streamers. This is not surprising; streamers make their lifestyle look glamorous to help build their brand. They do not often mention the challenges. Streamers and content creators cannot stop or take breaks without losing followers. Ninja reported in an interview that he lost 40,000 followers after taking a two-day break. 

Streaming is physically and mentally exhausting and can be dangerous, particularly for people in marginalized communities. Amouranth, a highly successful female streamer, hired private security guards to ward off stalkers. She tweeted in 2021, “I don’t hate WHAT I do. I don’t hate how much I do it…It’s the harassment, the unwarranted danger that comes from it when I’m just doing my own thin[g], minding my own biz and not hurting anyone.” 

As a therapist who works with adolescents, I’ve worked with dozens of teens who want to drop out of school. Nearly all of them say that they want to quit in order to become streamers or content creators. I will discuss how to respond to this request in chapter 11xxx.

Conversation Starters for Kids:

• What do you like about the gaming devices you use? What do they do better than others? 

• How do you think video games have changed over the last ten years?

• Do you think VR headsets will ever become popular?

• Why do you think people like video games so much? 

• Do you use video games to stay connected? How is it different than social media?

• What are your favorite genres? What do you like about them? 

• Do you usually have a certain role when you play on a team? Do you like supporting others or being a leader? 

• If real life had levels like a video game, what would they be? 

• Have you ever seen anything in a video game that made you feel uncomfortable? Was it the game itself or someone else communicating with you?

Chapter 2: Should You Be Worried about Video Games?

Key Points:

• For almost all gamers, video games are not a problem. 

• Some do develop problematic patterns that parents can watch for and manage. 

• People play “too many games” for a variety of reasons, including depression, social anxiety, autism, and ADHD.

• Despite decades of research, no evidence has definitively linked video game violence to real-world violence.

• However, some bad actors use video games as recruitment spaces for extremist groups.

Most parents have nothing to worry about. Research on the impact of video games on young people suggests that the vast majority of gamers maintain a healthy relationship with video games and balance the hobby with other parts of their lives. 

You can, however, monitor your children’s behavior for warning signs. These will be covered in detail in the following chapters. 

These include if they:

1. Perform worse in school

2. Spend little or no time with peers

3. Show little interest in activities besides video games

4. Choose to play video games instead of other activities

5. Insist on eating meals in front of the screen 

6. Stay up late at night or waking up early to spend more time gaming

7. Spend excessive money on video games

8. Neglect personal hygiene, such as skipping showers

9. Quit extracurricular activities in favor of gaming

10. Struggle to controlling emotions related to video games

Other factors can explain many of these variables. In particular, major depressive disorder (depression) often saps energy and motivation. People with depression might lose interest in activities, have difficulty sleeping, neglect personal hygiene, spend excessive time alone, and experience emotional outbursts. If a young person is experiencing these, it is statistically unlikely that time spent gaming caused these challenges. Instead, these may be symptoms of depression. 

If you are concerned about your children’s mental health, I recommend you seek support from a licensed mental-health counselor. School counselors, psychologists, and social workers can help you find a therapist who is a good fit for your children. 

Why Else Do Kids Play So Much?

Fun

The most common reason people play so many video games is also the simplest—video games are fun. They allow us to challenge ourselves, experience fantastic worlds, compete with one another, build skills, and explore who we are.

They are also a great way to connect with friends, especially when friends are far away.

One parent I spoke with was distraught by how much her 11-year-old son was playing Call of Duty, a violent shooter game. Right after they moved to a new town, his time on his Xbox doubled. Eventually, she confronted him about this new obsession and was pleasantly surprised by his response. “My friends are there,” he explained. “All my old friends get together after school and play together. It’s the only chance I have to spend any time with them.” This is typical: Teenagers are much more likely to want to spend time casually chatting while playing a game, even while virtually shooting each other.

There are also a variety of individual reasons someone might choose to spend time playing video games. One of the most typical is depression.

Depression

Simply put, major depressive disorder is a condition often evidenced by a significant lack of energy and motivation, usually coupled with persistent feelings of sadness. Through no fault of their own, people who have depression often find it difficult or impossible to get out of bed, go to work, do homework, go to the store, or spend time with friends.

For someone with depression, the amount of mental energy it takes to even get out of bed can be totally overwhelming. What doesn’t require a lot of energy? Video games.

In fact, it is so common to see depression and “video game addiction” at the same time that some have suggested the latter does not exist. In other words, if a person sits at home and spends all of his time playing video games, is he really “addicted” to the games? Or does he just have depression and an interest in video games?

Social Anxiety Disorder

Similarly, people with social anxiety disorder—a persistent, irrational fear of being in social situations—often find it easier to be at home in front of a screen than with others. This response can be both positive and negative. Interacting with others in front of a screen is better than not interacting with others at all, but it also risks replacing in-person interactions altogether.

Broadly, video games are useful for someone with social anxiety when they lead to genuine connection with others, and problematic when in-game communication is harmful or when people use video games to numb the pain of not having friends.

ADHD

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a condition that makes it difficult to intentionally focus one’s attention. Children with ADHD are more likely to exhibit “problematic video game behavior” than their neurotypical peers.

This has led some researchers to question whether video games and other media cause symptoms of ADHD. So far, no evidence has backed this claim, but there does seem to be a connection between the two.

One person with ADHD I spoke with explained, “If I find something exciting or enjoyable, I don’t have to try to focus on it. I can just exist and give my brain a chance to rest. My brain is noisy and when I’m playing a video game I can ‘lower the volume’ for a while.”

In other words, for someone with ADHD, it takes a lot of energy just to get through the day, especially when one must concentrate at work or do homework. Video games are an effective break—something enjoyable that does not require effort.

Autism

Similarly, autistic adolescent boys exhibit more problematic video game behaviors and play nearly twice as many hours per day as their allistic (non-autistic) peers.

Autism is a condition generally characterized by difficulty with communication, repetitive behavior, and strong emphasis on order and routine, and is often accompanied by unusually sensitive senses. When surveyed, many autistic adults said that they enjoy playing video games to relieve stress, feel a sense of accomplishment, bond with others, experience storytelling, and several other reasons that are also endorsed by their allistic peers. This raises the question—if they play for the same reasons as allistic people, why do autistic people play nearly twice as many video games?

Some autistic adults suggest that one of the reasons autistic people play so many video games is that it gives them a sense of security. One expert with Asperger’s suggested, “We play video games because they’re fun, but we continue to play video games because that’s where the safe place is ... if I’m playing something safe and the outside world [is] yelling at me, of course I’m going to continue to do the safe thing.”

This means that for many, video games serve the same purpose as a hot shower or warm bed after a long day. Playing “too many” video games could simply reflect the chaos they feel in the rest of their lives.

However, losing significant opportunities or social relationships and being unable to stop are clear indicators that a person has developed a dependency on games and should seek help from a licensed mental health professional. You can also use interventions discussed in upcoming chapters to help your children maintain a healthy relationship with games. 

The Violence Debate

In February 2018, President Trump stated in response to the school shooting in Parkland, Florida that “the level of violence [in] video games is really shaping young people’s thoughts.” He’s far from the first to suggest that violent video games make children violent. 

It certainly looks like they do. Jimmy Kimmel humorously pointed this out when he challenged parents to turn off their children’s TVs while they were playing the popular shooter game Fortnite and film the results. Unsurprisingly, many of the children lashed out, some cursing, others striking their parents. 

The Research

Decades of research seem to support this, too. The three most common ways that researchers measure aggression in a laboratory are with a “hot sauce paradigm,” the “Competitive Reaction Time Test,” or with word- or story-completion tasks. 

In the hot sauce paradigm, researchers instruct participants to prepare a cup of hot sauce for a taste tester. They inform them that the taste tester must consume all of the hot sauce in the cup and that the taste tester detests spicy food. The more hot sauce the participants put into the cup, the more “aggressive” the participants are said to be. 

In the Competitive Reaction Time Test, participants compete with a person in the next room. They are told that both people must press a button as fast as possible when they see a light flash. Whoever presses the button first will get to “punish” the opponent with a blast of white noise. They are allowed to turn up the volume as loud and as long as they want. In reality, there is no participant in the next room; the test is designed to let people win exactly half of the games. The researchers are measuring how far they turned the dial and how long they held it for. In theory, people who punish their opponent more severely are more aggressive. 

During a word- or story-completion task, participants are shown a word with missing letters or a story without an ending. Participants are asked to guess what word can be made from those letters or predict what will happen next in a story. When participants choose “aggressive” words (such as assuming that “M _ _ _ E R” is “murder” instead of “mother”) or assuming that characters will hurt one another, they are considered more aggressive. 

These tests examine whether violent games increase aggression, summarized below. In each study, the participants assigned to play a violent game seemed more prone to acting or thinking aggressively than those who played a non-violent game for an equivalent amount of time. 

• 2000: Undergraduate psychology students played a video game for thirty minutes and were given the Competitive Reaction Time Test. Those who played Wolfenstein 3D (a violent game) turned the “punishment” dial for a longer period of time than those who played Myst (a non-violent game). 

• 2002: Undergraduate students played a video game for twenty minutes, and were given a story-completion task. Players who played Carmageddon, Duke Nukem, Mortal Kombat, or Future Cop (violent games) were more likely to predict that the characters in an ambiguous story would react to conflict aggressively than those who had played Glider Pro, 3D Pinball, Austin Powers, or Tetra Madness (non-violent games). 

• 2004: Undergraduate students played a video game for twenty minutes, and were given a word-completion task. Players who played Dark Forces, Marathon 2, Speed Demon, Street Fighter, and Wolfenstein 3D (violent games) were more likely to predict that word fragments were part of aggressive words than non-aggressive words than those who had played 3D Ultra Pinball, Glider Pro, Indy Car II, Jewel Box, and Myst (non-violent games). 

• 2004: Undergraduate students played a video game for twenty minutes, and were given the Competitive Reaction Time Test. Those who played Marathon 2 (a violent game) turned the “noise punishment” dial to higher levels than those who had played Glider PRO (a non-violent game). 

• 2014: Undergraduate students played a video game for thirty minutes, and were given the hot sauce test. People who played Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (a violent game) put more hot sauce into the cup than people who played LittleBigPlanet 2 (a non-violent game). 

It is easy to conclude from this research that violent games make people more aggressive. In 2015, The American Psychiatric Association (APA) Task Force on Violent Media analyzed 31 similar studies published since 2009 and concluded that “violent video game use has an effect on...aggressive behavior, cognitions, and affect.” 

However, experienced gamers would notice a critical problem with the studies’ construction. 

Although Wolfenstein 3D, Call of Duty, and Duke Nukem are certainly more violent than Myst, LittleBigPlanet 2, and Glider Pro, violence is far from the only variable. 

For example, Wolfenstein 3D is an action-packed, exciting, and fast-paced shooting game, while Myst is a slow, methodical, exploration and puzzle game. Comparing the two and assuming that any differences in the level of aggression after playing must be due to the different levels of violence ignores all of these other variables. 

Other Explanations

Some researchers have taken note of this criticism in recent years and begun exploring alternative hypotheses for the differences found, such as that the violent games chosen were also more competitive and harder to master, and that people had aggressive thoughts simply because they lost. When they have conducted more nuanced studies to explore these other hypotheses, they have found that the violence was not the critical variable. 

For example, one clever set of studies examined whether players acted out simply because some games “impeded competence.”

• The first study demonstrated that two of the games in the previous studies differed significantly in how difficult the games were to master; Glider Pro 4 uses just two buttons, while Marathon 2 requires the mouse plus 20 different buttons. This additional variable they identified makes it inappropriate to compare the two and draw a scientifically credible conclusion. 

• The researchers then created two first-person-shooter games with differing levels of violence. In the violent game, characters who the players shot suffered horrific, bloody deaths. The other was a paintball game in which characters simply disappeared when shot. The two games were otherwise identical. When they tested level of aggression afterward, they found no differences between the groups. 

• In two other studies, these researchers manipulated the game Tetris to be more complicated for half of participants, either by making the controls complicated or by giving them pieces which could not fit into the grid easily. The groups playing complicated, frustrating versions of the game showed more aggression afterward. 

In each of these studies, it was the level of difficulty, not the presence of violence which predicted aggressive thoughts and actions afterward. When the games were better matched than the previous studies, violence did not appear to affect aggression after playing. 

In other words, these researchers concluded that games can make people angry just by being difficult to win. 

A clear example of how frustration alone can lead to aggression in a non-violent game can be seen on YouTube, on well-known streamer Markiplier’s first attempt to beat Getting Over It. The game is bizarre; players try to guide a shirtless man in a cauldron up a mountain using only a hammer. It is designed to be extraordinarily unforgiving; one minor misstep might undo an hour of progress. He threw a chair across the room on a live stream when he slipped down the mountain. 

Others have suggested that it is the level of competition present in many games which fosters aggressive thoughts and actions. This is easy to understand - how many of us have yelled at friends or overturned the board at the end of a tense game of Monopoly? Gaming writer Jason Schreir quipped, “What makes you angrier: dying to a horde of violent aliens in Gears of War, or losing a close match to your taunting brother in the very non-violent Mario Kart?”

Anecdotally, I have found these two hypotheses to be true for my clients. I frequently hear from them or their parents that they act aggressively while playing video games, e.g. breaking controllers or yelling at their parents or other players. When I ask my clients about the situation, they talk about feeling frustrated, usually because of difficult gameplay, opponents playing unfairly, losing, or having to stop playing at an inopportune time in the game. These outbursts happen for violent- and non-violent games alike. 

What if violence is the variable? 

In order to understand the results of the experiments, it is important to understand the difference between “statistical significance” and “clinical significance.” Statistical significance is a way to test whether the results of the study were due to a real difference between groups or whether the results might have been due to chance. Clinical significance is whether the results are important for individuals or the population as a whole. 

For example, the 2000 study which found that, on average, players turned the “punishment” dial longer when they played Wolfenstein 3D than those who had played Myst did reach statistical significance. Statistical significance in this case means that there is less than 5% chance that the results were due to random chance. 

However, the actual difference was between 6.81 and 6.65 seconds, a difference of 0.16 seconds. To put that number into context, blinking takes roughly 0.1 to 0.4 seconds. That is, subjects who played violent and non-violent games both chose to punish an imaginary opponent for roughly seven seconds. The difference between how long the groups held the dial was less than the blink of an eye. 

A two percent difference in how long someone holds a dial in a laboratory is hardly cause for alarm. Further, studies have shown that this small increase in aggression fades quickly, lasting less than ten minutes. 

Despite this, the researchers linked violent video games to the school shooting at Columbine High School in the first paragraph of the paper. 

The APA’s Society for Media Psychology and Technology has since firmly stated that this kind of comparison is inappropriate: “Journalists and policy makers do their constituencies a disservice where they link acts of real-world violence with the perpetrators’ exposure to violent video games...there’s little scientific evidence to support the connection...Discovering that a young crime perpetrator also happened to play violent video games is no more illustrative than discovering that he or she happened to wear sneakers or used to watch Sesame Street.” 

In fact, the Secret Service’s report studying characteristics of school shooters showed that only fourteen percent of school shooters enjoyed violent video games, compared to seventy percent of their peers. 

Long-term effects 

Some researchers who study aggression use the General Aggression Model (GAM), a unified theory of aggression created by the researcher who authored many of the papers which found a link between aggression and violent video games. The theory explains that many things may increase aggression in the short-term, including being insulted, unpleasant noises, and the temperature of the room. 

The GAM theory further suggests that repeatedly acting on aggressive impulses may push people toward becoming permanently more aggressive. For example, a normally peaceful person may act out when insulted. The more times the person acts out, the more “accessible” violent responses become and the more likely this person is to act violently in future situations. 

This makes intuitive sense, and researchers sometimes state that even a tiny increase in aggression, like the aforementioned two percent, can be cumulative and lead to long-term aggressive tendencies. 

However, it does not appear that this is true. Researchers recently surveyed over 1000 British teens aged 14-15 on how often they play games, independently examined how violent those games are, and asked their parents to report how aggressively their children acted over the past month. They examined whether each variable was connected and found no evidence of a correlation. Teens who played violent games many hours per week did not act more aggressively than those who played peaceful games, or no games at all. 

Should children play violent games?

Of course, I am not suggesting that it is appropriate for young children to play violent games. I would not recommend that young children play Call of Duty for the same reason that I would not recommend they watch Saving Private Ryan until they are mature enough to understand it. 

Even though it is not likely to make peaceful people aggressive, media which contain graphic violence can be frightening and hard to understand, especially for young people. Parents should take reasonable steps to ensure that their children are playing age-appropriate games, just as they should with age-appropriate movies. 

Can video games teach kids how to kill?

In May 2022, an armed gunman entered an elementary school and killed nineteen students and two teachers. Two years later, several of the victims’ parents banded together to sue local law enforcement; Daniel Defense, the weapons manufacturer who manufactures the gun used in the attack; Instagram; and Activision, the producers of the violent shooter game Call of Duty. 

They allege that the three companies “knowingly exposed him to the weapon, conditioned him to see it as a tool to solve his problems and trained him to use it.” I have previously mentioned that video games can be used effectively to teach information and real-world skills. Why can video games teach kids how to read and spell but not how to fire a gun? 

It’s a great question. While I’m not aware of any evidence to support either side, I believe that video games could be used as a tool to teach people how to use firearms. However, I’m not aware of any games which actually do. 

A Marine and gamer mocked the idea: 

There is an ocean of difference between sighting in using a thumbstick in a game with aim assist, versus using a weapon with a sling, iron sights or a scope, moving parts, actual weight and heft, and targets moving erratically in every direction. 

Case in point: I’d never fired a weapon before joining the Marine Corps. Ever. I’d played plenty of Doom, Quake, Halo and all the rest. I…almost got kicked out of boot camp when I first went to the range in week six. After all, if you can’t fire, you can’t be a Marine.

I eventually got better through firearms training, not video games. You’ll deserve the mocking you’re likely to get from a Marine if you tell them that using a controller or mouse and keyboard to play a game is in any way similar to practical training.

A theoretical game in which you win by successfully reloading a virtual pistol could certainly help you memorize the necessary steps. However, reloading in Call of Duty happens with one mindless press of a button. The game is designed to be entertaining, not informative. Playing CoD does not train me to operate a firearm any more than watching Grey’s Anatomy prepares me to perform surgery. 

Online Extremism

Even though video games will not make your children violent, being online with strangers can have frightening consequences. 

The European Union-based Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN) and Extremism and Gaming Research Network (EGRN) both warn that terrorist organizations use video games as recruiting tools. Online gaming is an ideal environment for connecting with vulnerable young people for a number of reasons. Most obviously, it is logistically easy to communicate with large numbers of young people at once in a public chat room. Video games provide straightforward and simple ways to create online communities. The internet facilitates conversations with people around the globe and most young people spend significant amounts of time in gaming spaces online gaming with others. 

Conversations in gaming spaces are often full of sarcasm and dark humor, which makes it easy to hide one’s true intentions. If a racist or sexist comment goes over poorly, bad actors can claim that “it was just a joke.” The radicalization process often starts with jokes like this. For example, people who laugh at a racial slur might be invited into a more exclusive server where they can be further indoctrinated. Two teens explained this process to the police: 

Over a short period of time, they built trust in the recruiter, and they were invited to join an external Discord community that was already populated with more radicalized individuals. Once here, they were asked to do increasingly more dangerous and insidious tasks, such as performing the Hitler salute at school. Eventually, the tasks turned more violent, and, at this point, the boys were cognizant enough to understand the repercussions of these actions and they sought out law enforcement for support. It is notable that the boys note in their police report that they did not want to perform any of the actions asked of them, but they continued to do so because they wanted to remain a part of the Discord and gaming community associated with it.

Despite this, video games are not intrinsically problematic. Remember to help your kids identify and respond to harmful ideas. Ensure that young players turn off public chat in all games they play. If you decide to let older kids talk to strangers, make sure that they know how to identify and block hateful people online. 

Conversation Starters for Kids:

• Have you ever met someone who played too many video games? What did you notice that told you that it was a problem?

• Is it easier to talk to people online than in person? What is different about it? 

• What does it feel like to do violent things in a video game? Do you think it’s different from watching a violent TV show or movie? 

• Do you ever get very mad when you’re playing video games? What causes that for you? 

• Do you think you get more angry when you lose a video game than you do when you lose a board game? Why? 

• What’s the most violent thing you’ve seen or done in a video game? What do you think about that? 

Chapter 3: The Benefits of Video Games

Key Points:

• Many popular games, even violent ones, preach kindness, compassion, and understanding. 

• People learn practical skills through games. 

• For many, video games are the safest place to build confidence and make friends. 

• Video games are a legitimate art form and can be enjoyed in the same ways as movies, paintings, and novels. 

Building Real Skills

For thirty years, every Microsoft computer has included Solitaire, a virtual card game for one player. Because this video game is a fun way to spend time, software engineers included it on PCs as a covert learning tool. 

To place one card atop another, the user must click on the card with the mouse button and continue to hold it down while moving the card to another position. This “click and drag” action is important but unintuitive, so Microsoft programmers needed to teach new computer users how to do it. Instead of a straightforward “how-to” guide, which few would have paid attention to, they disguised the tutorial as a game. By making it fun, people spent hours practicing this basic and necessary skill. 

Video games can also help build patience, strategy, and planning. Players who want an enchanted diamond sword in Minecraft must:

1. Gather wood logs from trees

2. Make wooden planks from the logs

3. Use planks to construct a crafting table

4. Make sticks from the planks

5. Construct a wooden pickaxe using wooden planks and sticks

6. Gather cobblestones with the wooden pickaxe

7. Craft a stone pickaxe from sticks and cobblestone

8. Build a furnace from cobblestones

9. Load the furnace with wood

10. Mine iron ore with the stone pickaxe

11. Smelt iron ingots from iron ore in the furnace

12. Craft an iron pickaxe using iron ingots

13. Gather diamonds deep underground using the iron pickaxe

14. Use diamonds and sticks to construct a diamond sword

15. Use diamonds and sticks to construct a diamond pickaxe

16. Gather obsidian underground using the diamond pickaxe

17. Gather sugar cane

18. Create paper from sugar cane

19. Find and kill a cow to gain leather

20. Create a book from leather and paper

21. Construct an enchanting table from the book, diamonds, and obsidian

22. Mine lapis lazuli stones

23. Enchant the diamond pickaxe using lapis lazuli stones in the enchanting table

Planning twenty-three steps ahead is remarkable for young people, and practicing this can help them build this skill over time. 

Distracting from Pain

Experienced parents know that pain is subjective. In one adorable video on TikTok, a tattoo artist painlessly pierces a little girl’s ears by distracting her with goofy questions. 

This works because pain requires attention. If a child skins his knee while running around at the zoo, it stops hurting as soon as his father points out the roaring lion in the nearby cage. The scrape hasn’t changed, only the amount of brain power assigned to it and therefore the amount of pain experienced. 

Researchers are seeking alternative treatments to take advantage of this quirk to supplement or replace opiates. Many studies have confirmed that simple distractions can help tolerate pain. For example, on a scale from 0-10, listening to music reduces pain by about 0.5 on a scale from 0-10. 

Much of this research has been undertaken to help burn patients tolerate pain during treatment, including by playing the virtual reality (VR) game SnowWorld. 

Standard treatment of burns involves administering heavy doses of morphine to help manage the pain. However, opioids often fail to numb patients completely and can have a variety of side effects, including nausea and cognitive problems. They can also be highly addictive.

In addition to standard painkillers, patients in these experiments wear a VR headset over their faces, filling their full field of vision. When they look around, they are in an icy tundra. They spend their treatment throwing virtual snowballs at snowmen and wooly mammoths while Paul Simon music plays in the background. 

Remarkably, this distraction reduces pain at least as well as morphine. A meta-analysis reviewed ten studies which compared standard care with treatment including virtual reality games. The studies found that patients who played VR games:

• experienced significantly reduced pain, 

• tolerated longer treatment,

• experienced less nausea,

• thought about pain less during the procedures, and 

• complied with more physical therapy. 

Some saw these results and, ludicrously, concluded that video games are as dangerous for children as morphine. “[J]ust what effect is this digital drug – which is more powerful than morphine – having on the brains and nervous systems of seven-year-olds – or fourteen year-olds – who are ingesting very similar digital drugs via their glowing screens? And, further, if stimulating screens are indeed more powerful than morphine, can they be just as addicting?”

One should not conflate video games and morphine simply because they both reduce the experience of pain. Bringing an umbrella and staying inside both keep me dry in a storm, but an umbrella is not a home. 

Playing video games reduces the experience of pain by distracting us. They are a promising tool for lowering our use of opioids, particularly during acute medical procedures. However, this benefit does not make them “digital morphine.” 

Math Skills

A number of years ago, one of my students asked me, “What’s better, a 60 base power move with STAB that’s super effective or one that’s 90 base power without STAB but it’s weather boosted in the rain?” 

I smiled, recognizing jargon from the Pokémon series. The student was trying to figure out which of two attacks was more powerful. I asked him to help me figure it out. I reminded him that STAB makes an attack 50% more powerful, super effective moves are twice as powerful, and that weather boosts moves by 50%. 

After explaining how percentages related to multiplication, we wrote out the calculation on the board. He realized that he was trying to calculate: “Is 60 x 1.5 x 2 greater than, less than, or equal to 90 x 1.5?” He worked it out on his calculator and concluded that the first attack was a better choice. This student, who might have rolled his eyes at a worksheet of math problem, was now invested in the answer. 

Learning to Read

I used a similar process to slip a reading lesson into a child’s video game without him realizing. A student at the therapeutic school where I worked had handed me his 3DS, a portable game system, and asked me to find a cave for him in the latest Pokémon game. I knew where it was, but I declined. 

This student had difficulty reading, and I saw this as an opportunity for him to practice. I remembered that the virtual townspeople directed players to the cave. He must have skipped past those written directions because it was too frustrating for him to understand the words on the screen. 

“You didn’t read anything the people in town told you, right?” I joked. 

He laughed and admitted that he had skipped all of the in-game dialogue. 

“Go back to the town and start talking to people. They’ll tell you how to find it.” 

He marched up to me several periods later and boasted that he had figured it out. I gave him a high-five, and he showed off the new monster he had befriended. To my knowledge, this was the only text he read voluntarily all year.

Learning to read fluently requires hundreds of hours of practice. Some children happily sit and read for hours, but others (especially those with ADHD or dyslexia) cannot. Parents and teachers often wonder how to get those children to practice. Some video games explicitly teach reading skills, but mainstream games are also useful.

A screenshot from Reader Rabbit 1st Grade: Capers on Cloud Nine!, an early educational game.

Video games are ideal places for these children to practice reading. This is primarily because they’re both interesting and safe. Reading aloud in class can be frightening for young readers. Despite teachers’ best efforts, struggling readers are often judged or mocked by peers when they mispronounce or stumble over words other kids know. Many adults vividly recall counting the number of children ahead of them in line to read to determine which paragraph they would be called on to read. “I would ignore the rest of the lesson to covertly rehearse my paragraph over and over. It was terrifying.”

I worked with many of these children in a therapeutic middle school. After years of humiliation, many children started to act out during English class to save face. They could not read as well as other students and it felt emotionally safer to pretend to be uninterested and write off the class entirely. Arms folded, they sat in the back of the classroom rolling their eyes or glaring at the teacher and stomping out of the classroom when called upon. It was easier to insist they “hate reading” than admit they were afraid of it.

Luckily, I worked alongside fantastic teachers, who recognized the meaning behind this behavior and responded appropriately. They gave the students individual attention away from the rest of the class and provided individualized assignments catered to the students’ interests. For many, this involved video games. “Write three paragraphs about why you like Minecraft.” “Read and annotate this article about Pokémon.” “Write a one-page persuasive essay about why Call of Duty is better than Fortnite.” Unsurprisingly, interesting assignments and private space to make mistakes helped them feel comfortable as they learned critical reading and writing skills.

Many students who say they don’t like reading simply lack motivation. One researcher found that the average tenth-grade student spends over an hour every day happily reading about video games. In another study, 60% of 8- to 18-year-olds reported writing online about video games every month. In short, video games are a proven way to motivate children to practice reading and writing outside of the classroom.

Most video games require players to read. For example, Pokémon games have no voiced dialogue; every in-game character communicates through text. The same is true for Animal Crossing, Fire Emblem, Super Mario Bros., and many others.

A screenshot from Pokémon Legends: Arceus, The Pokémon Company

A screenshot from Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Nintendo

Some young people skip on-screen text whenever possible. I have met several who press the “advance text” button as rapidly as possible to return to the action. For those children, I advise that their parents sit with them and help guide them. The child might read the protagonist’s dialogue and the parent can role play the other characters.

Some evidence suggests that reading text on a screen is inferior to reading from a book. One study found that children recalled more details when reading from a book than they do from the same text with interactive elements on a screen. Many teachers fear that screens are too distracting and don’t promote “reading stamina” – the ability to sit with and analyze a challenging text. This seems particularly true for very young children, whose brains are still developing patience and focus.

Therefore, I recommend that children be given as little screen time as possible before age 8-9. Talking to distant family members on Zoom and educational programs like Sesame Street are great in moderation. However, children may not learn from screens as well as they do from a live instructor. Some evidence suggests that children under three years old cannot learn anything from prerecorded videos, even ones explicitly designed to teach them. This means that the best way for you to help your children succeed in school is to spend time with them. Read them books and help them sound out words. Make reading a game. Help them figure out what the stop sign on the corner says. Occasionally make silly mistakes and encourage them to correct you. Have fun.

When they’re old enough and grasp the fundamentals, video games can help young people practice reading while having fun.

Social Connection

I imagine most parents of gamers have hollered to their children to stop playing games and go be with people. Their children seem isolated, staring blankly at a screen for hours.

Children need to talk to each other, parents assert, to have conversations, to get out into the world. That’s how to make friends. They reminisce about long telephone conversations, learning to work together by competing in sports, or playing Monopoly together at a sleepover.

To well-meaning parents, video games look like a waste of time – a waste of a childhood. But the games they grew up with didn’t have controllers, keyboards, screens, or a headset. The headset is the key. Although the players are physically isolated, they’re spending time with friends in the same way that their parents did as teens when they talked to one another on the phone. Seventy-seven percent of boys play online video games with friends at least once a month.

Parents say that video games don’t count as healthy communication. My kids aren’t talking about anything real when they play, they’re just talking about the game or yelling at each other. Is this assumption accurate? 

What Do Gamers Talk About?

In 2006, researchers examined thousands of messages sent in online multiplayer games and categorized them as socioemotional or task-oriented. Socioemotional messages help players connect with one another, such as “Thanks for the help,” “Yeah, I agree with you,” and “Wow, that was funny.” Task-oriented messages focus on the game, such as “How do you open this door?” or “Just practice some more.” 

They found that there were more than 3.2 times as many socioemotional messages as task-oriented ones. Additionally, these emotion-based messages were over 2.6 times more likely to be positive than negative. That means that contrary to parents’ fears, the vast majority of the messages gamers sent supported one another.

Young people can be annoyed to hear their parents encourage them to talk with others when, from their perspective, they already are. Although the method of communication is different (i.e. communicated in-game rather than via text, phone, or in-person), the messages sent and connections built are the same.

Even if players were to only spend time talking about the game itself, games would still be a great way to bond with other people. Lots of families have weekly “game nights” in which they play board games to spend time with one another. I spent a few hours playing card games with my family last week and, even though most of the conversation was centered on the games themselves, it was undeniably a bonding experience.

Many teens go to each other's houses to play video games in the same room. This serves the same purpose as playing Monopoly together did for their parents. Shared experiences like these are so effective at helping people connect that some therapists even use tabletop games like Dungeons and Dragons as group therapy.

Video Games as Safe Places

Evidence suggests that video games can be a safe place for vulnerable people to experiment with social interactions. This group includes people who have social anxiety, autism, or depression. 

Video games and other online spaces allow people to communicate at their own pace, with little or no pressure to respond immediately and without requiring them to be in the same physical space with others. This alleviates many sources of distress for those for whom socializing is challenging. 

For example, successful conversations require a wide variety of skills that many take for granted, such as reading body language, understanding tone of voice, maintaining eye contact, and rapidly comprehending and responding to information. Online video games can allow players to talk to others and make friends at their current ability level even when they are emotionally or physically unable to leave home. This can help build the skills and confidence necessary to try to meet others in person.

In fact, research has shown that many people who meet while playing games online do end up spending time with one another in the same physical space. This is a cause for celebration for socially isolated young people and their parents.

The trend of meeting new friends in person does have potential danger, as adults sometimes use games as a way to meet children and teens. These incidents have greatly decreased in recent years, and it appears that children are relatively safe online. Even though reporting features and chat filters have made online spaces safer than ever, it is still a good idea for parents to keep an eye on whom their children are talking to and to have open conversations with their children about what is and is not appropriate in these contexts.

Despite the potential for danger, children and teens are spending more and more time playing video games online with their friends. This method of communication is helpful in fostering connections while building the skills and confidence necessary to interact face-to-face. Although steps should be taken to ensure children’s safety online, online video games are a large part of the lives of young people and should be recognized as a source of social support.

In addition to the benefits listed above, video games are an art form like any other. Thoughtful games can be as enlightening as walking through an art museum or watching a musical on Broadway. 

Video Games as Art

Video games are a unique art form. Since their creation, game developers have taken advantage of the medium’s interactivity to give players an experience that cannot be replicated by more traditional art forms. 

The 1980 classic arcade game Missile Command was an early attempt at using video games as a form of artistic expression. Players launch pixelated projectiles to intercept missiles before they reach the six cities at the bottom of the screen. 

Dave Theurer, the game’s creator, crafted the game to provide a specific experience. He insisted that players not be allowed to retaliate or launch offensive missiles of their own. Players would never win, only prolong defeat. 

Even though the era’s technology limited its ability to elicit the dread the creator aimed for, it gave players direct responsibility for protecting these tiny cities. This could not be accomplished with a noninteractive medium. When buildings crumbled, it was because the player failed. This is fundamentally different from any other art form and gives artists a fascinating new way to give the audience a unique experience.

Morality and Forced Choices

Video games present an excellent opportunity to explore our own humanity by offering tough ethical choices. I faced one of these challenges while playing as Geralt in The Witcher III: Wild Hunt. In the game, a woman approached me and told him about her son, a soldier at war. “He served in the Nazairi cavalry. I must find him, I simply must,” she pleaded. “He wrote letters to me, to his fiancé regularly. They would come in the post each week. Then, suddenly, they stopped…I require someone’s help to find Hrodeberth or his body. Coin is no object.” 

I agreed, went to Hrodeberth’s last known location, and found his corpse, along with several others, hanging from makeshift gallows. In his pocket, I found a handwritten note addressed to his mother. 

“I have failed my brothers at arms. In the hour of truth, my courage failed me. I ask no forgiveness, for I deserve none. I ask only that you pray for me.” Apparently he was executed for desertion. 

When I returned to his frantic mother, the game offered me a choice: I could give her the note and tell the truth, or I could conceal the note and tell her that he died honorably in battle. 

I was surprised by the difficulty of this decision. After putting down my controller to weigh my options, I chose to lie so she could believe that her son died a hero. That decision helped me clarify my own values in a way that I would not have encountered in my own life. Although I value honesty and believe in honoring the wishes of the deceased, doing so seemed cruel here. 

Dozens of similar quandaries fill this game: Should I kill the last of a species of dragon in order to prevent it from eating more humans? Is it right to stop a town from practicing an often lethal coming-of-age ritual, or should their culture be respected? 

An interactive medium like a video game can create clarifying, learning experiences such as these. Yes, viewers can tune into the Netflix adaptation of the Witcher series, but watching Geralt make choices falls short. His decisions come across as inevitable and inform the audience only about his internal life. When I play The Witcher, I make these choices. 

In Far Cry 4, players help a southeast Asian militia fight a dictator in a fictional southeast Asian country. Midway through the game, the group’s two leaders disagree on how to use their group’s resources. One of the rebels explains, “Soldiers are about to attack one of our camps. Amita thinks our priority should be the information the fighters have gathered. Sabal thinks saving our people is more important.” 

You can either go to the rebel camp and help them fend off the attack or sneak into enemy territory to retrieve intelligence documents from the bodies of your fallen spies. You cannot do both. 

I chose to prioritize the intelligence, hoping that it would save lives in the long run. When I returned to base camp, I learned that our camp was overrun. Nine soldiers died. Sabal was furious at my decision. “Was that intel from the camp worth it? Did you even read it? Because I’ve got some intelligence for you, and it’s solid. Nine of my men are dead, good men you let die.”

However, the intelligence I retrieved warned us of a planned attack on a monastery. This gave us time to prepare and we were able to save a number of civilians. Did I make the right choice? 

Many games feature morality systems like these. Bioshock forces the player to choose between killing or exorcizing a series of demonic young girls. Returning them to normal is the clear moral choice, but it puts the player at a severe strategic disadvantage. 

Undertale takes this further, allowing the player to choose whether to destroy or befriend every antagonist in the game. The game gradually punishes bloodthirsty players. Allies become foes, enemies become more vicious, and the character becomes less human. 

In contrast, players can accomplish nearly every challenge in Undertale without fighting. They can also calm the monsters that jump out of bushes through compliments or helping them solve minor problems. 

Many peaceful players who decide to replay the game to experience the violent route never reach the ending. It is too distressing for them to hurt characters they have bonded with. 

From Mass Effect 2:

It is the year 2183. Humanity has discovered interstellar travel and joined the Citadel Council, the galactic equivalent of the United Nations. As the commander of a military starship and special agent of the Council, you must make decisions to support your crew, humanity, and the galaxy. 

The galaxy is facing an existential crisis: a godlike invading species will conquer the galaxy in a few days if nothing is done. A sentient group of androids named “the geth” plans to assist the invading force and must be stopped. 

You sneak aboard the geth ship and fight your way to the central core. You are prepared to destroy the ship and all of the geth heretics. Shortly before arming the bomb, you learn of a computer virus capable of reprogramming the androids en masse. Instead of killing them, you can choose instead to unleash this virus, effectively brainwashing the entire civilization into siding with you. 

Is it better to destroy the geth or to change their minds against their will? You could save their lives and gain a powerful ally, but doing so would violate their autonomy and free will. 

Some of these ethical quandaries are from video games. Some are from famous works of art or thought experiments. Can you guess the source? 

1. To prevent a war that would kill thousands, an android decides to secretly kill and replace the hostile leader of a neighboring village with a synthetic doppelganger. It works, but now a cult leader is starting to talk openly about destroying the nearby town. If this is the only way to prevent war and the destruction of the town, should you assist the android in “replacing” him as well? 

2. You are a border patrol agent tasked with determining whether passports and entry permits are legitimate. A refugee approaches with no documents but pleads with you that if you don’t let her in, her country’s tyrannical government will execute her. This would risk your job and therefore your family’s financial security. Should you help her sneak into the country? 

3. You are the captain of a spaceship, and a terrible accident has fused two of your crew members together. They are now one individual with his own thoughts and opinions. The medical procedure to re-separate the two would destroy this new, unified individual. Would it be right to do so to restore the original two? 

4. You wake up from a weeks-long coma to discover that your circulatory system has been connected to another victim of the same car crash. This was done in order to keep him alive long enough to heal. The procedure needs several months to complete. Are you obligated to remain tethered to this man until he can survive on his own? 

5.  As a mortician, you honor the wishes of the deceased whenever possible. The body of a young suicide victim arrives at the funeral home, and his will states that he be cremated. His family, however, has power of attorney and they want an open-casket funeral, writing to you that “He was, clearly, not thinking right and didn’t know what he really wanted.” Is it ethical to honor the family’s wishes? 

Answers

1. From the video game Fallout 4

2. From the video game Papers, Please

3. From the Star Trek: Voyager episode “Tuvix”

4. From Judith Jarvis Thomson’s essay “A Defense of Abortion”

5. From the video game A Mortician’s Tale

Avatars and Identity

Key Points:

• Playing as a fictional character allows us to explore our own identities.

• This is particularly true for trans and non-binary young people, who can use them as a safe place to “try on” different identities.

“Are you a boy or a girl?”

Kris frowned at the screen, unsure how to respond.

Was Kris a boy or a girl? Did either category feel right?

Kris hadn’t expected an existential crisis when grabbing Pokémon off the shelf that morning. But the game’s introductory question had raised a question that Kris had been pondering recently. The game was simply asking what hair and clothing to assign to the protagonist. But what answer felt right? What was Kris’s gender?

Kris is not alone in this journey. Many gamers uncover key elements of their identities while playing video games. Because video games require gamers to either play as an existing character or design their own, they very often spend time playing as other genders or making conscious decisions about gender.

Video Games and Gender

Most video games have a male protagonist, forcing every player to assume the role of a man for many hours. Most boys and men never notice this discrepancy; male protagonists are taken for granted.

However, some gamers find it challenging to play as a man, for reasons they might not understand. For them, games with female protagonists somehow feel better. In-game characters calling the player a “her” delights them.

A recent therapy client named Alex noticed this while playing Horizon Zero Dawn. Destroying mechanical velociraptors as Aloy, the series’ female protagonist, was exhilarating, but Alex couldn’t explain why.

Alex explained that it was more than the usual fun of overcoming a fast-paced challenge. Aloy’s long red hair, her clothing, even the way that she stood felt liberating.

Eventually, Alex discovered why playing as Aloy felt so affirming. Alex admired Aloy’s courage and skill but also felt deeply connected to the character’s gender. Alex had always been called a man but wasn’t sure why this felt uncomfortable. Exploring this was Alex’s first step toward understanding herself as a trans woman.

Experimentation

Assuming the role of another can be illuminating. Gamers in particular can learn about themselves by paying attention to what aspects of the characters they connect with.

Do I cringe when my character bosses others around? Do I feel happy when caring for fictional children? Perhaps I value kindness and would enjoy being a parent. If I am happiest when my character rescues others, should I consider a career as a firefighter or EMT?

Some take advantage of this power to explore parts of themselves in a safe environment. If someone assigned male at birth decides to wear a dress to school, their parents and other students might respond with questions or violence. If that same person decided to click on a dress in Animal Crossing, no one would know.

One writer explained, “In real life, I couldn’t play around with how I presented. I knew kids who got beat up for daring to paint their nails. I wasn’t interested (nor brave) enough to confront that reality. In place of doing so, I banished those thoughts into the deepest confines of my mind. Playing as a girl in a game was a small thing, but it let me assert some control over how I presented myself—in a way that eight-year-old me could never do in person.”

Some games have begun to be more inclusive by removing gender labels entirely. Early Pokémon games explicitly asked for one’s gender to determine which character model to use. Recent games in the series instead ask players to “choose a look” or "choose an appearance." (Fig. 3)

Figure 3. Character selection screens from Pokémon Black (2010) and Pokémon Legends: Arceus (2022)

This provides gamers who are questioning their gender the opportunity to avoid selecting a label of which they are still uncertain. It is also more inclusive of non-binary people who fit neither the “boy” nor “girl” categories. These systems aren’t perfect—the eight pictures still imply a binary choice, with boys on the left and girls on the right—but it’s a step forward.

The Sims 4, a life simulation game, recently gave players the ability to add scars to their characters’ chests. These specific scars indicate that the character has undergone masculinizing chest reconstruction, or “top surgery,” which removes one's breasts. The same update added binders—clothing which compress one’s chest to reduce mental discomfort with having visible breasts. These inclusive features were widely praised by the trans community.

Some therapists even “prescribe” playing as different genders in video games to clients who are unsure of their gender. Reflecting on how it feels when playing as different genders is often revealing. Clients who find the experience of playing as a woman more affirming than playing as a man might spend time afterward thinking about their own gender. Why did moving a virtual woman around feel so good? Why didn’t controlling a male character provide the same happiness or comfort?

Worried parents should note that playing video games cannot make people transgender. They can only help that person understand who they always were.

Online Community

Video games also invite players to a broad range of online communities. Many online groups for queer video game enthusiasts provide informal support networks. These are inclusive and safe places to anonymously discuss gender without fear of “outing” oneself or sharing one’s identity with others who might not be supportive.

People who have never met any openly queer people can go to these online spaces to describe their emotions and get support from others. This virtual support can last as long as they wish, regardless of whether they decide to share their identity with family or friends. Sharing your internal life with others is crucial for your mental health.

Additionally, these communities enable people to discover labels they were unaware of. Several of my clients vividly remember learning in online spaces that non-binary people exist. This was revelatory for them—the way that they felt inside had a name and a history and a culture to connect with.

Because games help us explore and develop our identity and belief system, they are a valuable tool for parents to help their children grow. In order to make decisions to support their parenting, caregivers must first establish their own values. In the following chapter, we will discuss how to reflect on these and use them to guide parenting decisions. 

Conversation Starters for Kids:

• Do you think video games can be educational? How are they different from learning from a teacher in school? 

• Have you ever learned anything from a video game? What was it?

• What kind of life lessons have you noticed in video games? 

• When you’re talking online, are you usually talking to people you’ve met in real life, friends you’ve met online, or strangers?

• What do you and your friends talk about when you’re playing video games? Is it usually just about the game, or do you talk about other things too? 

• Do you think video games can be art? What is the best example of that you’ve seen or played? 

• Have you ever had to make a hard choice in a game? What made it so tough? 

• When you’re playing a game with multiple characters, how do you decide which one to pick? 

• Who are your favorite characters? What do you have in common with them? 

Chapter 4: Leading with Values

Key Points:

• Spending time assessing and reflecting on one’s parenting values can clarify difficult decisions. 

• Children learn from their parents’ example more than their words. 

One of the most effective ways to make parenting decisions is to determine what your values are and what values you want to instill in your children. Values guide our actions, and the toughest decisions arise when two core values conflict. 

When I discuss this with my clients, I introduce the topic with a hypothetical: “Let’s say your friend asks you what you think about their shirt. Your opinion is that it looks awful. What values are in conflict right now?” Even my youngest clients are quick to identify that honesty and kindness are at odds here: I want to tell this friend the truth because I value honesty, but I also want to spare their feelings because I value kindness. 

I have a deck of “values cards'' in my office which I use to help people prioritize their most important. These include friendship, responsibility, self-esteem, justice, generosity, and many others. Everyone shares most of these values, but choosing their top five or ten is challenging and illuminating. 

Considering what your values are and which are in conflict can clarify situations, particularly when making parenting decisions about video games. Technology changes, but your values are steady.

Try sorting the following values into the three columns I have provided. You likely believe in most or all of the qualities, but limit yourself to five “Very Important” ones. 

My children will be successful. (Achievement)

My children will explore the world and try new things. (Adventure)

My children will respect and obey those in power. (Authority)

My children will make their own decisions. (Autonomy)

My children will empathize with and care for others. (Compassion)

My children will persevere in difficult moments. (Challenge)

My children will follow social conventions to make others feel comfortable. (Civility)

My children will prioritize making the world a better place. (Contribution)

My children will work well with others. (Cooperation)

My children will express themselves. (Creativity)

My children will grow up to be people others can rely on. (Dependability)

My children will maintain close connections with relatives. (Family)

My children will form meaningful connections with others. (Friendship)

My children will take care of their bodies. (Health)

My children will tell the truth unless it would harm another. (Honesty)

My children will be able to support themselves without relying on others. (Independence)

My children will work hard and be productive. (Industry)

My children will enjoy learning. (Knowledge)

My children will live in accordance with my faith’s ideals. (Religion)

My children will make decisions to stay secure and protected. (Safety)

My children will be able to manage their own actions. (Self-control)

My children will explore romantic relationships in age-appropriate ways. (Sexuality)

Not Important

Important

Very Important

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Next, take some time to reflect on how these values align with your parenting. What could you adjust to make your life more closely match what you believe in? 

For example, a parent who values authority, safety, and order would likely decide that they should monitor and limit their children’s online activity. A parent who values independence and children learning from their own mistakes might not. 

What if your child starts spending earnings from a job on in-game purchases? Values at odds with each other likely include independence, responsibility, and self-control. You might let your children spend this money as they wish, trusting that they will learn responsibility through making these purchases and not having enough money later for something they want. You could teach the same lesson about saving by requiring that their child put part of their money each paycheck into a savings account which you monitor. 

Should you allow your child to play video games with friends for several hours a day? Relevant values for this conundrum include friendship, family, achievement, mental and physical health, and independence. Do your values lead you to let them game with friends so that they can build relationships? Or would you rather they spend less time online and more time with family, practicing a skill, or studying? Or going to the park? 

Keep your parenting values list in mind as you read the rest of this book. The solution to many dilemmas depends on your parenting style and the morals you hope to impart to your children. 

For example, consider how your values help you answer questions like these. 

Should I:

1. Let my children spend their money on in-game purchases?

2. Let my children play violent games? 

3. Allow my child to play a game with nudity or sexual content? To what degree?

4. Allow my children to swear while playing games with their friends?

5. Let my child communicate with strangers online?

6. Let my child play video games on a school night?

7. Let my child play games that teach values other than my own?

8. Insist that my child finish their homework and chores before starting to play video games?

None of these have clear or correct answers. You can raise well-adjusted and happy young adults with any combination of values. You know what’s best for your children. 

Below are three examples of very different parents. Each is a combination of real parents I have worked with over the years. They are all wonderful parents with children who I know will grow up into healthy and happy adults, but they all care about very different aspects of their children’s futures. As you read their stories, reflect on how much you agree or disagree with their decisions. 

Do you share their values? Do you agree with their parenting philosophy? If not, what would you do differently? 

Leah was a rebellious teenager. She used to sneak out late at night to break into abandoned buildings with friends, smoke pot, and complain about her parents’ rules. These early experiences helped her gain independent living skills and confidence. Now that she has her own children, she hopes they will learn by making mistakes like she did. 

Her five most important parenting values are adventure, challenge, dependability, independence, and self-control. 

When Leah pictures her children thirty years from now, she hopes that they will have gained wisdom and strength by overcoming challenges. She wants them to have overcome hardship. She allows her children as much freedom as she can responsibly allow. 

She lets her children play games and watch movies with nudity earlier than most parents; she does not believe that bodies are inherently sexual or harmful to see. When they are old enough to understand what sex is and its importance in most romantic relationships, she lets her children view media with non-explicit sexual situations. She knows that curious teens will always find ways to access pornography, so she made sure to explain to her children that what they see online is not realistic. She taught both her son and daughter the importance of consent and how to protect themselves emotionally and physically whenever they feel ready to have sex. 

She lets her children play video games whenever they like as long as they are succeeding in school and have other interests. If they stay up all night gaming and can’t wake up for school the next day, they’re the ones who have to live with the consequences. They will make a better decision next time. 

She also lets them use their allowance money however they want. Other than on holidays, she doesn’t buy them much besides essentials. If they ask for an expensive computer, she helps them plan a budget for themselves for the next few months. If they spend frivolously, they simply won’t get the expensive item they want. 

Leah knows that by supporting her children while they make their own mistakes, they will be able to solve any problem that comes their way. 

Shane is a successful businessman and devout Catholic. He believes that the best way for his children to succeed in the world is to listen to authority figures and to practice self-discipline. 

He values authority, compassion, family, religion, and safety. 

He does not allow his children to play games or watch movies with nudity. He believes that media with nudity, sex, and drugs are reserved for adults and that his children can make this decision for themselves when they are older. He relies on Common Sense Media (commonsensemedia.org) to vet media and help him make informed decisions for his family. 

Shane wants his children to understand the value of hard work and practice financial responsibility. They earn money by doing chores around the house and are allowed to spend one third of the money as they wish. Another third goes into a savings account he helps them set up for bigger, more thoughtful purchases. The rest goes toward college. 

He wants them to balance leisure with productivity, so he helps them practice this early. He allows them to play video games once their homework and chores are done and insists they turn off all screens one hour before bedtime so that their brains can be ready for sleep. 

Shane monitors his children’s online activity within reason. He makes sure that they only chat with people they know in real life and that they are not visiting websites with content they are not ready for. He does not go through their internet history, but he does make sure he is occasionally in the room while they are gaming with headsets on. He isn’t listening to their conversations, but he’ll notice if they start yelling or talking about something concerning. 

Shane knows that by helping them practice adult life skills while he can support them, he is setting them up for success. 

Sebastian believes that the world needs more kindness. As long as his children are happy, accepting, and have a community of people who love them, he is content. During parent teacher conferences, he doesn’t ask the teachers many questions about academics. He doesn’t need his children to get perfect grades. As long as they are passing their classes, he just wants to know whether they are getting along with the other children. 

He believes in compassion, cooperation, family, friendship, and honesty. 

He lets his children play as many video games as they want as long as they have other interests and have reasonable grades. His only requirements are that they always participate in at least one group extracurricular activity per week. It can be anything that interests them, as long as it involves others. One kid takes dance and art classes, the other plays right field on the school baseball team and plays flute in marching band. 

Sebastian regularly helps his children regulate their emotions and brainstorm how to navigate complex social situations. 

Sebastian knows that as long as they find supportive people and treat others compassionately, they will have lives full of love and community. 

Keep your own values in mind as you read the rest of the book to help guide decisions you make on your kids’ behalf. 

One of the most important ways you can help your children succeed is by leading by example. Some of my clients gripe that their parents yell at them to put down their iPads without looking up from their own phones. Despite what these parents hope for their children, they are demonstrating that adults use technology all day. Your example will always be more powerful than any rules or expectations you set.

Try to be the adult you hope your children will be. If you want your kid to read, they need to see you reading for pleasure. Kids who see their parents donate to charity grow up donating to charity. If you take walks regularly, your kids will understand that to be a healthy and relaxing way to spend an evening. Parents who spend most of their time on the couch teach their children that sitting for many hours a day is acceptable. 

So look back at the values you listed on page xxxx. What would an adult who lives in accordance with those values do every day? Would they go out to a bar with friends or go home and play board games? Would they go to weekly religious services? Join a softball league? Talk to their own parents on the phone?

Your kids will not take every lesson to heart. They will surprise you with their choices and sometimes disappoint you. Most children grow up completely differently than their parents ever imagined. But even when they rebel and make decisions you disagree with, they will always remember the example you set and the values you gave them. 

Conversation Starters for Kids:

• How do you decide who to spend time with? What do they do that shows you that they’re a good person to be around?

• Would you rather run a company or work for someone else?

• Do you prefer group projects or doing your own work at school? 

• What do you think makes a person successful? 

• Do you want to be famous? Why? 

• What parts of your future do you think are most important for me? What have I done to show you that? 

Chapter 5: How Do Games Make Money?

Key Points:

• Games use two main models to earn money: requiring players to pay up front or offering optional purchases in a free game.

• To maximize profits, free-to-play game developers use strategies from consumer psychology and gambling to maximize profits.

“Did you hear about the horse armor in Elder Scrolls?” 

I looked up from my sandwich in the high school cafeteria at my amused friend. 

“They’re letting you buy armor for your horse in the game with real money.” 

I groaned. “Are they serious? Is it better than the other armor or something?” 

“No! It doesn’t even do anything, it just looks cool! You have to spend like three bucks just to make your horse look different.” 

We dismissed it as an inevitable failure. We had no idea that we were laughing at one of the most significant milestones in video game history. 

Until that point, video games had always cost a flat fee. Games for portable systems like the Game Boy cost $30, and games for home consoles cost $60. We all took this for granted; it was a law of the universe. 

The Elder Scrolls’ publisher Bethesda was about to discover a gold mine. Gamers who bought video games for full price would also pay for more content. 

Other studios realized that these microtransactions were more profitable than selling the game itself. Several studios started giving their games away and focused on producing and promoting in-game purchases. 

Free-to-play games are the most profitable, by far, compared to games with other monetization strategies.Tetris is one of the highest grossing games of all time. With over 100 million copies sold, it has grossed about $1.5 billion dollars since 1988, adjusting for inflation. Honor of Kings, a free-to-play game, has earned ten times as much as Tetris since 2015. 

Skins

The most common categories of microtransactions are called skins. These cosmetic upgrades to characters or items do not provide any strategic advantage. These can be earned by accomplishing in-game tasks or purchased from the developers or other players. 

The most popular skins make the player look cooler or funnier to other players who interact with them, like a skull mask or pink rabbit ears in an intense war game. This appeals to young people who want to stand out and show off their personality. The developers of the free-to-play game Fortnite used skins to make $9 billion in the game’s first two years. 

Video games like Fortnite have digitized the social pressure students feel about clothing choices. Middle school and elementary school students in particular tease one another about skins. Use this as an opportunity to share your values. If you value non-conformity, explain why they should refuse to buy expensive outfits and help them learn to stand up for themselves. If you value social acceptance, help them save money to purchase skins they want and encourage them to reflect about why this can be meaningful. 

You should also be wary of deceptive practices related to in-game purchases like these. Many stores sell boxes that look exactly like games, but are not (Fig. 4). You can purchase a game-sized box labeled “Fortnite” in a store for $20. The box does not contain Fortnite, which is free. It contains a digital code to download ten skins and a handful of digital currency. Well-meaning parents and grandparents have been tricked into purchasing boxes for children, believing them to be the game itself. 

Figure 4. Two items for sale in stores. Sonic Superstars contains a full game; Anime Legends Fortnite is an empty box with a code to download ten skins.

Battle Passes

Every few months, Fortnite introduces a new series of challenges for players to complete. Each season, players may work toward objectives like “find twenty hidden tokens” or “destroy objects at ten different outposts.” Each time they complete one of these goals, they earn a new item or skin to use in the game. Players who choose to pay for a “Battle Pass” during a season earn additional rewards. Battle passes (sometimes named differently in different games) allow people to access the coolest and best items for about ten dollars each season. 

Some are happy to pay developers a few dollars a month to receive bonuses and support the creation of new content. Others hate feeling nickel-and-dimed and refuse. 

Paying to Win

Game developers have begun introducing artificial barriers into their games. If you play any games on your phone, you have likely encountered these. 

For example, each attempt to beat a level in Candy Crush Saga reduces the number of chances the player has. These are called lives. A player’s reservoir of lives refills over time, but can be purchased with real money. Building a tower to defend your village in Clash of Clans can take days or weeks of real time, but it can be expedited with real money (Fig. 5). 

Figure 5. This Archer Tower will improve in twelve hours. Note the green “Finish Now” option at the bottom. This would let me finish the upgrade instantly for about $2.

Industry professionals call these “Inconvenient gameplay elements.” The developers for each of these games have slowed the game for all players, knowing that a small number will pay to circumvent the waiting periods. One industry paper for game developers explained, “impatience has become a central part of game design, especially in mobile and social games.” 

This is especially predatory for young children, who have not yet developed the ability to delay gratification but have access to their parents’ credit cards. 

The free-to-play game Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery features an egregious example of this early in the game. The game leads the player through an exciting story of being accepted to a magical school, meeting familiar characters, and attending classes. 

The developers did not want to annoy players too early, so the first two “chapters” of the game can be played without needing to wait to refill energy reserves, a finite resource that replenishes over the course of several hours. 

The game’s antagonist soon tricks the player into being trapped by a nasty tangle of vines called Devil’s Snare. As the player is pulled into the plant and a vine encircles their neck, the game prompts the player to tap the screen to free themselves (Fig. 6). However, each tap consumes a bit of the character’s energy. In order to escape, the player must use more energy than their reserves can hold, so the player has also fallen into a trap. 

Figure 6. The player is being strangled by vines, but has expended all of their energy.

At this point, the game offers an option. The player may wait for an hour or two for their energy to refill naturally, or they may pay to continue immediately (Fig. 7). The scene resets eight hours after the player begins the scene. The player must start over if they have not yet escaped. 

Figure 7. This message appears when attempting to struggle after one’s virtual energy is spent.

Few children see their character strangled and happily turn the game off to wait for a few hours...especially when shown a button to skip that wait for a few dollars of their parents’ money. The “free” game has earned over $300 million like this, a few dollars at a time. 

These practices are often criticized by gamers as exploitative and predatory, especially when in games targeting children. Despite this, nearly all free-to-play games contain mechanics like this. Almost every free game I have tried either contains an onslaught of advertisements or pushes players toward buying microtransactions. 

All modern consoles and phones allow users to prohibit purchases without parental permission. In the device’s settings, look for language like “In-App Purchases,” “iTunes & App Store Purchases,” “Spending Restrictions,” “Monthly Spending Limit,” or “Ask for my passkey to make purchases.” The specific language will vary by device, but is easy to search for online. Just Google the name of the device plus “turn off microtransactions” or “disable in-app purchases.” 

However, your kids will find a way around these rules. I have spoken with teens who smirk and admit week after week that they have found yet another way to bypass the lock. More than one has admitted to me that they did so by asking for a small purchase and then surreptitiously filming their parents as they typed in the password. When they slowed down the footage, they could reverse engineer the code by analyzing their parents’ finger movements. Others reset the device to create new accounts or simply swiped their parents’ credit cards to buy gift cards from the local convenience store. 

In other words, adding parental controls will slow your children, but will not teach them the skill of managing their spending. A more effective way to respond is by helping your children understand how the developers are manipulating them. This is discussed further in chapter xxx. 

Loot Boxes

A loot box is a set of virtual items locked in a digital container. The game randomizes the included skins and other rewards each time. These boxes are either unlocked through completing in-game challenges or by purchasing them with real money. The odds are often highly stacked against players. Most loot boxes contain everyday items. The rarest items might appear only once in every ten thousand boxes. Because players spend real money for a one in ten thousand chance to get a specific item, many critics and politicians decry loot boxes as gambling. Because of this, several countries prohibit selling them to minors. 

Game publishers like Electronic Arts (EA) insist that randomized rewards are not gambling but “surprise mechanics” to make the game more exciting for players. Speaking to UK’s Parliament, the company’s representatives compared loot boxes to opening a pack of trading cards or the small toy inside a chocolate Kinder egg. 

The game Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms contains loot boxes called chests. These chests contain characters and weapons to use in battle, fun outfits for those characters, and potions to aid them in battle. Although these are optional, they provide a significant advantage to players who pay to open many of them. 

Players can gather chests by watching the game’s official live-streaming channel online, by completing challenges in the game, by signing up for emailed newsletters, or by purchasing them with real money. As I write this, players can buy chests for $5 each, characters for $10, and large packages of characters and chests for up to $55 each. 

I don’t recall ever purchasing a loot box, skin, or item with my own money, but many others spend hundreds or thousands of dollars over time. Jack Black explained on The Tonight Show in 2015 that his son recently spent $3,000 on in-app purchases. 

“He loves this one game he just discovered…the app is for free, but then I’m just checking my emails one day and there’s thirty emails of receipts for this app. And it’s ‘in-app purchases’ where they get you…you need to need to buy diamonds and jewels, and it costs ninety-nine cents for a diamond, but of course my son doesn’t know, he’s just like ‘I’m gonna get the big sack of diamonds.’ It’s a hundred bucks a throw. A hundred bucks! This game is designed for children. It’s marketed to children, and then there’s a hundred dollar thing in-app? Do the math, there’s like thirty receipts on my computer…It’s like three thousand mother-lovin’ dollars.”

Let’s Make Some Money!

Now that you understand the basic techniques game developers use to squeeze money from players, let’s practice by making our own money-making machine. 

We need to start with a platform and a game to add these mechanics to. The most common and profitable ways to do this are to either make a puzzle game like Candy Crush or an action game like Genshin Impact or Fortnite. Making a mobile game will maximize the number of people who can access the game – 90% of Americans have a smartphone, but only 26% of Americans have a new-generation gaming console. For this exercise, let’s make a puzzle game for smartphones. 

This can be any kind of puzzle, but we want one which can be solved quickly; the faster users beat a level, the more often we can nudge the player to spend money. Let’s also make the game free to download so we attract as many players as possible. Very few people are willing to pay even one dollar for a mobile game. Let’s make one which challenges players to sort objects into boxes by color. Sorting puzzles are very popular, as they’re easy for anyone to understand and satisfying to play. 

Many games put an unskippable advertisement before each level, but this frustrates many players away from the game. We also don’t want to seem overtly greedy. Let’s instead let players opt into advertisements for a reward. Most players feel annoyed when forced to sit through a 30-second advertisement. But if it’s optional and offers a tangible benefit, many will choose to do so. 

Because we are making a puzzle game, we want to make it so players can lose. If we gave them unlimited moves, the game would offer no challenge and will give us many more tools to exploit players. Let’s give players a certain number of times they can switch objects with one another before losing the level. Whenever they fail to beat the level, we take one “life” away. We’ll give everyone five chances and represent them with hearts at the top of the screen. 

Most games with this mechanic replenish lives over time. Let’s refill one life every thirty minutes. That way, we make losing a little bit painful. If they lose five times, they have to wait thirty minutes to try again. We can let players regain one life by watching an advertisement or five for one dollar. 

We know from psychological research that people more readily spend more abstract currency. People spend more money with credit cards than they do with cash, because paying with physical money feels more like losing money. With a mobile game, we can take it a step further and convert money to something even more divorced from reality, like virtual gems or gold bars. Spending five gems feels easier than spending one dollar, even when the two are equal in value. Let’s make it even more separate by making it difficult to estimate how much real money someone is spending in-game. 

If Liza spends seven dollars to get forty gems, how much money is she using when she buys an extra life for five gems? 

Of course, we’ll also use classic consumer psychology to encourage larger purchases with better deals. Why give us two dollars for ten gems when you can give us three for twenty? Or ten for one hundred? 

Let’s also add social elements to the game. We’ll insert a leaderboard of a player’s friends or strangers and remind them often that the player who has completed the most levels at the end of the day will receive ten gems. Another leaderboard will note who has beaten the most levels in a week for a larger prize. We can even fake the leaderboard by pitting players against randomly generated names whose score increases gradually over time. We can tweak this programming so the top player on the board is always just a little bit ahead of the player until they spend money or watch advertisements. 

Now that we’re showing players’ pictures to one another, some players will want to customize their picture. We will generously offer the ability to put a colored border around their picture, write their name on the leaderboard in bold, or even add sparkles or other animations, as long as they give us a few gems for the privilege. 

We can also let players ask one another for resources so that their real friends might also encourage them to play. We need to add push notifications too, let’s send a reminder to every player every morning that their friends are counting on them. 

So far, this will earn us a lot of money, but we want even more. 

Let’s add limited-time events to make sure players feel pressured to play often. If they don’t beat twenty-five levels by the end of the week, they won’t get the new badge, bonus gems, and ability to customize the colors of the boxes. We can even give some of the fake accounts these new, fun colors to make the players feel envious. 

We need to emphasize that if they don’t beat enough levels at the end of the week, they will never get this opportunity again. This works particularly well on children. 

And daily quests! Every day, we’ll give them a few tasks which will reward them with a gem each. Let’s add another push notification every evening if they haven’t completed them all. 

Streaks too! If players log in every day, they can get increasingly valuable prizes. If they open the app every day for a whole month, we’ll give them thirty gems. If players beat five levels in a day, they’ll get a prize. If they beat ten levels without losing, they can get bonus gems. That way, we make sure many players play at least five levels every day and pay money when they’re about to lose on their tenth level. For some people, especially children, it can feel rational to pay a dollar or two to receive the reward for beating ten levels if it is presented as a “streak-saver.” 

We can even use randomness to help make the game feel more like gambling. Perhaps the reward received for beating ten levels in a row is a free spin on a virtual roulette wheel. We can manipulate the odds of the wheel however we want and even set the animation to look like you almost won the jackpot, but the wheel spun one space too far. Players will feel like they almost won, so many will want to try again. We’ll let them pay a few gems to spin the wheel again. They were not actually close to winning, but our animation made it seem like they were. 

Because this is a mobile game, we can also access an unprecedented amount of data on each player’s behavior. We need to hire people to analyze what makes people stop playing. Do 15% of players stop when they reach level five? Maybe we need to make that one easier. We can even offer one set of prices in the shop for half of our players and another for the other half. Once we analyze which prices earned us more money, we can set those for everyone. 

At this point, you’re probably feeling exhausted just reading about these tricks. Download any free-to-play game on your phone and try it for ten minutes. See how many you can identify. Candy Crush has nearly all of them, which is one reason it has earned game developers more than twenty billion dollars. 

Downloadable Content (DLC)

I do not spend money on microtransactions. I don’t find cosmetic changes to characters or items exciting, and I avoid games that give a strategic advantage to players who buy upgrades. reward paying players with a strategic advantage. 

However, I do often purchase DLC. DLC, short for Downloadable Content, or “DLC.” This refers to a different type of digital content. After a game’s release, some game developers continue creating content for the game, including additional challenges and game modes. 

For example, the fantastic game The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild costs $60. After defeating the villain threatening the world, players can choose to spend an additional $20 for an “expansion pass.” Players who have purchased the pass gain several new challenges and unlock the ability to replay the game with tougher enemies. I was happy to purchase this, because I felt I was getting something substantial for my money. 

In short, games used to cost a one-time expenditure of $60, but now they cost as much as players choose to spend, a few dollars at a time. Over time, many players spend more money than they realize, sometimes tens of thousands of dollars. Some adults report that microtransactions were so difficult to resist that they spent their rent money and came up short at the end of the month. This kind of spending was impossible until just a few years ago. 

Whether to purchase expansion passes or other microtransactions is a personal choice and is an important discussion to have with children. Do you support spending money for them to look cool in a game they play with friends, or do you believe it is frivolous? Is it acceptable for your children to spend a few dollars to skip an in-game timer, or do you want them to wait? How do you feel about buying a game and then giving the developers even more money a few months later? Reasonable people can disagree on each of these. How to have these conversations is discussed in the next chapter. 

How to Talk to Children about Money

I gazed up at the toy store shelf at the new Zelda game and asked my mother if I could have it. 

“You have money,” she suggested. 

I knew this meant, “You have permission to buy it, but you will have to use your own money.” 

I had enough money saved up to buy the game, but I had regretted purchases before. I might not have enough money to buy something else if I bought this one. I considered my options as we continued through the toy store so I could help pick out a birthday present for my brother. 

I decided not to buy the game. I could wait until my birthday and put it on my wishlist. 

My siblings and I became responsible for purchasing our own toys and games when we started earning an allowance. Each week, we had a checklist of age-appropriate chores to complete. If we did all of the chores at least five days in a week, we earned some money. The amount of money they paid us increased as we grew older. 

This system avoided countless conflicts at home. If we skipped our chores, we were simply choosing to have less money. By not helping out around the house, we were punishing ourselves. These responsibilities were naturally reinforced at every store. If we had been sweeping the kitchen floor, taking the garbage to the curb, and keeping our rooms tidy, we were rewarded with financial freedom. If we did not, we regretted not following the rules. We would have to wait until a holiday to get something we wanted. 

As a result, my parents did not have to pester us about chores. We were reminded of them after dinner, but they did not have to nag us about them. 

If we didn’t do them, we simply wouldn’t get paid at the end of the week. This also silenced our whining at stores. We learned a valuable lesson every time we wanted to buy something frivolous. We quickly learned from poor decisions and spent money thoughtfully. 

This was not a groundbreaking strategy, but it worked remarkably well. Many parents use a similar approach today. Some even help their children set up a supervised bank account linked to a debit card. Your kid can choose to spend their money on in-game purchases, but they won’t be able to afford that cool new game unless they follow the rules and also learn to save. 

Through this process, they should learn moderation by the time they are old enough to get a job of their own. 

Your values should guide the specifics of this system. Consider the following: 

• Do they earn money through chores, grades, following the rules at school, or something else? 

• Must they pay for social activities, like concert tickets or admission to an amusement park with friends?

• Should they pay for their own food sometimes, such as buying candy or getting coffee at Starbucks with friends? 

• Will you talk through their financial choices with them, or let them make mistakes? 

Righteous Anger

Young people, especially during puberty, hate being manipulated and told what to do. Every parent reading this book knows this, both from childhood memories and from raising their own children. Teenage rebellion is a powerful tool. Savvy parents can use this to help their children recognize tactics games use to empty their wallets. 

You can find most of the same strategies on any shopping website. The next time you search for a product online, see how many you can identify. Watch for countdown timers with special deals, “limited time offers,” site-wide discounts, prices ending in .99, and claims that others have the same item in their cart. Game companies use these same tools to nudge gamers toward in-game purchases. 

One game I enjoy is particularly full of these gimmicks. Below is a screenshot from the in-game store (Fig. 8). See how many you can spot! 

Figure 8. A screenshot from Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms’ in-game store.

Young people who notice that their favorite games are manipulating them are much less likely to give those games money. You can proactively discuss this with your children by pointing out analogous tricks you experience. Starbucks’ limited-edition mugs are comparable to Fortnite’s seasonal skins in that both are special items which are available for a limited time only. 

So the next time you’re at Starbucks, comment on their selection. “It’s so annoying that they try to get us to buy their stuff by saying they’re only selling it for a couple months. I don’t even like it all that much, but I kind of want it now just because I won’t have another chance. Does that ever happen to you?” 

Or when you see a commercial emphasizing, “A hundred dollar value, now only $49.99!” point out that the item isn’t worth a hundred dollars. “They’re just saying that to make us feel like $50 is a good deal compared to the first number they said. I hate that.” 

This will not only help them become smarter consumers, but will also aim some of their natural skepticism in a useful direction. 

Conversation Starters for Kids:

• Have you ever spent money on microtransactions? What were they? Would you do it again?

• How do you feel about free-to-play games? 

• Do you like unlocking new skins in games? What do you like about it? 

• Have you heard people making fun of people for not having good skins? 

• What do you think about battle passes in games? 

• Do you play any pay-to-win games? 

• Do you think that loot boxes are gambling? 

• Have you ever gotten a really rare drop in a game? What were the odds? 

• Do you like when games release paid DLC? 

• Have you ever stopped playing a game because they kept trying to get you to pay money? 

Chapter 6: Internet Safety

Key Points:

• Video games were originally created by and marketed to men. 

• Despite many valuable contributions to the industry, women and people of color still face discrimination.

How Did Gaming Become Toxic?

Early video games like Pong were marketed toward families. This soon shifted, as marketing departments needed to focus their limited budgets on targeting one demographic. They chose to market toward boys, largely because most of the employees and bosses at game studios were men. 

This quickly became a vicious circle; advertising toward men and boys ensured that most gamers were male. This meant that most people who wanted to work in the gaming industry were male and continued to make decisions which kept women out. 

As the industry evolved, women were sidelined and their contributions ignored. Additionally, women in video games were usually eye candy, a scantily clad vixen to rescue, rather than a character with agency. This all led to a “boy’s only” mentality and a feeling that any interested girls were interlopers. 

Although the proportion of women working as game developers is improving, it is still dominated by men. Only 30% of game developers were women or nonbinary in 2020, up from just 3% in 1989. The gender disparity behind the scenes has contributed to female characters on-screen being underrepresented and oversexualized. This is off-putting to many women, who often state that they feel uncomfortable playing as or viewing women in skimpy clothing with exaggerated body proportions (Fig. 7).

Figure 7. The character Ivy from the Soul Caliber game series.

Additionally, structural issues within games further contribute to harmful game environments. For example, most games have policies stating that they do not tolerate harassment of other players, but very few have an effective way to reinforce this policy. For example, chat boxes are often programmed to prevent users from sending written messages to one another with offensive language, but to our knowledge, no game developers have found a way to prevent threats and slurs from being expressed verbally over a headset.

This creates a cycle - the most obnoxious players can freely discourage women and other minorities from playing by saying and doing harmful things. This leaves only those who can tolerate this behavior.

This means that women often avoid fast-paced games which necessitate verbal communication, as disguising their gender is more difficult and there are few consequences for abusive players. Although nearly half of gamers are women, only 7% of people who play fast-paced first-person shooters like Call of Duty and Valorant are women.

Even when women are not directly targeted by misogynistic attacks, they can still be affected by the culture of a specific game. This “ambient sexual harassment” can involve hearing sexist language and attitudes espoused by other players, highly sexualized characters and stereotypical gender roles within a game, and power structures within groups of players which treat people of different genders unequally. This is particularly stressful for those who fear that they may be the “next target” of the hostility that they witness.

Racism

A few years ago, a Black streamer named silksheets announced that he would try to beat the world record for fastest time to be called a racial slur in the video game Call of Duty. Using gaming slang, he explained how he would try. “So I’ve decided to switch from the ‘BLM’ strat, which is three syllables, to ‘I’m Black,’ which is only two. Should get some pretty good times.” 

By this, he meant that he had previously tried baiting others to call him a slur by saying “BLM (Black Lives Matter).” This time, he would say simply, “I’m Black,” which might improve his time because he would have one fewer syllable to speak while the timer ran. 

He turned his in-game microphone on, said “I’m Black,” and a young voice responded with the N-word in 1.27 seconds. Silksheets cheered that he beat the world record. It took less than two seconds for him to be called a racial slur when he revealed the color of his skin. 

Parents share similar concerns with me about hate speech online. “Whenever I walk by and hear people talking to my kid, I always hear swearing and terrible words.” 

Their children usually agree with their parents, but shrug that exposure to harmful language is unavoidable. Although most games censor inappropriate language in text, I am not aware of any games that have implemented sufficient safeguards in live voice chat. Hateful people face no consequences for their words or actions. 

Sexism

Nearly half of people who play video games are women. Despite this, most women do not feel safe in online spaces. “I’ve almost completely hidden my gender for the past 10 years in online gaming so I could enjoy my hobby,” said one gamer in a 2018 survey. 

Being both a woman and a gamer is a difficult intersection. More than half of “gamer girls” feel they must hide their gender using masculine-sounding usernames or voice-changing headsets. Those who do not hide their identity risk facing sexual and verbal harassment from other players. One woman decided that she would “not [touch] a mic ever without a voice changer” because of this. 

In a study of one online game, women who used voice chat experienced three times more negative and derogatory comments than men did. 77% of women report dealing with unwanted behavior while gaming. 

A popular streamer commented “If I spoke up on any voice chats, I’d immediately hear the dreaded ‘Was that a girl?’ and brace myself for whatever was coming next…[sometimes] it was immediate [sexual] harassment or threats. She soon switched to a masculine-sounding username to avoid this abuse.

Another Black, queer, female streamer has faced severe consequences for existing online. She has endured racial slurs, internet posts of her face edited onto pornographic material, and has even been “swatted” - a form of harassment in which anonymous people send police to a target’s home with a false complaint.

Impact on Mental Health

Navigating a toxic environment, even a virtual one, has demonstrable negative effects on a person’s mental health and overall well-being.

For example, a 2010 survey of almost 2,000 middle school students showed a clear correlation between being bullied online and lower self-esteem. Sexual harassment has also been connected to depression, anxiety, and low self-confidence. This is a constant struggle for female gamers and people of color who often cannot play their favorite games without either hiding their identity or being harassed.

In order to manage these feelings, people typically react in a few ways, most of which continue to harm them. Women gamers often respond by trying to convince themselves that the experience was less hurtful than it was, blaming themselves for picking the wrong game, for not being talented enough at the game, or withdrawing from social environments in which future harm is likely. These defense mechanisms form automatically - human brains have not caught up to the nuances of modern social experiences. Their well-meaning attempts to protect us can often backfire.

That women and people of color play games despite this harassment speaks not only to their tenacity, but also how players benefit from games. Those who play games regularly spend time in online spaces enjoy the camaraderie, healthy competition, stress reduction, excitement, and ability to explore identity that video games provide enough to keep playing, despite needing to spend time and energy dodging insults and threats from other gamers. Hopefully, their presence can continue to improve online spaces and encourage the industry to find ways to protect its employees and fans from harassment.

Parental Controls

Games can be set to allow communication from everyone, only individually selected players, or from no one. Unless I am playing with friends or I need to strategize with teammates, I turn off communication from the general group. I also block anyone whose language sours my experience. 

I recommend that all gamers do the same. I started having more fun when I decided to mute strangers’ microphones, as other players could no longer annoy or harass me. 

As mentioned in chapter xx5xx, modern gaming devices and phones allow parents to lock content behind passwords. 

The way to do this varies by console and game, but parenting websites publish guides for each game as it is released. Major companies also host pages for parental controls. 

Below are the current websites, although they will change as different hardware is released. 

Playstation: https://www.playstation.com/en-us/parental-controls/

Nintendo Switch: https://www.nintendo.com/switch/parental-controls/

Xbox: https://www.xbox.com/en-US/apps/family-settings-app

Android phones: https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/1075738?hl=en

iPhones: https://support.apple.com/en-us/105121

Navigating an unfamiliar video game console is challenging, but most use similar organization systems. Most likely, there is a settings icon shaped like a gear on the main menu. Once you have selected this, look for “Privacy” or “Account Management” and then “Parental Controls.” 

Many game companies have begun producing supplemental phone apps for parents to control their children’s access to specific aspects of the system. These include how much a user can spend, what content they can access, whom they can chat with, etc.

Having Conversations

Although digital parenting aids are intuitive and robust, teens will find ways to circumvent them. Teenagers will always break rules they disagree with and they are more tech-savvy than you are. I therefore do not recommend relying only on these tools. 

Instead, I recommend talking with your children about why the rules exist. Consider the following options:

1. “Talking to strangers online is dangerous. Some people use games like these to try to meet kids and hurt them or steal their money. When you’re online, never tell anyone your real name, where you live, or how old you are because they can use that information to trick you or steal your information. If someone does start bothering you, please tell us and we’ll help you figure out how to handle it.”

2. “I’m going to look through your messages every week to make sure you’re not talking to strangers. If you do, you’re grounded.”

The first strategy will teach children to avoid talking to strangers and will know how to protect themselves if they do. The second strategy will teach them to clear their internet history after breaking the rules. 

Except in emergency situations, childrens’ privacy must be respected. Reviewing a child’s internet history will not change the topics they search. It will teach them to be sneaky. Most of my young clients whose parents monitor their social media have a second, secret account that their parents don’t know about. These teens usually trust their parents less than those whose parents trust them in return. 

If your teen has a diary, do not read it. If your child has a cell phone, do not go through their text messages. Do not look through their internet search history. Do not dig through their dresser drawers. 

Young children may need guidance when they first begin chatting online. You can use software like Messenger Kids, Meta’s app to help children connect with one another. This kind of software allows parents to reject message requests from strangers and view messages sent and received. Importantly, children who use this program know that their texts are being read and that it is a temporary measure. Once they demonstrate that they understand online etiquette, you can wean them off of this and let them text without your oversight. 

For me, the only exceptions are if the child is in danger. If you believe your child is abusing narcotics and is at risk of overdosing, it is appropriate to search their room for drugs with them present. (I do not include marijuana in my list of dangerous substances.) If your child is missing, reading their diary or text messages might help you or the police determine their whereabouts. When children cut themselves or otherwise self-harm, many therapists recommend parents search the child’s room to remove sharp objects to help with their recovery. 

Some software programs alert parents if a user searches the internet for “suicide,” “painless ways to die,” or “how to buy a gun.” Such software should be used only for this purpose, not to monitor age-appropriate searches such as “how to know if I’m gay” or “what is masturbation.” Surveilling this latter category will teach your children that you are not someone they can rely on with questions about these subjects. 

Rabbi Shais Taub explained this by saying, “When my child grows up and gets in trouble, I don’t want her to say, ‘Oh no, my dad’s going to kill me.’ I want her to say, ‘Oh no, I better call my dad.’” 

Conversation Starters for Kids:

• Do you think video games are just for boys? Why do people think that? 

• Do you think that video games can be sexist? What examples can you think of? 

• Do girls play different games than boys do? Why is that? 

• What do you do when you hear someone say something racist or sexist online? Do you ignore it, block them, or something else? 

• Do you think that spending time on the internet can make someone feel more depressed or anxious? Why? 

• Do parental controls work? Have you seen people get around them? 

• Can you think of any times when a parent should look through their children’s things? 

Chapter 7: Responding to Outbursts

Key Points:

• Learning about the specific games your children play will help you understand why your child is acting out and how to respond. 

• Gamers who are acting out are likely responding to one of four stressors: needing to stop prematurely, feeling that they have unfairly lost a match, frustration at a game’s difficulty, and social stressors such as bullying. 

• Parents can use a five-step process to help their children calm down and avoid future outbursts. 

• These steps are: providing space, active listening, discussion, collaborative problem solving, and consequences. 

When I meet with families, most parents have the same complaint: their child refuses to stop playing when asked, shouts or acts out during games, and becomes combative when parents insist they turn the game off. 

In response, I generally ask the parents what games the child plays. The parents can usually name a game or two before exhausting their knowledge. Often, the child will then interrupt, to inform them that they haven’t played those games in years. 

Unfortunately, this knowledge gap makes parenting much more difficult. Parents need context to comfort their children or provide consequences as appropriate. For example, if your child got in trouble at school for hitting another kid, you would need to know why it happened. Was your child defending himself against a bully, or picking on a smaller kid? Most parents would be more lenient if their child were defending themselves. Similarly, the reason a child is acting out while playing a video game might inform your responses to the behavior. 

There are four main reasons for children to become dysregulated while gaming: needing to stop prematurely, feeling cheated, feeling unable to complete a challenge, and social stressors. 

Stopping Mid-Game

There are three main reasons a gamer might become dysregulated when told to turn off a game without sufficient warning. 

The first is that many games only allow gamers to stop at specific points. If they do, they will lose progress made since the last “save point.” This is roughly the equivalent of writing a long proposal for work, but only being able to save your work every half hour. If you were twenty-five minutes into your work, you would naturally ask for another five minutes to reach the next point at which you could save. After that, leaving the computer would be much less stressful, as you would not have to redo the work you had just done. 

The second reason is that many popular games are multiplayer and cannot be paused. Each Fortnite game is a competition between 100 players playing simultaneously. As a result, none of the players can pause in the middle of a match. Fortnite is a Hunger Games style battle royale game, in which the last one standing wins. 

A child who is one of the last few players still alive near the end of a battle royale is not able to put the controller down without their character being killed. If they are playing on a team, turning the game off would mean that their classmates are now playing with one fewer ally. Most adolescents would keep playing if asked to choose between listening to their parents or supporting their friends. 

It is unreasonable to expect a teenager to happily stop playing if their friends will lose a game because of it. Adolescents will always value their peers’ approval over their parents’ rules. Annoying, but developmentally appropriate. 

The third reason is that transitions are difficult in general, especially for young people. Moving from a preferred activity to a non-preferred activity is usually challenging for both the child and the adult giving the direction. Few young children will immediately stand up from a half-built Lego castle and agree to take a bath. Similarly, many teachers agree that the most difficult classes to teach take place during the period directly after lunch or recess, as students take much longer to adjust to the new expectations. 

Feeling Cheated

Many of the most popular games involve direct competition with others. Call of Duty pits teams of players against one another and awards points to the most successful teams and players. These points contribute to a ranking system – talented players achieve prestige and more difficult competition. When people perform well enough, they get to advance to the next rank. It’s similar to advancing from minor league to major league baseball. Higher ranks offer more prestige and harder competition. 

For many, these additional stakes make it harder to accept losses, as their hard-earned rank might be in jeopardy if their teammates let them down. As a result, you are likely to hear the word “matchmaking” in a rant about why people are upset while playing various games. They may feel they were paired randomly with a subpar team by the game’s matchmaking system and have lost ranking points as a result. 

Another reason losing might be particularly difficult is if they suspect the other team of cheating. In most cases, they believe that opposing players have installed a computer program to help them succeed. These programs provide advantages like perfectly aiming at enemies or allowing them to see through walls. 

I have spoken with many young people who exhibit destructive behavior while gaming. Nearly all insist that they only explode when the game was unfair. Some even say that they enjoy losing when the reason was the opposing team’s skill. They often compare it to getting to play against a great athlete; they lose, but they get to experience the highest levels of play. However, if they believe they lost because of the game’s system of pairing players or because they think the other team was using “aimbots” to cheat, they become infuriated and act out. 

Difficulty

Many games are designed to be nearly impossible. Games like Dark Souls, The End Is Nigh, and Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy are so difficult that reaching the end is a significant achievement. I failed more than three thousand times before completing The End Is Nigh. This was exasperating; I had to put my controller down and walk away from the television to calm down several times. I’m not even going to attempt Getting Over It. Failing over and over and over is maddening. 

Other games are unintentionally difficult. This is especially true for early video games, when most developers did not yet understand how to make a game feel “balanced;” not too challenging and not too easy. In most cases, this is more frustrating – failing because of a programming error or unfair game mechanic is more irritating than failing because you made a mistake. 

Social Stressors

Many games are social spaces where friends can virtually spend time tackling challenges together or competing with one another in friendly skirmishes. Starved for physical after-school spaces, games like Fortnite have become modern hangout spots. 

Young people must contend with the same problems online as their parents did on the basketball court or playground after school. This is both similar and different from previous generations’ struggles. Adolescence will always have bullies, social cliques, gossip, hateful comments, and other forms of stress and harassment. For most of us, this was an opportunity to grow – navigating social situations takes practice. We learned to laugh at ourselves, identify supportive peers, shrug off insults, and walk away from a fight through these experiences. 

Unfortunately, online social spaces are more challenging in several ways. 

The first is that bullies no longer need to be present to harass classmates. Even when I was insulted or hit, I knew that I was safe at home. My parents would never let a bully in. Bullies can now access victims anywhere, at any time. A child’s bedroom is no longer a sanctuary; any time they have access to a cell phone, computer, iPad, or gaming console, they can be contacted. 

Young people are also alone while receiving this abuse. Most teens also communicate with friends through social media or games, but digital communication is not as comforting as a pat on the back, a shoulder to cry on, or a hug from a supportive friend. 

Bullies also have access to social media and the internet and can act anonymously, both of which give them unprecedented amounts of power. Instead of showing an embarrassing photo of a classmate to friends or passing it around the school, they can now post it online, where anyone can see it and comment on it. They can even do this anonymously, so that the victim may never know where it originated. 

Because young people increasingly treat video games as their after school hangout, these games host much of the harassment they experience. It is often the cause of or a contributing factor in the anger they feel while gaming. 

Losing a game because it was too difficult or unfair is amplified when others witness the failure and can comment on it. This, coupled with the social pressures of playing a video game on a team has led many of my clients and their friends to lose control and act out physically. 

How to Respond

Parents can use a five-step process to help their children cool off and make good decisions when acting out. 

Step One: Provide Space

Our brains can be thought of as two major sections, one on top of the other. This is sometimes referred to as our “upper brain” and “lower brain.” 

When we are calm, our upper brain is in control. Our upper brain is rational, ready to learn, good at problem solving, and personable. When we become anxious, frightened, or upset, our upper brain shuts down and gives most of its energy to the lower brain. This is sometimes called being in “fight or flight” mode. We are jittery, irrational, and we cannot process complex information. This is why a child who studied hard might fail a test if they are feeling anxious in the classroom. Their brains cannot access the information they know, because their lower brain is in control. 

Our lower brain is necessary and helpful when facing immediate danger. Adrenaline floods our bodies, we stop being hungry, blood rushes to our extremities to help us move faster, our senses become sharper, our hearts beat faster, and we breathe faster. All of this is useful when trying to outrun a tiger. None of this is useful when trying to find the radius of a circle. 

So when someone is acting out physically, they are almost certainly in “lower brain mode.” Any attempt to reason with them will fail. They are physiologically incapable of understanding complex directions or listening to other perspectives. 

Therefore, it is necessary to give a person space and time before intervening. It typically takes about twenty minutes for our parasympathetic nervous system to return us to our upper brain. So if your child runs to their room and slams the door, it is wise to give them some time before addressing the issue, as long as the child is physically safe. 

I suggest that you also use this time to regulate yourself so that you can be as calm and effective as possible when you address the fight with your child. Some effective ways to do this are to meditate, write one’s thoughts down, or take a walk. 

Step Two: Active Listening

Once your child has had time to regain their faculties, the next step is to use a process called “active listening.” 

Most parents respond to outbursts by first reassuring the child that the games aren’t worth getting angry about. They’re right, but the young person is not yet able to hear it. This inevitably leads to arguments and more anger. 

So if your child slams their keyboard down, screams, and walks away from the computer, you will likely be tempted to respond, “Calm down, it’s just a game,” “Stop yelling!” or to immediately take privileges away. 

Each of these responses is an understandable reaction: those responses are designed to reason with them, ask for the behavior to stop, or punish the child for the outburst. However, none of them are likely to help the child learn to regulate themselves. You will have missed an opportunity for connection and emotional growth. 

The first step in addressing outbursts like this is to learn the context in order to understand their children’s perspective. As discussed in chapter 19, the simplest way to do this is by playing your childrens’ favorite games with them. It is also critical to talk to them about their emotions in the process and respond with “active listening.” 

Active listening is simply restating what the other person said in simpler words to demonstrate understanding. In my experience, it works like a magic wand with angry teens. 

I worked in a therapeutic school for several years, and would often talk to middle school students who fled the classroom after screaming and throwing a chair at the wall. Each time, I would approach the student calmly and ask what was happening. They would always rant for some time about how unjust the classroom was and how they hated their teacher and the school and homework and grades. 

Listening carefully to what the student said, I would reflect, “You’re angry because Mrs. Smith is giving you too much homework.” In nearly every case, I could see the anger drain from them as they breathed, “Yes.” Within a few minutes, the student was usually regulated enough to calmly walk somewhere to continue talking about what they could do to remedy the situation. 

Feeling understood is enough to calm people in most situations. For example, you might respond to the above teen who broke their keyboard and stormed away by giving him space for a few minutes, asking what is happening, and reflecting back what he says. 

(Expect more profanity than the cleaned up example below)

“Wow, you seem really frustrated. What happened?” 

“I just lost four games in a row because of matchmaking. I keep getting put into lobbies with people who don’t know what they’re doing, so I’m trying to carry the team by myself. I’m about to go down a rank even though my KDR is like four to one.” 

Even though you might not understand the jargon, you might reflect from context, “You keep losing because of your teammates and it’s unfair.” Responding like this feels artificial, but it is an important step in establishing a connection and baseline understanding. If you had jumped to “It’s not a big deal,” your teen would likely feel that you do not understand what’s happening and would argue back. 

As soon as you “get to a yes,” and your child acknowledges that you understand the issue, you can start to have the conversation you originally wanted to. 

For the above mentioned reasons for anger, a reasonable reflection might be:

Stopping Mid-Game

“You’re annoyed that I asked you to stop in the middle of a round.” 

Feeling Cheated

“You’re angry because the other team wasn’t playing fair.” or “You’re angry because your teammates weren’t taking the game seriously.” 

Difficulty

“You’re frustrated because you kept failing the level.” 

Social Stressors

“You’re upset because Joseph posted a mean thing about you on Instagram.” 

Ideally, this process has already helped the young person start to regulate themselves. Watch for positive signs like slowed breathing, voice returning to normal volume, sitting down, and appropriate language to inform when the child is ready to proceed. 

How would you respond using active listening if your child said the following to you? Don’t overthink it – you’re just restating what they said to you so they know you’re listening. You’re not necessarily agreeing with them, just making sure you’re on the same page before continuing the discussion. 

I’ve included one possible solution for each below. Remember to wait to problem-solve or challenge your children until they know you understand their perspective. 

1. “I hate you! All my friends have so many skins and you won’t let me buy any of them!”

1. “I’m in the middle of a match, I can’t come help you until I’m done!”

1. “Can I have some money to buy the new DLC?”

1. “This raid is more important than that stupid math worksheet.”

1. You’re angry at me because I’m not giving you money to buy skins. 

1. You’re saying that you’re too busy to help right now, but you can in a few minutes.

1. You’re trying to get some new stuff in the game so you need money. 

1. The math worksheet feels pretty unimportant compared to the game you’re playing. 

Step Three: Discussion

Once your child is calm enough to process information, you can start to address what the child identified as the source of the anger. 

For children who are frustrated because they were asked to stop mid-game, you might explain why it was necessary to interrupt their game, listen to the reasons the child felt angry, and help the child hear the parents’ perspective. 

Children who felt cheated or felt the game was too difficult might need to learn about how to lose gracefully, how to find humor in failure, or how to put less importance on their performance in a game. The most direct and effective way to do this is by playing alongside them. This is covered further in chapter xx13xx.

When bullies and other challenging social situations are involved, the discussion might include advice about how to ignore mean people, stand up for themselves, how and when to involve responsible adults, and how to ask for social support. 

Although there is no one right way to talk to your child about these issues, below are some examples I’ve seen work.

xxxxx

Step Four: Collaborative Problem Solving

After this discussion, it is important to brainstorm ways to avoid the situation in the future. For example, you might choose to help children identify the first signs of anger when they are becoming frustrated. I know that I am becoming aggravated when my throat feels tight, my arms tense, and my head feels warm. When I notice these warning signs, I can act accordingly to calm myself before becoming too angry by taking deep breaths or taking a break from the activity. Learning how our individual bodies respond to intense emotions helps us to manage them before they escalate. 

Depending on the specific situation, you might work with your kids to create a collaborative plan to avoid future disagreements. Examples of this might include “Next time, I will give you more warning so you can leave at the end of a round,” and “When I ask you to stop playing, politely let me know how much time you have left in the game so that I understand.” 

Some ways to start that conversation include:

• What can we do differently next time to avoid that problem?

• Thank you for sharing that with me. What would be a better way for me to ask you that question in the future? 

• I’m sorry for yelling at you. What you said really hurt my feelings and I overreacted. I’m going to try to pause the conversation and take a break when I start to feel angry. What can you do on your end to avoid arguments like that? 

Step Five: Consequences

Once everyone is on the same page, parents can implement punishments as appropriate. These might include restricting access to electronics for a set period of time, canceling an upcoming social event, and making the child buy replacements for the equipment they broke. 

Spanking or otherwise striking a child as punishment is never appropriate. Decades of research show that this does not help children learn to behave better. Instead, it makes them more secretive out of fear, makes them much less likely to turn to parents when in trouble, and actually increases future anger and aggression. 

Remember also that the consequences you lay out are the full punishment. Stay kind and compassionate, even as you firmly maintain limits. They need to know that you love them and support them, even while they are being punished. 

In other words, the consequence for poor behavior should never be, “You are grounded and your parents will be mean to you for a few days.”

Examples of effective consequences include:

• Because your grades have dropped, you are not allowed to play video games during the week.  On weekends, you can play after you show me that all of your homework due Monday is completed and that you are not missing any assignments. We will lift this restriction as soon as your grades reach a B average. 

• Because you hit your brother, you are grounded. You cannot play video games or go out with friends through Sunday. I encourage you to apologize to him. 

• Because you snuck out, you are not allowed to use the car unless you are going to school or work for four weeks. 

Example Conversations

The below conversation is simplified and slightly idealized, but I have helped facilitate hundreds of very similar conversations. They often go relatively smoothly. 

Liara tells her 13-year-old daughter Tali to turn off the game and get ready for bed. The girl responds by refusing, then throwing a controller at her mother, cracking the plastic as it hits a table. She then goes to her bedroom and shuts the door. My notes are on the right. 

Tali’s mother Liara lets her cool off for twenty minutes, then knocks on the door. “Can I come in?” 

This has given the child enough time to return to “upper brain” and respects the child’s need for privacy when upset. It also gives the mother time to regulate herself so that she can keep the ensuing argument productive. 

“Ugh, fine. What do you want?” 

“I don’t understand what happened just now. Why were you so upset?” 

Liara is maintaining curiosity here, instead of jumping to admonishments.

“There were only like ten minutes left in the game and you made me lose and now all my friends are going to be mad at me because they probably lost the round because I wasn’t playing for the end!”

“You’re angry that I made you stop in the middle of a game and your team probably lost because of it.”

Active listening here is a critical step toward helping Tali feel heard.

“Yes.”

This is the magic word to listen for. Once you’ve “gotten to a ‘yes,’” the conversation can proceed.

“I didn’t know that you were in the middle of a round, I’m sorry that you and your friends lost.”

Apologizing does not concede that Tali’s actions were right, just that the parent feels badly for their own part in the fight and models taking ownership for one’s actions.

“Yeah! You’re always doing that!” 

“What can we do in the future to avoid this kind of thing?” 

Collaborative problem solving here starts with Liara asking for a suggestion for how both of them can work together.

“Can you maybe give me more warning next time and let me finish the game?” 

In my experience, children are very reasonable here, often surprising their parents.

“That sounds fair, unless there’s a lot of time left in the round. I obviously can’t let you play for another 40 minutes if you just started a game. Can we agree that you can keep playing if there’s less than ten minutes left?” 

“Yeah, that’s fair, I guess.” 

“Can you also try to calmly tell me how much time is left when I ask you to stop playing? That way I’ll understand why you don’t want to get off yet.”

Liara is now asking for her daughter Tali to also take reasonable steps to avoid the disagreement in the future. This is important, because it models that each party has ways to help avoid arguments.

“Yeah, ok. I’m sorry for yelling at you and throwing things.” 

“That really hurt my feelings and scared me. Thank you for apologizing.”

Here, Liara does reward the apology by accepting it, but reminds her daughter of her own perspective and the daughter’s impact on others’ emotions.

“In the future, I’ll try to remember to give you more warning before telling you to stop playing. If I forget, please tell me calmly so that we can work something out.” 

“OK.” 

“Because it looks like the controller’s broken, you’re going to have to pay for a new one. You also can’t play any video games for one week because you yelled at me and threw things. Do you understand?” 

Consequences are usually still appropriate, even though Tali has apologized and committed to not repeating the action.

“Ugh, I guess so.” 

Liara in this example has taken advantage of her daughter’s outburst as an opportunity for growth. By allowing Tali time to return to “upper brain,” actively listening, and problem solving collaboratively, she:

• Maintained a positive relationship with her daughter.

• Understood what was causing her daughter’s anger.

• Showed her daughter how to resolve conflicts calmly and practiced with her.

• Demonstrated how to apologize for one’s part in a disagreement.

• Learned more about her daughter’s interests and values.

• Assigned appropriate consequences for the daughter’s actions.

• Helped her daughter continue to develop empathy for others.

• Built an agreement which can help avoid similar fights.

Another example: 

Gregory hears his 17-year-old son Miles suddenly shout obscenities and hears crashing sounds from his son’s bedroom. 

Gregory quickly knocks on the bedroom door and asks, “Is everything alright?”

In this case, Miles’ safety needs to be determined before giving him space to calm himself. Knocking before entering respects his son’s privacy. 

Unless Gregory has reason to believe that his son is in danger, it is generally not appropriate to open the door without knocking first. 

“No!” the son shouts. 

“Can I come in?”

Gregory is still honoring Miles’ right to privacy because he does not believe his son is in physical danger. 

“Fine, whatever.”

“I heard you shouting, are you ok?”

Because Miles has not had time for his parasympathetic nervous system to help him calm down, he is still in “lower brain.” 

Gregory is therefore using simple and brief statements, and keeping his voice and posture as calm as possible. 

He’s also ignoring the damage to the room for now, so that he can help his son regulate before addressing it. 

“No! I just got scammed out of all my skins. This guy set up some BS phishing site and said he’d give me some rare stuff, so I logged on and they locked me out of my account and traded themselves everything in there. I had like three thousand dollars of skins in that account!”

“Somebody scammed you out of your stuff?”

Gregory has no idea what Miles is talking about, but he understood enough to get the gist. 

“Yeah, I had like $3000 of skins and they just stole it all!”

Miles is likely already calming down, now that his father understands what happened. 

“Wow, that’s terrible! Is there anything you can do about it?”

Gregory is still waiting to mention the broken items, Miles needs to calm down before having that discussion. 

Gregory also understands what is happening and can empathize; being tricked out of thousands of dollars is an understandable reason to be upset. 

“No! I can report the guy, but Steam won’t undo any trades.”

“That’s awful, I’m so sorry that happened. Can I give you a hug?” 

Gregory is still annoyed that his son damaged property, but understands the situation. Miles cannot get his items back, but he can offer some comfort. 

By asking permission before giving his son a hug, he also honors his son’s right to physical space and models obtaining verbal consent. 

“Sure.” They hug. 

Throughout this conversation, Gregory has seen his son visibly relax; his voice is calmer, his body is no longer tense, and he has stopped pacing. 

“Did you break all this stuff?”

Gregory has determined that his son is ready to address the damage to his bedroom. It would also be appropriate to save this part of the conversation for later if the child still does not seem ready. 

“Yeah.” The son averts his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“We’ll figure out a way for you to pay for that stuff later. Let’s fix the hole in the wall this weekend.” Because the son is already upset about losing money, the father decides to postpone the discussion about how he expects his son to replace the broken items. 

Miles clearly needs to learn to regulate himself when very upset. Making him responsible for replacing the items will likely prevent similar incidents – he will have a better understanding of the financial cost of breaking items. 

Patching up any holes in the drywall together can be a great way to bond while teaching Miles practical skills. 

Later, Gregory will teach Miles strategies to stay cool in a crisis, such as breathing deeply, walking away, and talking to others. 

“Yeah.” 

Unless their parents have shown that they will replace any broken equipment, most young people understand the need to pay for new items themselves. 

Later, the two should come up with a plan to replace or repair any broken items using money the son earns, either by getting a job or doing household chores. 

“I’m sorry that happened to you.” 

Gregory again connects emotionally with Miles. Even though the son has acted out inappropriately, the pain which led to it must be respected and acknowledged. 

Having to pay for or fix the replacement items is a natural consequence, but the father may also choose to add an additional punishment, such as grounding Miles for a few days. 

By actively listening and enforcing natural consequences, Gregory has:

• Prevented further damage to his son’s bedroom.

• Bonded with his son.

• Calmed his son down.

• Helped his son practice regulating by talking to others about his emotions.

• Learned more about his son’s hobbies and values.

• Enforced natural consequences for his son’s actions. 

• Taught his son how to repair drywall. 

In chapter xxx13, we will discuss the most direct way to monitor your children’s gaming to decide how to respond to stressful situations: playing video games alongside them.

Conversation Starters for Kids:

• Do you ever get mad at me when I ask you to turn off a game? Why?

• In the games you play, do you get penalized if you turn it off suddenly? What happens if you do? 

• Is there anything you would like me to do differently the next time I ask you to stop playing? What can you do to make the transition easier? 

• What do you recommend I do if I need you to stop right away? 

• What games make you angry? What is it about those games? 

• How do you calm yourself down when you’re upset? Do you need help remembering to do those things? 

Chapter 8: Physical Health

Key Points:

• VIdeo games have never been shown to cause significant health problems such as obesity. 

• Research which connects obesity and gaming is typically correlative, which prevents definitive conclusions. Other variables might explain the relationship better.

• Interest in video games can be used to encourage exercise, either by playing video games which directly require movement or by inspiring participation in similar physical activities.

The Research

There is no conclusive evidence that video games cause health problems. This surprised me to read. Before reviewing the research, I would have assumed that sedentary activities like video games would significantly harm one’s health and that gamers must be in worse shape overall. Some studies show that people who play more video games weigh more and have more physical and mental health problems, but the research is fundamentally flawed. 

To illustrate the problem with the data, imagine being a scientist researching why people drown and how to help avoid future deaths. You examine the circumstances for hundreds of cases of drowning and find a surprising correlation. People who have recently eaten ice cream are more likely to drown than those who have not. 

You conclude that ice cream must cause people to drown. Perhaps the sugar makes it harder to swim effectively. Maybe people who eat lots of ice cream are less healthy and therefore less likely to be strong swimmers. A politician might see these results, decide that ice cream poses a health risk, and try to ban people from buying or eating it. 

In other words:

1. When people eat more ice cream, they are more likely to drown. 

2. Therefore, ice cream causes drowning. 

However, your research did not account for a third, confounding variable: weather. 

More people eat ice cream and more people go swimming in summer because the weather is hot. We can instead rephrase our conclusions as:

1. Hot weather makes people eat more ice cream.

2. Hot weather makes people swim more frequently.

3. Therefore, hot weather causes both ice cream consumption and drownings to rise. 

The correlation between ice cream and drowning is strong, but there is a third variable which better explains the relationship. 

Overweight Gamers

So when a study concludes that avid gamers are more likely to be obese or have physical health problems, it is important to look for other reasons these data might exist. 

Like with ice cream, we could assume that:

1. People who play more video games weigh more than those who play less. Therefore, playing video games causes obesity.

However, the study could not account for confounding variables. The fact that a person’s weight correlates with their gaming habits can be explained in many other ways. 

1. People who are overweight are more likely to be bullied at school and play more video games as a safe way to socialize.

2. Disabled people are more likely to be overweight and play more video games because they are accessible.

3. Unathletic people are more likely to be overweight and play more video games because they do not require physical activity.

4. People living in poverty are more likely to be overweight and more likely to play video games because they are inexpensive. 

5. People with depression are more likely to be overweight and play more video games because they do not require much mental energy.

6. People without access to public recreational spaces are more likely to be overweight and play more video games because they do not have access to many outside areas. 

7. People who are overweight play more video games because they do not require physical agility. 

So when studies find a correlation between a person’s weight and a person’s gaming habits, they have not proven that one causes the other. Further, people struggle to accurately estimate how much time they spend gaming, so this adds yet another variable. It is possible that the correlation could show that:

1. People who are overweight overestimate how much time they spend gaming. 

2. People who value physical fitness are more likely to downplay how much time they spend gaming. 

Unfortunately, this means that we do not know for sure whether or not video games cause obesity. As Anya Kamenetz points out in her book The Art of Screen Time, coloring and reading are equally sedentary to playing video games. 

Further, weight is a poor predictor of health and should not be used to motivate your children to exercise. Recent evidence suggests that one should consider level of fitness rather than weight to gauge someone’s health. For example, I am thin but I do not exercise regularly. A fat person who jogs every morning is likely healthier than I am and will have better health outcomes. 

Well-meaning parents frequently hurt their children’s self-esteem by focusing on their appearance. Even off-handed compliments can damage one’s well-being in the long run. Many recovering from anorexia received more compliments when they were starving themselves than when they started to gain weight while in recovery. 

Parents can still support their children in leading healthy lifestyles by encouraging them to focus on health rather than weight. They should eat carrots because they’re delicious and have lots of vitamins. They should drink water instead of soda because it’s refreshing and doesn’t make you feel sluggish. Don’t encourage your children to alter their diets just to lose weight. 

Exercise should be framed as a fun way to use your body. Don’t take a dance class to lose weight, join because dancing is joyous and we should celebrate what our bodies can do. Sign up for martial arts to meet people, build confidence, and challenge yourself. 

Gamers might also connect with the challenge of self-improvement (Fig. 9). As a gamer, I particularly enjoy observing tangible improvements in my performance. 

Figure 9: A comic strip by Randall Munroe pointing out the relationship between exercising and video games. 

Lifting weights is more fun when reflecting on where you were six months prior. I used to enjoy charting my progress on paper while working out. Reading that I was now lifting twice the weight I could when I started pushed me to keep coming back. 

Wrist Injuries

In late 2020, I had been home quarantining for more than six months. With most other activities restricted, I had relied heavily on video games to stay entertained. After many months of pressing buttons all day, I started experiencing sharp pains in my wrists. My forearms felt cold and my fingers tingled. I made a virtual appointment with my doctor who confirmed that I had a repetitive stress injury. I was recommended a series of exercises and wore braces on my wrists for a few weeks. I recovered quickly. However, if I had not stopped playing video games when I started feeling symptoms, I would have further damaged my wrists. 

My experience is common. Many who play video games as their full-time job retire early after doing too much damage to their bodies. 

Many doctors and physical therapists have posted useful guidelines online with stretches and exercises to reduce likelihood of injury during long play sessions. I now stretch my fingers and wrists whenever my game pauses to load the next area. 

Conversation Starters for Kids:

• Is it important for you to be healthy? Why? 

• What sports or activities interest you? 

• If life were a video game, what would your stats be? How would someone raise their stats? 

• What do your favorite streamers do to stay healthy and not hurt their wrists? Do you do any of those things too? 

Chapter 9: Managing Screen Time 

Key Points:

• Restrict your child’s time playing video games only if necessary; heavily limiting time gaming can lead to difficulty managing their own schedules later in life. 

• Include your children in discussions about time management. Young people are much more likely to follow guidelines they helped establish. 

If your children do not need specific guidelines to use their phones, tablets, and computers in a safe and healthy way, then I recommend setting as few rules as possible. 

Imposing restrictions may lead to a problematic future relationship with video games. Prohibiting something can make it more desirable. Having unrestricted access to candy and sweets during my upbringing contributed to a healthy relationship with sugar. Friends denied treats at home would often visit and overindulge at my house. 

I casually enjoyed candy in moderation, while my friends who considered it a rare treat, tended to indulge whenever they could. I suspect that they may have struggled to control their sugar intake when they left for college. 

Many of these same friends would sit mesmerized in front of our TV for hours. They had not built up an immunity to television’s powerful allure and felt they needed to take advantage of the opportunity. 

Research supports this: children ages 5 to 11 whose parents restricted sweets at home showed a greater emotional response to advertisements for unhealthy food than those whose parents allowed candy.

In another study, children ages 5 and 6 were given bowls of yellow and red M&Ms and potato chips. Half were instructed not to eat the red ones. When given the same snacks later, those children ate more of the red snacks than those who were allowed to the first time.

Ideally, young people should use screens as they choose, finding a balance in their time. This helps them learn to set and adjust their own rules for the future. Some specific rules are appropriate for all young people, which I will detail later in this chapter.

Do Your Children Need Guidelines?

Living a healthy life looks different for everyone. However, every healthy life involves juggling a number of life domains. If you are too busy at work to have a social life, you might need to recalibrate to feel fulfilled. 

Many areas are universal: everyone needs to take care of their mental and physical health, have meaningful relationships with others, and do activities that they enjoy. Others differ for everyone. Some people value education, others do not. Some value spirituality, others do not. 

One of my teen clients filled in the following wheel. Each wedge is colored according to how fulfilled he felt in that category. He was doing well in school and participated in a number of after-school activities. 

What would you recommend for the kid who filled out this chart? I see that despite his success at school, contribution to the world, and relationships with friends and family, he felt unfulfilled spiritually and needed a hobby that was just for him. If he is religious, he could benefit from more connection with a church youth group. If not, perhaps more time in nature could scratch that itch and he would enjoy hiking at a nearby forest preserve on weekends. 

Try it for yourself! Take a moment to reflect on your own life. How content do you feel at work? How is your physical health at the moment? Do you spend enough time with friends? Fill in the following wheel for yourself with whatever is most important to you. 

Around the perimeter, fill in eight characteristics of what a well-balanced life means to you. What is most important? Volunteer work? Dating? Friendship? Spirituality/religion? 

Color each wedge according to how fulfilled you feel in the corresponding domain. Once you’ve finished, look at the overall wheel. Do you see any holes? Anything missing? What changes could you make to fill in the gaps? 

Now do the same for your children. You can do this with them or on your own. More blank wheels are in the appendix on page xxx. When approached with neutral curiosity, most children are happy to reflect. 

Steve is a 12-year-old boy from Houston, Texas. He likes spending time with friends, playing basketball, and participating in chess tournaments. Since his parents bought him an Xbox, he stopped going out with friends to play basketball after school, instead playing video games for hours every day. His father Joel is worried. 

Although he is tempted to tell Steve he can only play for an hour a day or get rid of the Xbox entirely, he decides to have a conversation first. Joel approaches Steve after dinner one day to discuss the issue. 

“Hey, I heard about this test to see if people are missing anything in their life.” He wisely decides not to bring up video games or his specific concerns until later in the conversation. “Do you want to look at it?” 

Steve agrees, not feeling threatened by accusations of misusing his time or spending too much time gaming. 

Joel pulls out a piece of paper and sketches a circle, then divides it into equal segments. “The guide said that people need to have a few things in their life to be happy, like friends and a good school life. They said you can put them in a circle like this.” 

He writes “Friends” in one segment, “School” in another, and “Health” in a third. “What other parts of life do you think people need?”

Steve suggests adding “Fun” and “Sports.” Even though Joel had others in mind, he accepts that these are two of his son’s priorities and adds them to the circle. 

“Now, we think about how happy you are with each part of your life. How do you feel about school right now?”

“I think a seven,” Steve reflects. “English is hard and I don’t really like doing math, but it’s fine.” 

Joel fills in the “School” wedge about 7/10ths of the way to the perimeter. 

Joel repeats this with Steve a few more times. “It seems like most things are going well for you! I’m glad to hear that. I do notice that your “Sports” and “Friends” sections are pretty low though. What happened there?” 

Steve responds, “My friends have been kinda mean recently. They’re not good sports and they keep making fun of me when I miss a shot. I haven’t really wanted to play with them in a while.” 

Now that Joel understands the situation, he is better equipped to help his son. Steve also didn’t want to spend all his time gaming, he was feeling rejected by his social group. 

Joel now has many options to help his son live a more balanced life that don’t involve simply setting screen time limits. He decided to help his son learn to advocate for himself with peers, find new friends, join after-school clubs, and signed him up for a local recreational basketball team. 

How to Start the Conversation

If you decide to implement rules for screen time, I recommend that you collaborate with your children. In my experience, children as young as 6-7 can surprise their parents by agreeing to or even suggesting reasonable standards. Additionally, children and teens are much more likely to follow rules they helped create. 

Many parents start talking to their kids about screen time by telling them that they should cut back. Unfortunately, directly telling someone to change is rarely effective and may have the opposite effect. People only achieve real, lasting change when internally motivated. This is the principle behind Motivational Interviewing, a style of therapy in which therapists help clients identify and prioritize their own reasons for change. 

For example, smoking is harmful to one’s health. However, telling a smoker to quit for that reason might simply turn into an argument, which could make the smoker less likely to stop. 

In contrast, a Motivational Interviewing therapist might ask the smoker why they want to quit and to encourage the smoker to talk about ways their life would improve without nicotine. That way, the smoker and therapist are on the same “team” against the problem and the smoker is also arguing for change. 

That is, a parent who tells their children that they should spend less time gaming could actually make them less likely to cut back. This is especially true because young people will always understand video games and technology better than their parents. They will find a way to use it without your knowledge, no matter how you set limits. Motivation needs to come from within for them to actually change their behavior. 

Therefore, try to remain curious and avoid accusations throughout the conversation. Most parents can start by explaining why they feel it’s time for a change, then ask for their children’s perspective. 

• “You’re getting older and I think you’re ready to have some more freedom. Let’s figure out what that could look like.”

• “It seems like you’re spending a lot of time online and I’ve noticed your grades are slipping. We think it’s time to set some limits on screen time. Where do you think we should start?”

• “I’ve noticed that we’ve all been spending too much time on our phones recently. What do you think we should do about it?” 

In my experience, most children surprise their parents by initially suggesting about two hours per day. This sometimes end the discussion – parents can simply agree with this and set the child’s rule as their own. 

When asked, some children do contend that there should be no restrictions. In these cases, parents can ask the child to think of peers who spend too much time in front of the TV or gaming system. Each child I’ve worked with has been able to name a friend who they think has a problematic relationship with screens. “So obviously there is such a thing as too much,” I point out. They agree. Once the child agrees that rules should exist, parents can start by asking them how they would handle screen time if they were the parent. 

“Let’s say you were a parent and you had a thirteen-year-old kid who spends five hours a day gaming. They’re not doing their homework and they’re failing a couple classes. What would you do?” You’re not trying to trick the child, they know that you’re referring to the current situation. Even so, hearing the question reframed this way usually helps them understand your perspective and think creatively. 

Find Common Ground

When I meet new clients, I must tread very carefully. If I agree with the parents that gaming time should be reduced, I hurt my chance to build an alliance with the child. However, if I side with the child that their behavior is acceptable, I damage the parents’ trust in me. 

Instead, I adopt a neutral stance and work toward establishing objective information everyone can agree on. Typically, parents and children have wildly different estimates of how much time is spent gaming. We need to start from a common set of facts, and defining the number of gaming hours spent each week is a good place to start. 

This is a four step process. 

Step 1: Ask the gamer to estimate how much time they spend every week playing video games and other activities. 

Start by pointing out the discrepancy: “It seems like whenever we talk, we both think you’re spending very different amounts of time every day gaming. Let’s start by figuring that out. How many hours do you think you play every week?” 

I’m flexible with the process of creating this estimate. Some express this in hours per week, while others prefer to estimate by drawing a pie chart or other structure. This initial step is important for two reasons. The first is that their guess is almost certainly inaccurate, as research suggests that people cannot accurately estimate how much time they spend playing video games.

The second is that most gamers are content with their time spent gaming. This may be because they severely underestimate the actual amount of time they spend. This step (1) helps assess how much time they believe they spend and (2) establishes a baseline for what they feel is appropriate for themselves. 

Below is a blank pie chart you can use to sketch out time spent per day. Each wedge represents one hour. 

My 11-year-old client Alexander decided to estimate how much time he spent per week instead of per day. His pie chart looked like this:

(I changed most categories to shades of gray here to highlight time spent gaming in orange. The real graph is more colorful and easy to distinguish other categories from one another.)

Alexander reported that he played video games about 8 hours a week: one hour each night, and two hours on Saturdays. Gaming is represented by the bright orange on the graph above. He also said that he slept 8 hours each night, spent 7 hours a day at school, worked on homework about 9 hours a week, etc. 

Step 2: Accept their estimate non-judgmentally and invite them to test it. 

Thank your child for playing along and ask if they would be willing to do an experiment to test it. “It’s funny, I read that a lot of people are way off when they do this. Are you okay keeping track of your time over the next week to see if you were right?” Even if you already know that the pie chart is highly inaccurate, your child needs to discover this for themself. 

The most straightforward way to measure time spent is by filling in a table every day. Below is the tool I use to help my clients think about how they use their time. It lists each day of the week with twenty-four boxes underneath each, for each hour of the day. 

Sun

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

Sat

12am

1am

2am

3am

4am

5am

6am

7am

8am

9am

10am

11am

12pm

1pm

2pm

3pm

4pm

5pm

6pm

7pm

8pm

9pm

10pm

11pm

Ask them to spend a few minutes every night logging how they spent every hour that day. Ask if you can also fill one out with your observations. If they’re reluctant, it might help to also fill one out for your own time. 

At the end of the week, compare your two tables with one another. Help them highlight repeated activities in specific colors. This is a section of Alexander’s estimate, with video games in orange. 

Hopefully, they start to notice a pattern. It will be tempting at this point to start lecturing them, but make sure to trust the process and let them figure it out on their own. Remember, this activity is to help them reflect, not to tell them what to see. 

Step 3: Compare the results to the initial estimate. 

When I do this activity, I typically take a few minutes to graph the week’s data and lay it next to the original estimate. They are easy to compare side by side. 

(Alexander’s initial estimate on the left, his actual time spent on the right.)

I generally feign surprise at this point. I don’t want to indicate that I did not believe them or that I expected such a large discrepancy. I then ask them what they think about it. 

Many parents feel compelled at this point to confront their children with the data. “See? I told you you’re spending all your time in front of that screen.” This strategy is likely to have the opposite effect. Confrontation creates defensiveness. Instead, it is critical to let them interpret the data and help them reach the conclusion themselves. 

When handling this step with neutral curiosity, most reach the conclusion that their schedule does not match how they want to spend their time. 

I approach this by simply asking, “Wow, that’s a big difference. What do you think about that?” and encouraging them to comment. At this point, kids I work with nearly always conclude that they should reduce their time in front of screens. 

Step 4: Discuss goals for change. 

Once your child has decided that they want to adjust their schedule, you can pull out another blank chart. (More are available in the back of this book) “It seems like what’s happening right now isn’t how you actually want to spend your time. Let’s figure out how much time you’d like to spend on different things every day.” 

Typically, my clients set a very reasonable schedule for themselves at this point. Gaming stays on their planned schedule, but is usually reduced to an hour or two per day. Time spent on homework and with friends increases. Time sleeping increases, as they know that they should be going to bed earlier. Some even add after-school activities. 

At this point, you and your child are working toward the same goal, which they are internally motivated to achieve. Making this adjustment will be challenging, but now everyone is on the same team, making success more likely. 

Specific Exceptions

For most families, restricting screen time strictly by number of hours is insufficient. “Screen time” refers to too many categories to capture in one rule. 

Consider the following questions to determine what rules best fit your parenting values. While reading these questions, remember your motivation for limiting screen time. Are you most concerned for their physical or mental health? Do you want them to spend more time with friends or family? 

I want my children to use their brains instead of just sitting around doing nothing. 

• What if you are watching a documentary or educational video on YouTube together? 

• What if your child is learning a skill online, like computer coding or guitar? 

• Does watching the news count?

• Is passively watching TV count different from actively playing a game? 

I want my children to be physically active.

• Do instructional yoga videos count toward time spent? 

• Is extra screen time acceptable after an exhausting soccer practice? 

• Must the child take breaks during long play sessions? 

I want my children to be social and make friends.

• Does video chatting with friends count as screen time?

• Are video games played with friends different than ones played alone?

I want my children to have a variety of interests.

• Is building a physical jigsaw puzzle different from a digital one? Is reading a physical book different from reading on a Kindle?

• Does multitasking – like watching TV while knitting or cleaning – count as screen time?

Other questions to consider.

• Should the child be allowed to watch TV after two hours of writing an essay on a school-issued laptop? 

• What about when staying home sick from school?

• Do the rules change during school breaks or vacations? 

• Are there exceptions while traveling in a car or plane? 

• Should the child finish their homework before using screens, or can they take a break after school?

• What if they have fewer than two free hours in a day? 

• What if they don’t use the full time? Can they bank it for later? 

I often sit with teens who are confused and angry about these implied exceptions. Parents might know that the “two hours per day” rule does not apply when visiting family, but not including this caveat might cause an argument. 

“I went to my grandparents’ this weekend, but Mom wouldn’t let me bring my iPad. I’m supposed to have two hours a day, so I started a timer when we got back home, but then they told me I had to stop at 10pm. I should have been able to stay up to get the full time!” 

Or “I had homework so I only played for half an hour on Tuesday and Wednesday this week. I had to miss three hours, so they should have let me play for five hours on Thursday to make up for it.” 

It may feel excessive, but some children need rules which account for every likely situation to prevent miscommunications like these. This level of specificity is particularly important for autistic young people, as they might not understand what parents imply by broad rules. One screen time agreement I helped facilitate for an autistic middle schooler looked like this:

1. In general, two hours of screen time per weekday is allowed, and four per day on Saturdays and Sundays. 

2. Time spent doing homework and other educational activities on a screen does not count toward this time. 

3. Time spent using screens with family members such as Facetiming with Grandma or playing a game together does not count toward this time. 

4. This time can be extended occasionally if requested calmly and for a specific reason.

5. If screen time is not used, up to five total hours can be carried over and used on Sunday. 

6. These rules only apply when homework is done consistently and when not in trouble at home or at school. If your average grade is below a B or you are grounded, no screen time is allowed. 

7. All screen time must stop at 9:30pm. 

8. These rules may change in specific circumstances, such as when visiting family members or during a break from school. We will explain those changes to you ahead of time. 

Your rules may not need to be this detailed, but these were designed for one family to avoid specific problems they had previously encountered. This particular student asked important questions in the process of writing the rules together, so we included clarifications to address each of these. 

If you decide to include a reward for compliance, I recommend making it an activity you can share. “If you follow these rules for two weeks, we can go out for ice cream together.” or “If you follow these rules for a whole month, let’s go to the gaming convention you’ve been talking about.” That way, you not only model fun ways to spend time with others, but you also get to spend positive time with your kids. 

A United Front

As a teacher’s assistant at a therapeutic school, I was responsible for helping keep students on task, building relationships, helping students feel comfortable in class, and enforcing rules. One rule for this class of 11 to 13-year-olds was that they were not allowed to swear. This was a constant struggle, as our students were often dysregulated. 

Six months into working there, I trudged in at the end of a long week. I addressed a small group of students while the teacher stepped out to address a struggling student in the hall. 

“Look, guys, I don’t really care if you swear. If I’m the only one around, it’s fine. Just don’t do it all the time or around other adults or I have to get you in trouble.” 

This was a huge mistake. 

I didn’t particularly care about the rule and felt that we were focusing too heavily on minor infractions. This was a school, after all, where students regularly assaulted staff, slept through class, fled the classroom, and tried to steal sharp objects to harm themselves. 

Spending my day scolding, “Language, Sara” felt pointless. I knew that the most important part of my job was maintaining positive relationships with the children, and I wanted to prioritize that. I thought that by picking my battles, I was better equipped to de-escalate more serious situations. 

Students very quickly started swearing more in class and getting angrier at staff who addressed it. My plan had backfired terribly. In trying to present myself as the easy-going staff, I had made all other staff look mean and unreasonable. 

A senior staff member explained it to me: “If some of us are enforcing a rule, they get mad at us. If everyone is enforcing the rule, they get mad at the rule.” 

If Dad lets the kids eat dinner in front of the TV and Mom does not, kids say Mom is being unfair. If Dad grounds the kids for failing a test and Mom lets them go out anyway, kids say Dad is being unfair. If both parents insist that screens stay in public areas, kids say the rule is unfair. 

Setting rules only works when all adults are on board. If you are co-parenting, you must be on the same page as your partner. Talk in private about your values before making changes to the way the house runs. This is especially true for divorced parents, as having two households adds complexity and potential for resentment. 

Rules work when consequences are implemented dispassionately and without exception. A child who knows that he will not be allowed to go out with friends if he does not do his homework is now faced with a choice. If they choose to skip homework, they are punishing themselves. 

Further, inconsistent households create anxious children. If swearing is sometimes okay, but sometimes it is punished, kids won’t know what to expect. This is one reason that young people push boundaries so often. They need to know that you will be consistent and follow through with what you say. Firm boundaries are comforting. 

Universal Rules

Although your values should guide your decisions and rules at home, I recommend some specific guidelines, even for young people who have a healthy relationship with electronics.

1. Help children regulate their emotions without screens.

Parenting is difficult. Very, very difficult. I understand the impulse to calm upset children with a screen! Many of my clients’ parents lament that when their children are upset, the only way to calm them is to hand them an iPad. In my experience, this pattern almost always started in childhood. 

My client Jack was a fussy child. From infancy, he struggled to calm himself. He came home from preschool tired and dysregulated every day. Everything seemed to set him off, and screens were the only tool which reliably worked for his exhausted parents. 

By the time he was in middle school, his behavior had escalated and he still could not self-regulate without technology. As a result, all attempts to rein in his problematic behavior or plummeting grades hit an enormous barrier; he did not have the skills to calm himself down independently. His parents explained that they have started taking away technology when he misbehaved, but that only angered him. Each time they tried to do so, he would smash their belongings, punch holes in walls, and steal his screens back every night. He is addicted to technology, they insisted. In my experience, the explanation is simpler. 

His parents learned decades earlier that they could calm themselves by reading a book, walking outside, jogging, breathing deeply, crying, meditating, or taking a nap when upset. Jack never needed to try any of these. 

Your children will have bad days. Even the most sheltered children eventually experience heartbreak, lost pets, sprained ankles, heavy traffic, social exclusion, and other typical problems. The best way to help your children through these is to help them learn coping skills while they’re young. 

You can do this with young children most effectively using a strategy called “co-regulation.” Instead of sending your child to their room, join them. Cross your legs and sit next to them or hold them gently on your lap. Give them a hug. 

Guide them through deep breaths. Encourage them to pretend to blow out birthday candles one by one or give them a drinking straw to blow through to slow their breathing. Have them clench their fists tightly for a few seconds and then relax them. Place their hands on their stomach and pretend their belly is a balloon they are inflating. Give them crayons and paper to draw with or a ball to kick around. 

Young children also need help understanding emotions, so help them name their feelings while you do this. “You’re feeling sad right now.” “I know you’re feeling mad that you have to stop playing.” 

Older teens need the same skills, but need more sophisticated strategies. Look for guided meditations on YouTube or in apps like Calm or Insight Timer. I personally like body scans and guided imagery, but many are equally effective. Encourage them to journal or draw their feelings when upset. Maybe they can walk to the park and sit by themselves while they calm down. Make sure you practice these together regularly when everyone is calm. This will help them recall strategies they can use when upset.

It is tempting to encourage your kids to punch a pillow or buy a punching bag to use when angry, but evidence shows that this is counter-productive. Research shows that acting aggressively does not vent our anger. It teaches our brain that it feels good to act violently when upset. 

1. Keep screen time to a minimum before four years old. 

Children learn by doing. This is especially true for infants and toddlers, who learn best by exploring the world through touch. Infants often do this by putting objects into their mouths. When your toddler gnaws on a building block, they are exploring texture and taste and developing hand-eye coordination. They cannot learn these skills from a screen. 

Although the bright colors and flashing lights of a cartoon will hypnotize them, there is no evidence that they are benefitting from the experience. In other words, young children aren’t calm when watching cartoons, they are numb. 

One study suggests that the screen is not the problem, it is the lack of interactivity. Researchers introduced new words to children under three years old either in person or over a screen. The children successfully learned these words both by watching a screen or talking to a real person, but only when the person on the screen was interacting with them in real time. In other words, young children can benefit from talking to Grandma on FaceTime or in person, but not from a television show. 

This is not as true for older children; I learned many basic skills and information from Sesame Street and Schoolhouse Rock!. Even so, my parents were better educators than Elmo, simply because they were able to respond to me in real time. 

This obviously does not apply to disabled children who need assistive technology to communicate or otherwise navigate the world. Children who need these tools should be given access; using augmentative and alternative communication systems does not delay or prevent people from learning to speak. 

If you decide to make an occasional exception, make sure you’re watching with them and talking to them throughout. Watching Frozen with a three-year-old on your lap while commenting, “Look at the funny snowman! Is his nose a carrot?” or “Do you see the castle?” can be helpful for their development and vocabulary. 

1. Keep family meals screen-free.

Most parents I work with already use this rule. Setting aside time to communicate with one another is critical for social development. Family meals are our earliest and most consistent chance to learn to sustain conversation, observe social niceties, learn to focus on a conversation while eating, understand how to ask follow-up questions, and other tools which will remain relevant for the rest of our lives. 

It may be difficult for you to not check your own phone during these meals. If you must do so, narrate what you’re doing. As Anya Kamenetz points out in her book The Art of Screen Time, your screen time is invisible to your children. “Most of ‘how those things work’ learning for kids was, in the past, to observe them happening as they happened (watching Mom read the morning paper, seeing Dad type up his resume, etc….). Now that the nuances of them are less visible and distinct, it is important to share honestly with kids what you are doing on a screen and talk about what it is that you are doing, and why. Working on your resume looks the same as playing video games as paying your bills as chatting with a friend as reading the news.” 

Saying, “I’m just texting Dad to remind him to get eggs,” or “I want to show you a picture of the place we’re going next week,” will help children to understand what example you intend to set. 

1. Leave screens at home.

Nearly all parents run errands with their children. They all encounter the same problem: it’s boring. Few young children can sit happily in a grocery cart for half an hour without squirming or complaining. It is tempting to hand your child a tablet to watch Bluey or Cocomelon because it immediately pacifies most children. 

It is not reasonable to expect a toddler to sit quietly through dinner at a fancy restaurant or a long ride on a plane, so savvy parents bring markers and paper or a favorite book. Most toddlers will happily bang toys together or scribble on a page while waiting for food. 

When they’re old enough, teach them paper-and-pencil games like tic-tac-toe or dots and boxes. Take turns drawing facial features in an oval to make a goofy face together. Challenge your children to guess how many shoes are in the room with you. Look for every letter of the alphabet on road signs or license plates. Help your child rehearse their food order and then communicate it to the server. Make a miniature ramp out of a piece of cardboard and race toy cars, then see if they can improve the ramp. 

Kids love to feel useful, so give your children tasks when you’re running errands. Give young readers the grocery list and ask them to read you the next item. Challenge children to bring back a box of bowtie pasta from the end of the aisle while you’re picking out a sauce. Give older children part of your grocery list and meet back up when they’ve gathered everything. This will entertain them while helping them develop life skills. If finding listed food is too simple for a child, ask them to also choose brands based on nutritional information or price per unit. Politically conscious teens might appreciate the opportunity to research the environmental impact or political affiliation a given company has while picking out products. 

Some parents make exceptions for flights or long car rides. This is reasonable, but I also believe long car rides are valuable opportunities to practice being bored. Instead of watching YouTube, consider using them as an opportunity to share interests. Listen to a book on tape or podcast together or sing along to your child’s favorite musical. Listen to the news and talk to your child about their perspective. 

By introducing your children to a variety of interests, you’re raising well-rounded kids who won’t have to rely on technology to entertain them throughout their lives. 

1. Keep screens in public areas at home.

Children should not have gaming devices or television screens in their bedrooms. Research suggests that teenagers who have a television in their bedroom watch much more television than those who do not. 

In a recent survey, teens who had a television in their bedroom were twice as likely to report watching more than five hours of television per day. This time on screens is also likely to interrupt sleep. Even if the child does not stay up late gaming, the bright blue light emitted from screens delays and worsens the quality of sleep.

Further, time spent in their rooms on screens is alone and unsupervised. Although children need independent time for healthy development, you need to know who your children are associating with online and what they are being exposed to. More importantly, you are missing a crucial opportunity to bond with your children over their interests. 

If they are playing in a common area, you can express interest in their game, talk to them about it, and even play alongside them. I write about this in more detail in chapter 19. 

In summary, I would recommend to any parent that they:

1. Help children learn to regulate their emotions without technology

2. Wait until age four to give their children any unsupervised screen time (except for video chats with family or friends)

3. Keep family meals screen-free

4. Wait until age ten or eleven to buy their children gaming devices or tablets

5. And keep screens in public areas at home.

By following these guidelines, you give your children social, emotional, and developmental skills to navigate the world. 

Conversation Starters for Kids:

• Do you ever stay up later than you want to finish something in a game? 

• Do you ever wish that you spent less time gaming? Why? 

• Have you ever heard of “iPad kids?” What do you think about them? 

• Do you ever play video games to help you calm down? Does it help? 

• Do kids at school lunch talk to each other or just look at their phones? 

Chapter 10: Gaming Addiction

Key Points:

• Anecdotal and empirical evidence generally shows that people can become addicted to video games, commonly referred to as “gaming disorder.”

• A person with gaming disorder cannot stop playing video games despite significant costs to relationships, employment, education, and financial security.

Addiction

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-5), the guide therapists use to diagnose clients, lists symptoms for each disorder. For example, someone with major depressive disorder (depression) may experience loss of interest in activities they used to enjoy, loss of energy, and difficulty concentrating, among others. 

All of the substance use disorders (addictions) listed in the DSM-5 have very similar criteria to one another. In simplified language, these are:

1. The substance being used more than intended.

2. Unsuccessfully trying to control use of the substance.

3. Excessive time spent acquiring, using, or recovering from use of the substance. 

4. Strong cravings for the substance.

5. Using the substance despite consequences at work, school, or home.

6. Using the substance despite social problems it causes.

7. Giving up other important activities to use the substance.

8. Using the substance in dangerous situations, such as driving.

9. Using the substance despite health problems it has caused.

10. Needing to use more of the substance to achieve the same effect.

11. Withdrawal symptoms when not using the substance. 

Not all substances cause withdrawal symptoms, but the rest are roughly the same for every substance. 

“Internet Gaming Disorder” is listed in the back of the DSM-5 as a proposed diagnosis. The name is a misnomer because the internet is not required to play video games, so most researchers refer to it as “gaming disorder.” 

The proposed symptoms are very similar to those of any other addiction because gaming disorder closely resembles other substance use disorders. Experts do not agree whether video games are clinically addictive, but they can clearly impact players’ lives in similar ways to other, more established addictions. 

Symptoms of Gaming Disorder

The proposed symptoms for internet gaming disorder are:

1. Video games becoming the predominant activity in everyday life. 

2. Withdrawal symptoms such as irritability or anxiety when unable to play.

3. Needing to spend increasing amounts of time playing to feel satisfied.

4. Unsuccessful attempts to control gaming. 

5. Loss of interest in previous hobbies.

6. Using video games despite social problems.

7. Lying to others about amount of time spent gaming.

8. Using video games to escape negative mood.

9. Risking or losing a significant relationship, job, or other opportunity because of gaming.

As you can see, several of these are similar or identical to those in alcohol use disorder, itemized above. 

Below are the full criteria for gaming disorder, listed in italics, followed by an explanation of each. If a person experiences five or more of the following during a 12-month period, they may have a gaming disorder. However, such a diagnosis should only be given by a mental health professional with appropriate training in diagnosing this disorder. 

Preoccupation

“Preoccupation with Internet games. (The individual thinks about previous gaming activity or anticipates playing the next game; Internet gaming becomes the dominant activity in daily life).”

For several of my clients, video games are all they think about some days. It is normal to think regularly about one’s hobbies during the day, but it can be difficult for some to think of anything else. Nearly all high school students spend parts of math class thinking about what they would rather be doing, but it can be cause for concern when it is difficult for that student to think of anything besides that hobby. 

Withdrawal

“Withdrawal symptoms when Internet gaming is taken away. (These symptoms are typically described as irritability, anxiety, or sadness, but there are no physical signs of pharmacological withdrawal.)”

Most gamers are annoyed when a game is taken away without their permission. If I’m in the middle of a fun game and the power goes out, I become annoyed. However, this is different from withdrawal. 

Withdrawal is better understood as general irritability, anxiety, or sadness instead of emotions as a response to losing games. For example, non-addicted young gamers are likely to react angrily if their parents suddenly unplug their game console while they are playing. This kind of direct annoyance is normal and expected. Spending a family road trip snapping at their siblings because they couldn’t bring the Playstation is not. 

Tolerance

“Tolerance—the need to spend increasing amounts of time engaged in Internet games.”

Like any hobby, gaming is often done to meet an internal need. Solving a puzzle can be meditative and relaxing. Playing a sport is physically challenging and exciting. Video games meet similar internal needs, also described in part one of this book. 

However, if a gamer used to feel content after thirty minutes of playing a game and now does not feel that same satisfaction unless they have played for four or five hours, they have developed a tolerance for it. The same word is used to describe drug users who need a higher dose of the substance to achieve the same high as they did previously. 

Loss of Control

“Unsuccessful attempts to control the participation in Internet games.”

Loss of control is perhaps the most important indicator of an addiction. Most of the other symptoms can be explained in other ways, but when a young person tries and fails to cut back on their time gaming, it is very concerning. 

Loss of control is different from parents being unable to convince their children to play less. It refers specifically to when the gamer wants to cut back but finds themself unable to do so. 

For example, a person might notice that she is frequently too tired to do well at work the next day because she stays up until three or four in the morning gaming every night. As a result, she decides to stop playing at eleven so that she can get enough sleep. However, after two weeks of trying this every night, she has not been able to stop before three in the morning. She has lost control of her gaming. 

Loss of Interest in Previous Hobbies

“Loss of interests in previous hobbies and entertainment as a result of, and with the exception of, Internet games.”

For me, this symptom seems inappropriate to include in the DSM and I don’t consider it when determining whether a client has gaming disorder. This is for two reasons. The first is that everyone’s interests shift over time. If I rediscovered a love of reading and stopped finding watching TV or hiking interesting, this would not be a problem. Losing interest in reading in favor of video games is also not inherently problematic. 

Additionally, people with autism or ADHD frequently have “special interests,” topics which fascinate them and take up much of their free time. This is almost never a problem for them and should not be pathologized. If that special interest were video games, it should not be considered a symptom of gaming disorder. 

Social Difficulties

“Continued excessive use of Internet games despite knowledge of psychosocial problems.”

This is another of the most important symptoms to consider. This could be a person frequently spending time gaming instead of accepting an invitation to go out with friends, even though they know that it will hurt their friends’ feelings. 

Importantly, this only applies when they decide to play video games because they cannot control their behavior due to the games’ allure. A person who chooses to stay inside and play video games because social situations make them too anxious or they cannot muster the energy to leave home is more likely to have social anxiety disorder or depression. 

Lying

“Has deceived family members, therapists, or others regarding the amount of Internet gaming.”

This is a difficult one to distinguish from normal behavior. In elementary school, I would sometimes stay up after bedtime to read a book with a flashlight under the covers. If confronted, I would usually lie to my parents. This was age-appropriate and expected behavior. 

However, lying can also be indicative of a problem. Someone who frequently lies to their spouse about how they spent their day might be struggling with an addiction. By itself, it is not necessarily abnormal, but in combination with other criteria, it might be. 

Escapism

“Use of Internet games to escape or relieve a negative mood (e.g., feelings of helplessness, guilt, anxiety).”

This is another symptom which may or may not indicate a problem for an individual. Participating in hobbies to relax after a long day is healthy and normal. However, gaming or other hobbies should not be a person’s only coping mechanism. When people have not developed the skills to soothe or calm themselves without gaming, it is probably time for them to find and practice other regulation strategies, like spending time with loved ones, playing with pets, learning a new skill, or taking a long bath. 

Loss of Opportunities

“Has jeopardized or lost a significant relationship, job, or educational or career opportunity because of participation in Internet games.”

Losing major opportunities because of video games is a red flag. People who have been diagnosed with gaming disorder sometimes report feeling obligated to play for up to twenty hours every day. There are several reasons for this. Some of the most common in my clients are that the game requires it. In other words, many games require this kind of dedication to compete at the highest levels. 

Many people with gaming disorder report that they have needed to spend so much time in front of the computer that their partners have left them, they have been fired, or they have failed out of school. For many, this is the reason they realize that they have lost control and need to seek help. 

Overall

Of the nine proposed symptoms of gaming disorder, the most significant are unsuccessful attempts to control gaming, social playing despite it causing social problems, and risking opportunities to play, which form a cluster related to losing control in one’s life. 

Most of the others are easy to argue against; anyone passionate about a hobby will likely experience some of them. An avid stamp collector might drop previous hobbies when they discover this passion, look through their collection to relax after a long day, and spend hours researching and thinking about stamps. 

But if your child has started to choose video games over friends, interests, and responsibilities, they might have a problem. If they have sincerely failed to cut back a few times, I recommend you see a licensed mental health professional with knowledge about gaming disorder. 

Xxxxx what can parents do?

Were we addicted?

Tamagotchis were the hot new craze for children in 1997. Every schoolkid wanted this tiny digital pet in an egg-shaped keychain. 

Once we hatched one of these virtual pets, we could feed it, play with it, clean up after it, and give it medicine when it felt sick. A small, high-pitched beep informed us that it needed assistance. 

Unsurprisingly, beeping keychains were highly disruptive to our classroom. After one day, our teachers demanded we start leaving our Tamagotchis in our cubbies, but this was still too distressing. Hearing our tiny pets crying for food or attention was impossible to ignore. The creature would feel sad if we neglected it, would fall ill if we did not clean up its environment when it went to the bathroom, and would die without food. 

After two days, the school needed to implement a harsh “no Tamagotchis” policy. 

Was this classroom of six-year-olds addicted to Tamagotchis? What do you think? 

Look back at page xxx to review what defines an addiction. Which criteria did we meet? Which did we not meet? What would you do if your child wanted to bring their Tamagotchi to school? 

Conversation Starters for Kids:

• What’s the difference between someone who really likes video games and someone who is unhealthily obsessed?

• What do you think of when I say “video game addiction?”

• How can video games cause problems for people?

• Why would someone keep playing video games even when they start causing problems?

• Have you ever decided you wanted to stop playing a game but couldn’t?  What happened?

Chapter 11: Professional Gaming

As I mentioned in chapter one, many young people believe that becoming a streamer or content creator is an easier path to success than staying in school.  

In my experience, most teens who say that they want to leave school to start streaming are hiding something.  When pressed, nearly all admit to me that school is too difficult, that they feel unsupported by teachers, or that they have struggled to fit in. Telling others that they want to become a streamer feels less shameful than admitting the truth. 

When young people say that they want to drop out of school, parents, teachers, and therapists should first work to identify and attack the root of the issue. If school is too difficult, school counselors can help students and parents identify and address difficulties. The student might have an undiagnosed learning disability or ADHD which needs accommodations. If the student is having trouble with peers, parents can help them navigate social situations and learn to advocate for themselves. 

Many parents want to address the issue more directly and explain to their children why streaming is not a viable career path. It is extremely unlikely that anyone could make a living by streaming. Of the more than eight million streamers on Twitch, only about 27% make any money at all. The top 10,000 streamers earn an average of $904 per month. The top 1,000 earn around $7,000 per month. 

In other words, one would have to be close to the top 0.01% of streamers in order to earn more than the United States federal poverty level. 

However, very few children will be discouraged by these statistics. Just as many young basketball fans believe that they have the talent to play in the NBA, many young gamers believe that they could easily become an internet celebrity. Content creators usually conceal the hardships which come with their craft to make themselves seem more personable. 

Therefore, I recommend that parents take a different approach: lean into it. “Alright, let’s think about this. You have to stay in school, but let’s figure out what being a streamer would look like.” 

Problem-Based Learning

Problem-Based Learning (PBL) is an educational model in which students learn a variety of skills by working together to solve a real-world problem. In order to answer the question, “How can we address global warming?” students must learn about environmental science, biology, anthropology, statistics, geology, and analyzing persuasive arguments. 

Parents can apply PBL to the question of “How can I become a streamer?” 

• What hardware does a streamer need? What cameras are most cost-efficient and reliable? How does one vet and analyze product reviews online? 

• How can someone earn enough to afford the initial equipment? Can your child work a part-time job or do chores around the house to save up allowance money? 

• How do people set up a savings account to store the money they will need to get started? 

• How much money would they need to afford an apartment? What neighborhoods meet their needs? How much is the average rent in different areas? What percentage of income should one spend on rent? How much will they need for food? How can they set up a budget to account for their desired lifestyle?

• How can they earn enough money to reach this threshold? How many paying subscribers would they need? What percent of viewers typically donate money to a streamer? How many total viewers would they need, including those who do not contribute money?

• How does one find viewers? How do effective streamers promote their channels? How much money should they spend on advertisements? What can they do to differentiate themselves from the crowd? 

• How do you edit clips together to create a highlights video? What video editing software is best and how do you use it? What photo editing software should you learn in order to create a compelling thumbnail for the video? Will they hire graphic designers to handle this aspect? How much do reliable professionals charge for these services? 

• What should they do to maintain a positive environment in the chat? Will they need moderators? How can they decide which fans to entrust this power to? 

• How can you protect yourself from bad actors in real life? What do you need to do to safeguard your personal information? 

Try to stay neutral throughout this process.  Rebellious teens who suspect that you have ulterior motives will dig their heels in. Your goal is simply to explore the possibility with them. 

Through this strategy, you can accomplish four goals simultaneously: 1) show your kids that you support them unconditionally, 2) teach them a number of useful skills, 3) help them understand how challenging streaming really is, and 4) keep your kids in school. 

This can help your children come to their own conclusion that streaming is not as fun as it looks and is not a feasible profession. Even if they are undeterred, they will have gained a more realistic idea of what to expect if they pursue streaming further. 

The most common issue that I experience with this strategy is that clients protest, “I could be a streamer if my parents didn’t make me go to school.”  They argue that many professional content creators stream online for five to ten hours per day.  They could be successful too if only you would let them do the same.  

In response, I simply encourage a slow start.  “Let’s start with a couple hours a week to see what it’s like.”  Nearly all lose interest once they realize just how difficult (and boring) the job really is. 

While they try, I am also working to keep an open mind myself. They might prove me wrong! They might love the challenge and show me that they have the grit and resolve to succeed. My goal in this exercise is to help them understand what the job actually entails and to keep them in school until they graduate so that they have as many options as possible. 

Conversation Starters for Kids:

• Who are your favorite streamers?  

• What do you like about them? What makes them different from others?

• What do you think being a streamer would be like?  What do you think the challenges would be?

• Have you ever seen a streamer talk about the challenges they’ve faced? 

• How do people avoid getting doxxed online? [“Doxxing” is when others maliciously find and post one’s personal information online, often allowing others to harass them in person.]

• What do you think you would do if you got doxxed?

Chapter 12: How Can Society Help?

Key Points:

• People benefit from having a place besides work and home to meet people and socialize.

• These "third places" are disappearing or becoming less accessible.

• Many people, especially teens, are supplementing or replacing physical third places with digital ones.

My first vivid memory is from an amusement park called Kiddieland, just west of Chicago. My siblings and I begged our parents to go nearly every weekend. I remember running around with other kids, waiting in line to ride the miniature Ferris wheel, soaring down tiny roller coasters, and pretending to drive cars as the single-rail track guided us in a gentle circle.

In middle school, my suburban community did not have many after-school activities. I frequented “The Firehouse,” a youth activity center filled with couches, music, pool tables, and lots of other students.

In my later teens, my friends would go to Borders to spend time together. We spent hours in the store’s oversized chairs, flipping through books, doing homework, and generally goofing off.

Kiddieland was replaced by a Costco and Borders was replaced by a clothing store. The Firehouse was replaced by a parking lot.

Local teens now have very few options for free or low-cost activities. Nearly every storefront is now a high-end clothing store or restaurant. In many cases, young people must now choose between a public park full of juvenile, under-sized playground equipment or paying to sit in a cafe.

The parents of my teen clients often scold them in my office for not spending time with friends after school. This confounds them: “There’s nothing to do.”

Parents rarely understand this. They suggest participating in the many affordable activities they fondly recall from their youth.

“Go to the park!" they suggest. "Ride your bike!”

“The park’s too far away and you said it’s too dangerous to ride my bike there.”

“Fine—go to an arcade or something!”

“There aren’t any arcades in town.”

“Just do something!” their parents growl.

Sadly, the children have a point. Most of them would love to hang out with peers after school, but cannot find anywhere to go.

Many of my clients are too young to drive or don’t have access to a car, and their parents are often too busy to drive them to scheduled events. Some of them can walk to art or martial arts classes, sports, and some extracurricular activities. However, many cannot afford to participate in any organized activities. When schools do offer appealing clubs, they typically meet one day a week, and never on weekends or during the summer.

Those who have friends from school go to each other’s houses, but may have little to do there. Small apartments in urban environments prohibit many activities. Their parents want them to go outside, then prohibit them from walking around town because of weather or safety concerns. Teens who have trouble connecting with others at school have nowhere else to make friends.

Third Places

Sociologists call extracurricular spaces like The Firehouse and Borders “third places.” Third places are how we find community, build relationships, and support one another. They are crucial for our mental health. For example, studies show that third places reduce loneliness and improve overall well-being.

Unfortunately, third places are now rare. The roller skating rinks, bowling alleys, and movie theaters that their grandparents enjoyed closed decades ago. Even shopping malls are vanishing due to a combination of pandemic restrictions and online alternatives. Many local malls have implemented curfews and other restrictions to keep unaccompanied minors away.

More than a third of school-age children in the United States do not live within walking distance of a park.

Virtual Space

One of my clients, a college-aged student named Lev, lives in central Illinois. He has not successfully made friends since moving to town a few years ago. He is shy and attends school virtually, but he has interests that could naturally facilitate friendships. He is a talented artist, enjoys video games and coding, and loves fantasy novels. He needed a third place where he could share space with others in a non-academic setting.

For people like Lev, I typically suggest an art class, a book club at the library, an anime or science fiction club at school, a coding class, volunteering, or other local events. But because I am not familiar with his town, I suggested we look online together to find a place for him to spend time.

I couldn’t find anything. A small art center offered classes he might enjoy, but each six-week session cost hundreds of dollars. Karate lessons would cost nearly a thousand dollars per semester. His local library only offered classes introducing older adults to computers. The closest park was an hour’s walk from his apartment and was usually empty.

Like many of my clients, Lev lives in a social desert.

The only “place” he could reliably access and afford was on the internet. When he played World of Warcraft (WoW), he had a social life. Anywhere his character wandered, he could chat casually with others. He had friends whenever he was online. And many other young people have similarly turned to video games as their third place. World of Warcraft became Lev’s virtual Firehouse.

Online spaces can be a positive and supportive place for people for whom socializing is difficult. Games like WoW facilitate social communication without pressure. Chatting with teammates does not require eye contact, physical proximity, reading body language, or navigating environmental distractions.

Gamers can also alter their appearance in most video games, which removes a barrier for trans people or those with body-related issues or low self-esteem. People who feel undesirable in real life can choose to look powerful, beautiful, or even non-human.

However, virtual communication is limited. Studies suggest that although online friendships are positive, they are often less meaningful than in-person ones.

The lack of third places directly contributes to video game overuse. People need third places, and when physical ones are unavailable, they create digital ones. It makes sense to then spend time in those digital spaces, even when they are perceived as less socially acceptable.

What Can We Do?

Parents are understandably concerned to see their children in front of the computer for hours every day. They worry that their children are missing social opportunities and are not spending enough time with friends. Their kids likely agree with them; most would rather be out with friendly classmates too.

Instead of restricting their children’s online activity, I recommend parents help them find third places. Teenagers who have an engaging after-school hangout spot naturally spend less time gaming.

Communities can also help by creating public third places. Organizations like the Project for Public Spaces advocate for reclaiming areas for public use. My neighborhood in Chicago recently designated part of a street a community space, where city planners blocked all cars from entering, and installed lights, outdoor seating, and plants. This small one-way street is now a bustling spot for local events, live music, and a weekly farmer’s market.

People need third places to thrive. As they disappear, more of us will replace them with virtual spaces. It is our responsibility to build and protect these vital, human spaces so that everyone has the opportunity to build meaningful, in-person relationships.

Conversation Starters for Kids:

• Where are your favorite places to go in our neighborhood?

• What do you like about them? What could be improved?

• If you could design a perfect hangout spot for you and your friends, what would it look like? Does something like that exist? If it doesn’t, why not?

Chapter 13: Play Video Games with Your Kids

Key Points:

• Spending time playing video games with children is a great way to bond with them. 

• Playing children’s favorite games will equip you with information and insight you can use to understand and guide your children more effectively. 

The most important advice I can give to parents of gamers is: Play video games with your kids.

Can’t get your kids to spend time with you? Play video games with your kids. 

Teachers are complaining that your kids are paying more attention to Minecraft than their schoolwork? Play video games with your kids. 

Your kids have no other interests? Play video games with your kids. 

Concerned that your kids are being exposed to inappropriate content? Play video games with your kids. 

Worried about your kids’ decisions? Play video games with your kids. 

Bonding

The most obvious reason to play video games is to spend quality time with your children. Even though you might prefer spending time outside tossing a ball around or going out for ice cream, it’s important to meet them where they are. 

I fondly remember playing a game called King’s Quest with my father. As a young child, I’d spend hours sitting on his lap moving the computer mouse to help the protagonist explore the Alice in Wonderland-like world by solving puzzles. Twenty-five years later, he and I still talk about how fun it was to share that experience. 

It’s also easier to have conversations while sharing an activity. Every therapist I know who works with children has a trusty deck of Uno cards in their office. Having something to do makes conversations feel less forced--sneak in a “By the way, how’s school going?” or a “How are your friends doing?” while playing. You’ll be amazed how much more open young people are to answer questions while beating each other up in Super Smash Bros. than sitting face-to-face getting “interrogated” by their parents. 

There are also several enormous gaming, comic, and anime conventions around the country (you’ve probably heard of Comic Con). Spend a day walking around one with your kids. You’ll be amazed by the elaborate costumes and might even glimpse a few familiar guest celebrities. More importantly, your children will appreciate the chance to go with you and show you an important part of their world. 

Adding to Your Parenting Toolbox

Learning about games will also give you language to have effective conversations with your children. 

For example, certain types of games cannot be paused at will, for example, in the middle of a round. They’re therefore hard to stop, especially for young people whose friends might be depending on them. 

Knowing this, which of the following approaches seems more likely to get a child to put down the controller without an argument? 

1. “You need to stop playing that game so much, you’re failing your classes.” 

2. “I know you’re playing WoW right now, but you need to stop after this raid to get your homework done.” 

1. “Please come take out the trash.”

2. “Please come take out the trash at the end of the round.” 

1. “Come on, let’s go take a walk.” 

2. “Let’s go for a walk when you’re at a good stopping point.” 

Even if you decide that you want your children to turn the game off as soon as you call, understanding the language your children are using will give you the tools to have this conversation with them. Simply acknowledging the dilemma by using their language will be more readily listened to. 

“I know that you’re in the middle of a round, but Grandma is coming over and I need your help” will be more effective than simply, “Put down the game, Grandma is coming over and I need your help.” And of course, if you knew what a trainer battle was, its importance to your child, how long they typically take, and the problem it may cause them if interrupted, you might choose to give them a bit more latitude as appropriate.

Many other examples exist - what would you do if your child asked you for money to buy “skins”? What about “DLC”? Is either worth your money? The easiest way to learn the lingo is by playing. (A glossary of video game terms like these is available at the end of this book.) 

Model Positive Behavior

Much of what we see in children can be attributed to lack of positive role models in game spaces. The most popular streamers rise to the top by acting in extreme ways. Like reality TV, people who act reasonably don’t make for compelling content. Streamers who scream, swear, throw controllers, and break keyboards when they lose are fun to watch. We have to be intentional to counteract this with positivity when able. 

When you play with your kids, you have a wonderful opportunity to teach them how to win and lose gracefully. Laugh at yourself when you lose. Congratulate them on a game well played. Children, especially young ones, need to be taught positive language like this. “Wow, that was fun, you really kicked my butt!” “Haha, I messed that up!” 

When it’s time to stop, explain why you’re quitting the game. “Oops, there’s my alarm. It’s dinner time. I should stop and go get everything ready. Thanks for playing with me! Can you please come help me set the table?” In doing so repeatedly, you help them learn how to balance gaming with other activities. They can see through your example that you know that gaming is fun but that it is only one aspect of a full life. 

Assessing Appropriate Content

Many parents rely on the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) in deciding whether to buy a game for their children. Almost every game which can be bought in a store has an ESRB rating visible on the package (Fig. 5). 

The ESRB’s system is similar to the “G, PG, PG-13, R” system used for movies. It evaluates the same categories, like level of violence, sexual content, and inappropriate language. 

The scale includes “Early Childhood,” “Everyone,” “Everyone 10+,” “Teen,” “Mature 17+,” and “Adults Only.” These are written prominently on game packaging (Fig. 5 and 7)

Figure 5. The ESRB ratings scale icons.

European countries instead use the Pan European Games Information (PEGI) ratings system. This system prominently features the minimum recommended age for players (Fig. 6)

Figure 5. The PEGI ratings scale icons.

Figure 6. On the bottom left, the ESRB has rated this game as “MATURE 17+”

ESRB and PEGI ratings are a useful shorthand for parents, but they are not as nuanced as many would like. 

My parents were fine with me watching The Matrix when I was in middle school, but would have been horrified to find me watching Saw, though both received an R-rating. The same difficulty exists with games which are rated “T for Teen” or “M for Mature.” 

Independent review websites like Common Sense Media (CommonSenseMedia.org) supplement the ESRB rating to give a fuller picture of what parents can expect. 

Common Sense Media evaluates popular media on several categories, including “violence,” “sex,” “language,” and “drinking, drugs, and smoking” and summarizes it in a comprehensive write-up. 

For example, Common Sense Media’s write-up on the popular game Fortnite clarifies that, “The game has a cartoonish style, and the violence, while persistent, isn't bloody or particularly gory, even though you're using melee weapons and firearms to eliminate opponents. The game does push players to make additional in-game purchases to acquire many cosmetic items, objects, and celebratory animations, though they're not required to play. While there isn't any profanity in the game dialogue, the game's online nature could expose younger players to iffy language from random strangers in voice or on-screen text chat.” 

This is invaluable information for you to make an informed decision for your children. 

The ESRB rating on the box and websites like Common Sense Media are helpful, but they cannot replace your own instincts and value system. This is another reason to play your kids’ favorite games with them. 

If you want additional context before deciding to purchase a game, search for a “Let’s Play” video of it. Videos on YouTube or other sites with “Let’s Play” in the title showcase gameplay to interested viewers, with or without commentary. 

This is particularly true for games with a public chat feature. As Common Sense Media noted in their Fortnite writeup, when players can hear anyone on their team talking, it can turn even the most family-friendly game toxic. Racist, homophobic, and sexist slurs are common in some games. Playing the games will help you monitor this aspect and decide if you want to restrict voice chat to only communicating with players your child knows and trusts. (Candidly, that’s something I recommend for almost anyone. Public chat is terrible.)

Teaching Values

Similarly, many games can provide unique opportunities for important conversations. Sexist and harmful content in Grand Theft Auto can be turned into a positive lesson about how to treat others. You can demonstrate how to regulate your emotions while dying repeatedly in the punishingly difficult Celeste or Dark Souls. 

Parents who own firearms can point out irresponsible behavior by characters and reinforce safe practices. Parents who disapprove of guns can use the same games as a lesson about why they see them as harmful. Talk about the difference between fantasy and reality - why is it fun to watch fictional characters solve problems with their fists, but unacceptable for real people to do the same? 

Discussing values through fictional characters provides a more comfortable way to discuss real life. It’s easier to have a conversation about a character’s choices than it is what your child should do in a given situation. 

For example, most teenagers will roll their eyes at their parents trying to teach them how to respond to a bully. But during a scene in which the protagonist in Life Is Strange faces a cruel student, a well-timed “Wow, what would you do?” could teach the same lesson without the groans. 

One mother decided to try this approach by playing Minecraft with her 6-year-old son. She was initially concerned about how he was handling the cartoonish violence in the game, so she decided to ask why he was killing the virtual animals. She was relieved to discover that “this wasn’t about aggression but understanding cause and effect. ‘See, you get stuff,’ he said after killing a cow and receiving a small pixelated steak...Even if he couldn’t always answer these questions, his attempts to answer them marked the first step in his understanding of why such questions merit answering.” 

Assessing Interests

Video games can also be used to lead young people toward similar interests in the physical world. Which games does your child gravitate toward? What draws them to those games? And how can they explore those aspects in other ways?

Does your child enjoy fast-paced games with lots of action? Maybe they’d enjoy martial arts or soccer. Do strong characters and stories excite them? You could have a budding author in your living room. Do they gravitate toward games with unique art styles? Sign them up for a drawing class or buy them a book on artists whose work might interest them.

Young people often need help finding things to be passionate about. Creatively finding links between the games they play and other activities is a natural way to transition between them.

Fun

Video games are also fun. You might be surprised to find you enjoy some of the games your kids play. It’s such a diverse medium that there are games for everyone. Even skeptical adults I introduce to Jackbox Party Packs quickly understand the appeal and ask to play again.

When playing with your children, remember to have fun. Part of your kids’ enjoyment will come from annihilating you. Your children may not be the experts in any other area of their lives. You are bigger, stronger, more experienced, and more knowledgeable than they are. Beating their parents at a game is silly. 

If losing a competition bothers you, playing with your children may be stressful. If so, take a moment before playing to remember:

Losing to your children in their favorite games is winning at parenting. 

Conversation Starters for Kids:

• What are your favorite video games? 

• Would I enjoy any of your favorite games? What would I like about them?

• Would I like going to a con? Why or why not?

• What characters do I remind you of? Why?

• Are ESRB ratings always accurate? Which games’ ratings do you disagree with?

Conclusion

I hope that reading this book has given you information you need to help make decisions regarding their use of technology. 

The following is a summary of the most important points in the book you have just read.xxxxxrephrase

Benefits of Video Games

Video games are a wonderful way to spend time. They are a uniquely interactive art form which can help us play alongside others across the world. There are as many kinds of video games as there are kinds of books. There are video games for everyone. 

Games help us feel good about ourselves, as they let us connect with others, make our own decisions, and succeed at something we enjoy. 

Games can help people in a number of ways, including teaching real-world skills, building executive functioning skills, and providing virtual spaces to socialize. They can also provide space to experiment with our identity and personality in safe, fictional environments. Don’t worry, violent video games won’t make your kid act violently. 

Downsides to Video Games

Video games do have downsides. They are often developed to drain users’ wallets and take up as much free time as possible. They can also be toxic places for women, people of color, LGBTQ+ people, and other minorities. 

Although gaming is largely harmless, watch out for warning signs like isolation, decreased hygiene, difficulty controlling emotions when gaming, struggles in school, and choosing video games over time with others. These symptoms might reflect an addiction to the medium, but also might be an indication of another mental disorder and should be assessed by a qualified mental health professional. 

Managing Money

Some unscrupulous game developers use psychology to make their games as habit-forming as possible to make money. This is particularly true for “free to play” games, where they must compete with other games for your attention and money. 

Help your kids recognize what tactics games and other salespeople use to convince them to spend money. Armed with this information, they stand a better chance at making good financial decisions for themselves in the future. Use parental controls as appropriate to help protect them from strangers and give them information to make sure they are able to fend for themselves in the future. 

Managing Emotions

When gamers lash out when gaming, it’s usually because they were asked to stop when in the middle of a game, feeling like someone cheated, feeling frustration at a game’s difficulty, or social stressors. 

When your children are upset, start by using active listening to help your children feel heard and regulate their emotions. Once they have calmed down, you can start to talk to them about the source of the problem, problem solve together, and establish consequences for anything the child did while angry. 

If your children play video games in moderation and have an active social life, other interests, and get good grades, I recommend setting as few rules about technology as possible. Restricting anything too heavily risks making it into a forbidden fruit. 

Managing Screen Time

When establishing rules and consequences, involve your children in the process as much as possible. Young people are much more likely to follow rules they helped write. In my experience, children are more reasonable than most parents predict. Share your concerns and remain curious throughout the conversation. They need to know that you’re not the enemy in this conversation. You’re on their team against the problem. 

Lay out consequences to breaking the rules and stick to them. If you can impassively stick to the rules you both established, your kids will only have themselves to blame. 

Help young children learn to recognize and regulate their emotions without screens. Wait until your children are at least 10 or 11 to give them their own screen. Give children under four as little screen time as possible, unless they’re communicating with a live human on the screen. 

Don’t allow phones or other screens during family meals. This applies to you too: children learn more from your example than your words. Leave screens at home whenever possible. Children need to be bored sometimes. 

Keep screens in public areas at home. This will let you passively monitor appropriateness of their favorite games and, more importantly, whether the people your children are chatting with are safe. 

Gaming Addiction

Research suggests that a very small percent of people do become clinically addicted to video games. People with “gaming disorder” prioritize video games over other aspects of their lives, even when they don’t want to. They cannot control it. If you are concerned that you or a loved one may have an addiction, please consult with a licensed mental health professional. 

Many young people have turned to video games as a social space after real-life ones became inaccessible. We can collectively help young people broaden their horizons by opening more public spaces for them. 

Make sure to take time to play your kids’ favorite video games with them. It will not only help you keep an eye on what your children are being exposed to, but will also let you spend time with your kids learning about what they love. 

Most importantly, keep your values in mind when making any parenting decision. 

…what were your top five again?

______________________  ______________________  ______________________

______________________  ______________________ 

Why are those so important to you? What kind of adults do you want your kids to grow up to be? What parenting decisions do your values lead toward? 

Relevant Games

The following values are based on my own opinion and experiences. How appealing, appropriate, and addictive a given game is depends on an individual’s level of maturity. 

Relevant Games 104

Among Us 107

Call of Duty 108

Clash of Clans 110

FIFA 111

Fortnite 112

Genshin Impact 113

Grand Theft Auto 114

League of Legends 115

The Legend of Zelda 116

Madden 117

Mario Kart 118

Minecraft 119

NBA 2K 120

Overwatch 121

Pokémon 122

Roblox 124

Super Smash Bros. 125

World of Warcraft 126

Game

ESRB

Recommended Age

Monetization

Social

Addictive

Safety

Among Us

E10+

10+

B+

B+

B

Brawl Stars

N/A

9+

C

B+

B

Call of Duty

M

16+

C

Clash of Clans

N/A

13+

D

C

D

FIFA

E

9+

Five Nights at Freddy’s

N/A

12+

B

N/A

A

A

Fortnite

T

13+

C

Genshin Impact

T

12+

D

B

D

Grand Theft Auto

M

17+

F

C

F

The Last of Us

M

17+

A / C

N/A / D

League of Legends

T

13+

F

The Legend of Zelda

Games range from E through T

9+

A

N/A

A

A

Madden

E

C

Mario Kart

E

7+/14+ online

Variable

B

B

B

Minecraft

E10+

9+

B

B-

B

NBA 2K

E

C

Overwatch

T

13+

D

Pokémon

E

7+

A

B

B

A

Roblox

T

18+

Variable

F

Variable

F

The Sims

Stardew Valley

Super Smash Bros.

T

9+

A

A-

B

World of Warcraft

T

16+

F

F

F

Among Us

Summary:

An alien has infiltrated a small space station and disguised itself as a crew member. One player is randomly assigned to the role of the alien, killing other astronauts and sabotaging ship systems while trying to blend in. The astronauts must maintain the ship while working together to deduce who is the imposter.

ESRB rating: E10+ (Everyone 10+)

Recommended age: 10+

Monetization system: B+

Among Us can be downloaded and played for free, but an in-game store offers additional cosmetic items such as funny hats for purchase.

Social: B+

This game is a great way for people to spend time together. It can even be beneficial for young people to help build social skills, as one must learn to read social cues to succeed. However, the game can also be played with random players online, introducing an element of risk. 

Addictive: 

Safety Concerns: B

Parents should monitor who their children are playing with to make sure they know and trust the other players. The game itself is not dangerous, but strangers online always introduce some risk.

Brawl Stars

Summary:

ESRB rating: N/A

Recommended age: 9+

Monetization system: C

Social: B+

Addictive: 

Safety Concerns: B

Call of Duty

Summary:

A series of first-person shooter games that takes place in specific time periods. They’re a highly accurate historical representation of war. It has a single-player mode in which players fight in historical battles and a multiplayer mode which randomly assigns players to an army to fight against the other team. 

ESRB rating: M for Mature

Recommended age: 16+

Monetization system: C

Most games in the series require a one-time payment to access the core game. Recent games charge extra money for cosmetic upgrades to weapons and clothing. Call of Duty: Mobile (called COD Mobile by fans) is free-to-play, so spending any money is entirely optional. 

Social: 

Addictive: 

Safety Concerns:

Clash of Clans

Summary:

ESRB rating: N/A

Recommended age: 13+

Monetization system: D

Almost all actions in the game take hours or days to complete. For example, upgrading a tower requires resources which are slowly gained over time. Once players have gathered enough gold to improve this tower, the tower becomes inactive for up to four days. This leaves the player at a disadvantage unless they decide to pay money to speed this up. 

Social: C

Addictive: D

Safety Concerns:

FIFA

Summary:

Same as NBA 2Kloot boxes

ESRB rating: E for Everyone

Recommended age: 9+

Although the game contains no inappropriate content, it may be too complicated for younger players to enjoy. 

Monetization system: 

Social: 

Addictive: 

Safety Concerns:

Five Nights at Freddy’s (FNAF)

Summary:

A series of popular horror games for children. Players try to survive attacks from malevolent animatronic animals in a Chuck E. Cheese-like pizza arcade. 

ESRB rating: N/A

Recommended age: 12+

The game is generally appropriate for most children. To my knowledge, all violence in the series is off-screen or implied. However, the game is frightening, as animatronics stalk and jump out at the player. It would have scared the pants off me at twelve, but other kids would have been fine. 

Monetization system: B

The mobile versions of the games contain optional, cosmetic items and a “cheat mode” for purchase.

Social: N/A

All games in the series are single player only. 

Addictive: A

To the best of my knowledge, the games do not contain any elements designed to psychologically hook players. 

Safety Concerns: A

Other than the potential to frighten young players, I am unaware of any safety concerns.

Fortnite

Summary:

A third-person shooter, battle royale game. The game is full of gun violence, but it is cartoonish and no blood is shown. 

ESRB rating: T for Teen

Recommended age: 13+

Monetization system: C

Social: 

Addictive: 

Safety Concerns:

Genshin Impact

Summary:

Players save a fantasy world by slaying monsters and evildoers with medieval weaponry and magic. 

ESRB rating: T for Teen

Recommended age: 12+

The game itself is appropriate for most children, but it may be difficult for some to resist microtransactions. The game also contains public chat, so children must know how to protect themselves from strangers. 

Monetization system: D

This game features a “gacha” monetization system, in which players unlock characters by purchasing loot boxes. The odds of receiving the most powerful characters and weapons can be as low as 0.6% per purchase, making them effectively extremely expensive. 

Social: B

Players can help friends or strangers with difficult tasks and coordinate efforts using the in-game chat feature. I have not experienced inappropriate comments while playing, but communication with strangers always includes risks to minors. 

Addictive: D

I enjoyed this game, but stopped because it was taking up too much of my time. Rather than playing whenever I wanted to, I had started to open the app every day simply to complete the time-limited tasks and events. 

Safety Concerns:

Parents should be aware of whom their child is communicating with and how they are spending money.

Grand Theft Auto (Series)

Summary:

A series of characters journey through different violent neighborhoods, committing bank heists and assassinations, racing cars, and dealing drugs. 

ESRB rating: M for Mature

Recommended age: 17+

Each Grand Theft Auto game features extreme violence and drug use. Several contain nudity, sex, and one game requires the player to torture a hostage. 

Monetization system: 

Social: F

I have never had a positive experience playing GTA Online. Nearly every time I log on, young-sounding voices bombard me with racial and homophobic slurs. I do not recommend playing this game with public voice chat on for anyone. 

Addictive: C

Safety Concerns: F

When playing GTA Online, anyone can speak to others who cohabit the virtual world. Voice chat is unfiltered and vile. I often hear threats, gender-based insults, crude language, and racial and ethnic slurs while playing. I recommend that players and parents change the in-game “Voice Chat” settings from “Everyone” to “Friends.” This prevents strangers from communicating with the player. 

The Last of Us (Series)

Summary:

These are some of the first games I mention when explaining that video games are a legitimate art form.  The Last of Us Part I tells the story of a man who must smuggle a young girl across America while protecting her from hordes of the undead.  Part II explores the dire consequences of his choices.  They are simultaneously terribly violent and also heartbreakingly beautiful.  

ESRB rating: M for Mature

Recommended age: 17+

Most of the game heavily features graphic violence and firearms, references to pornography, and profanity.  

Monetization system: A / C

Players can purchase a small prequel adventure for about $10, but otherwise the games use a traditional “one-time-purchase” model. However, the less popular multiplayer “Factions” mode offers optional useful and cosmetic items for purchase, such as better weapons and abilities. 

Social: N/A / D

Players will never interact with others in the core, single-player game. However, the multiplayer mode contains unrestricted voice chat with strangers. 

Addictive: A-

The single-player mode does not use any tricks to keep players hooked. However, multiplayer gameplay is inherently addictive for some, as gameplay is endless. 

Safety Concerns:

League of Legends

Summary:

Players use 

ESRB rating: T for Teen

Recommended age: 13+

Monetization system: 

Social: 

Addictive: F

Safety Concerns:

The Legend of Zelda (Series)

Summary:

Players venture through perilous lands to save Princess Zelda. Each puzzle-filled dungeon rewards players with a new weapon or tool which can be used to access new areas. All violence is cartoonish and appropriate for most children. Monsters vanish in a puff of smoke when slain and no blood is shown. (I love these games.)

ESRB rating: Ranges from E for Everyone to T for Teen

Recommended age: 9+

Some enemies and scenes may be frightening for young children. 

Monetization system: A

All games can be purchased for a set price and do not contain predatory microtransactions. However, some recent games feature an expansion pass with additional content for an additional cost. 

Social: N/A

Only one obscure game in the series can be played with more than one player. 

Addictive: A

Although completing a game can take up to 150 hours, none of the games contain manipulative strategies to keep players hooked indefinitely. 

Safety Concerns: A

I have no safety concerns for this game.

Madden

Summary:

Same as NBA 2K

ESRB rating: E for Everyone

Recommended age: 10+

Although the game contains no inappropriate content, it may be too complicated for younger players to enjoy. 

Monetization system: 

Social: 

Addictive: 

Safety Concerns:

Mario Kart (Series)

Summary:

Popular Nintendo characters like Mario, Luigi, and Bowser race go-karts while attacking one another with silly items like banana peels and turtle shells. 

ESRB rating: E for Everyone

Recommended age: 7+ when playing offline, 14+ when playing online

The game is appropriate for all ages, but might require too much coordination for young children to enjoy. 

Monetization system: Variable

Most games in the series do not require players to spend additional money after purchasing the game. However, one game offers many additional levels for about $25. The mobile version of the game is free and therefore has some features which promote optional purchases. 

Social: B

Mario Kart is a great game for families and groups of friends to play together. Players can communicate while racing against randomly paired strangers, but users are rarely toxic to one another.

Addictive: B

Developers did not seem to make any choices which promote addiction, but games without a clear “ending” are more likely to cause problems. 

Safety Concerns: B

The game itself is entirely appropriate, but parents should always take precautions when their children can communicate with anonymous strangers. Be careful about whom your children are playing with and remind your children not to share personal information online.

Minecraft

Summary:

A sandbox game in which players build structures, explore, and fight pixelated monsters. Although the main quest is to defeat a dragon, most players enjoy establishing their own goals and playing creatively. Some explore the vast tunnels underground, others choose to gather resources and construct buildings and other structures brick-by-brick. 

ESRB rating: E10+ (Everyone 10+)

Recommended age: 9+

Minecraft is generally appropriate, but it may be too complicated and frustrating for younger children.

Monetization system: B

Minecraft features microtransactions, even in the paid version of the game. Xxxxx check

Social: B-

Players can join one another in shared worlds. This can be done publicly or in a “private server” with friends. This is generally safe when played with classmates or people vetted in real life, but any public chat with strangers introduces risk. 

Addictive: B

Minecraft does not employ mainstream tactics to keep players hooked. However, the endless nature of the game means that it can be hard for some to put the game away. 

Safety Concerns:

When playing the basic, single-player game, the game is safe and appropriate for most young people. However, many prefer to play online with strangers in public or private “servers.” These vary significantly and many feature heavily modified versions of the game. As a result, children may be exposed to harmful speech or content by other users. Be sure to check in with your children about what servers they are playing on, what other players are saying, and make sure that they know how to keep themselves and their personal information safe.

NBA 2K

Summary:

Each NBA 2K game is 

Play as basketball team, make roster changes

ESRB rating: E for Everyone

Recommended age: 7+

The content of the game is appropriate for all ages, but it may be too complex for very young players to enjoy. 

Monetization system: 

Uniforms, game currency, expensive, loot boxes

Social: 

Online version available, can shut off voice chat

Addictive: 

Safety Concerns:

Overwatch (Series)

Summary:

A diverse group of soldiers use firearms and supernatural abilities to compete in team-based contests similar to Capture the Flag or King of the Hill. 

ESRB rating: T for Teen

Recommended age: 13+

Monetization system: 

Social: 

Addictive: D

Safety Concerns:

Pokémon 

Summary:

Pokémon is a series of role-playing games which takes place in a world full of fantastical monsters called Pokémon. The main character must explore different regions to capture, tame, and command a team of wild Pokémon to win a series of competitions. 

ESRB rating: E for Everyone

Recommended age: 7+

Although players command monsters to fight one another, no actual violence is shown. All attacks are highly stylized and the characters do not touch one another during combat. 

Monetization system: A

Nearly all games in the series cost a set amount of money and do not contain microtransactions. Recent games contain optional, additional content called DLC (Downloadable Content) which can be purchased after buying the core game. 

Some mobile games like Pokémon GO and Pokémon TCG Pocket are exceptions; they is free to download and play, but players can choose to purchase additional resources or access to events and challenges. 

Social: B

Almost every Pokémon game is released as a pair. Each contains an incomplete set of creatures, so players must trade some of their collection with another player to acquire every species. This encourages players to communicate with friends, but some players seek trade partners on independent online forums. 

Addictive: B

Many players seek to seek out and capture all 1000+ Pokemon. This requires dozens of hours of effort, but has a finite ending. 

Players can compete with their digital monsters with one another online or in regional competitions. Casual and competitive online competitions can be time-consuming and cannot be stopped mid-match. 

Safety Concerns: A

Other than the inherent risks posed by contacting others online, I have no safety concerns about the game. Most online Pokemon communities are heavily moderated, safe places for all ages.

Roblox

Summary:

Roblox is not a game, but rather a platform which hosts millions of different, user-made games. Many are family-friendly, but others are highly offensive. These include adopting and raising cute animals, going to a nightclub and getting lap dances, and . 

ESRB rating: T for Teen

Recommended age: 18+

Children can safely play with others in most arenas, but many games host problematic content and dangerous people. Because moderation is largely ineffective or non-existent, I do not believe minors should be on Roblox. See “Safety Concerns” below for more information.

Monetization system: Variable

Although all games on Roblox are free, most games feature optional microtransactions. These include cosmetic changes to one’s character, improved tools or weapons, additional content, and expedited progress. 

Social: F

Most popular Roblox games host anonymous players from across the world. Text from others appears on the screen and the paid version allows players to communicate using voice chat. Each room or game a child enters contains unvetted strangers who can communicate freely with them until the child blocks them. 

Addictive: Variable

Some games feature habit-forming xxxxx

Safety Concerns:

Roblox is one of the most popular pastimes for children and is extraordinarily dangerous. Although it is marketed as a harmless way for children to spend time, I recommend anyone under eighteen stay far away from it. 

Investment research group Hindenburg Research scoured Roblox to assess appropriateness for children. They did so primarily by setting up fake accounts pretending to be minors and seeing what they could access. 

They concluded that Roblox is “an X-rated pedophile hellscape, replete with users attempting to groom our avatars, groups openly trading child pornography, widely accessible sex games, violent content and extremely abusive speech – all of which is open to young children and all while Roblox has cut content moderation spending to appease Wall Street and boost earnings.”

A compilation of harmful content Hindenburg Research observed is available on their social media: https://x.com/HindenburgRes/status/1843694206881059059

Super Smash Bros.

Summary:

Popular characters from different franchises battle one another in two-dimensional arenas. These include Mario and Luigi, fight Sonic the Hedgehog, Pikachu, Zelda, and Pac-Man. 

ESRB rating: T for Teen

Recommended age: 9+

The game contains various weapons and fierce combat, but it is highly unrealistic, like a Looney Tunes cartoon. Characters do not bleed, instead flying backward comically when struck. 

Monetization system: A

In general, the game 

Social: A-

The game is best played with friends, so it is popular at parties and sleepovers. Players cannot remotely communicate with others unless they use the companion “Nintendo Switch Online” app or another service like Discord. If they do, they can speak with anyone in the game.

Addictive: B

Safety Concerns:

Players cannot communicate with others using voice or text chat unless they use the companion “Nintendo Switch Online” app or another service like Discord. If they do, they can speak with anyone in the game.

World of Warcraft

Summary:

A massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) in which players create a fantasy character and fight alongside friends against mythical foes. It takes place in a similar fantasy world as the Lord of the Rings books (orcs, dragons, etc.). 

ESRB rating: T for Teen

Recommended age: 16+

Monetization system: F

Social: F

Addictive: F

World of Warcraft is often considered the most addictive game ever made. In addition to special, time-limited events and thousands of hours of content, players rely heavily on teammates to complete tasks. If someone doesn’t want to play on a given night, they can put their team at a significant disadvantage. 

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Glossary

Achievement - The reward for an in-game challenge, similar to a trophy.

AFK - Away from keyboard; sometimes used to shorthand needing to leave the game. “Sorry guys, I need to go AFK for a minute, my mom’s calling me.”

Alpha - A primitive, unfinished version of a game.  Most features are not implemented, but it is technically playable. See also “Beta.”

AoE - Area of effect; an action that affects a large area rather than a specific target, e.g. an explosive.

Avatar - A player’s character, especially when the character is customizable. 

Balance - How fair a game feels. “They need to work on balancing this game, it’s too easy for the aliens to win.” 

Banned - Restricted from playing, usually for violating game norms. “They’re going to ban him if he keeps swearing like that.”

Battle Royale - A game in which many players fight to the death until only one is left standing. Also used for non-violent games in which people can be eliminated from competition. 

Beta - The first version of a game released to the public. See also “Alpha.” “The game isn’t great, but it’s still in beta.”

Boss - A huge enemy, usually the final challenge. “This next boss is tough, it took me hours to beat it.” 

Broken - Describes an item or character that is so powerful that it makes the game unfair. “That character is so broken, the game isn’t even fun with him.” 

Browser Game - A video game designed to be played within an internet browser, such as Google Chrome or Firefox. “My computer isn’t very powerful, but at least I can play browser games.” 

Bugs - Errors in programming. “There are so many bugs that the game is almost unplayable.”

Bullet Hell - A genre of game which requires players to dodge an absurd number of projectiles simultaneously. “Bullet hell games are too hard for me.”

Buff - To modify the game’s programming to make an item or character more powerful. See also “Nerf.” “I’m glad they buffed that sword, it was pretty useless before.”

Checkpoint - A safe place in a game in which one can recover and save progress. “I’m going to go take a shower as soon as I reach a checkpoint.” 

Class - A character’s occupation, e.g. archer, fighter, wizard, or druid. “What class do you play?”

Completionist - Someone who enjoys exploring games to find every secret. “I’m kind of a completionist, I hundred-percented Skyrim.”

Con - See Convention.

Console - A computer-like device which is designed specifically to run various games. 

Controller - A device held in both hands that is used to communicate desired actions to the gaming device. “I need a new controller, the buttons on mine keep sticking.” 

Convention - A large, in-person event for fans of a particular medium or game. “Are you going to the convention next month? I heard Patrick Stewart might be there signing autographs.” 

Co-op - Cooperative; describes games or game modes which promote working together toward a common goal.

Cooked - Doomed. “He’s up five points, you’re cooked.” 

Cooking - Doing very well. “Wow, look at him cook. He’s up five points.”

Cosmetic - An aesthetic change to a character or item, usually purchased or earned with in-game accomplishments. “They added a bunch of cosmetics in the new update. I might buy a couple of them.”

Cosplay - Dressing as a fictional character, often in homemade costumes. 

Cutscene - A brief, non-interactive video clip within a game which advances the narrative. 

Discord - A website and app which allows people to communicate with one another, commonly used by gamers. 

DLC - Downloadable Content; additional content that can be added to an existing game. 

Doxxing - Finding and publishing someone’s real-life information online, often including their full name and address, in order to harm them. 

DPS - Damage Per Second; refers either to the amount a given character can hurt others or to a character designed to maximize this statistic. 

Drop - An item left behind by a defeated enemy. 

Easter Egg - A fun secret put in by game developers for players to find. 

eSports - Competitive video gaming in tournaments.

ESRB - Entertainment Software Ratings Board; a group that assigns suggested age limits to games based on content. 

Exp. - See Experience Points.

Experience Points - Numerical representations of how much a character has learned. When one has accumulated enough experience points, additional skills or power is added. 

F - Used to sarcastically offer condolences.

F2P - See Free-to-play.

Final Boss - An intimidating enemy at the very end of a game. “The final boss of this game is almost impossible; I almost gave up trying to beat it.” 

Free-to-play - A game which costs no money to play, but has optional in-game items to purchase. 

FtP - See Free-to-play.

Gamer tag - A username used to designate a given player. “What’s your gamer tag? I’m going to add you so we can play together later.”

Gear - Equipment characters wear or use to accomplish tasks. “I need to get better gear before I move on.” 

GG - Good Game; Typed by players at the end of a match to show good sportsmanship. 

Grinding - Performing repetitive, simple tasks to earn strengthen one’s character, gather items, or earn in-game currency. “I’m not strong enough to beat the next boss, I’m going to grind here for a while.” 

Headshot - The action of firing a projectile into a character or another player’s head, resulting in instant death. “I just got headshotted from across the map, they’re either talented or cheating.”

Healer - A character who focuses on helping their teammates recover from injuries. “We need a healer on our team, we’re going to get destroyed if we have only attackers.”

HP - Hit Points; a measure of how much damage a character can take before fainting or dying. “I only have five HP left, I need to heal right away.” 

Hundred-percent - to complete every possible objective in a game. “There isn’t enough to do in the new Pokémon, I hundred percented it in two weeks.”

IRL - In Real Life; in the physical world, as opposed to a virtual one. 

Lagging - When games run too slowly, usually because of insufficient or overtaxed hardware. “My game is lagging, sorry everyone. I think my internet is having trouble.”

Level - A measure of how powerful a character is. Also a specific challenge to be beaten within a game before advancing to the next one. “It took me forever to beat that level.” “I need to level up before I try that again.” 

Loot Box - A container with an assortment of useful items that can be purchased without knowing what it contains. 

Meat Shield - Slang for a tank; a character which defends others by taking damage instead of the teammates. 

Microtransactions - Small optional purchases within a game. 

MMO - Massively Multiplayer Online (game); a game in which many people can play and interact with one another simultaneously. 

MMORPG - Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game; an online role playing game which many people can play and interact with one another simultaneously. 

MOBA - Multiplayer Online Battle Arena; a sports-like game which involves direct competition, usually featuring two teams defending their own territory. 

Mobile Game - A video game designed to be played on a portable device like a phone or tablet. 

Mod - Modification; an alteration to a game’s code to make it act differently than intended. 

MP - Magic Points/Mana Points; a measure of how much magic power a character has left. “Firaga is such a good attack, but it costs too much MP to use every time.” 

Multiplayer - Describes games that support more than one player. “I prefer multiplayer games because I like to talk to other players.” 

Nerf - To modify the game’s programming to make an item or character less powerful. See also “Buff.” “They finally nerfed that gun that everyone was using.” 

Noob - Newbie; someone unskilled at a game or task. “I’m a noob, can anyone tell me what button to push to run?” 

NPC - Non-player character; a character controlled by the computer rather than a live person. “Go talk to some of the NPCs in town, maybe they can point you in the right direction.”

OP - Overpowered; describes an item or character which is too strong. “They banned that character from competitive tournaments because it was OP.”

P2P - Pay to play; describes games which cost a set amount of money. “I only play P2P games, I hate how most games nowadays are always asking for money.” See also P2W.

P2W - Pay to win; a derisive way to describe games with microtransactions which offer too much of a benefit. “I used to like that game, but the new microtransactions made it too P2W. I shouldn’t have to pay just to stay competitive.” See also P2P.

PvP - Player versus player; describes games in which gamers compete with one another. 

Platform - The device on which a game is played, e.g., phone, computer, PS5, Nintendo Switch. “I want to play Breath of the Wild, but I don’t have the right platform for it.”

Platformer - A kind of game in which one must avoid obstacles and leap across a series of floating platforms to reach the end of the level. 

Playtesting - Playing a game repeatedly to identify problems ahead of a public release. “They didn’t do enough playtesting, there are a lot of bugs.”

POG/Poggers - Play of the Game; the most interesting part of a match. Also slang for “cool.” 

Procedurally generated - Describes parts of games which are created semi-randomly, so each player gets a unique experience. “Hades has procedurally generated levels, so I can play it over and over and not get bored.”

QoL - Quality of Life; describes features added to a game to reduce tediousness or other annoyances. “They finally added a button to sort your equipment automatically. It’s a huge QoL feature.”

Quest - A task within a game assigned to the player. “If you go to the next town, the villagers will give you some new quests.” 

Race - In the context of a Role Playing Game, the species of a given character, e.g., elf, orc, dwarf, or human. “What race and class do you want to play as? Gnome druids are fun.” 

Rework - 

RNG - Random Number Generator; refers to the probability calculations which games use to affect outcomes. Sometimes used as a shorthand for “luck.” “This game relies too much on RNG, it’s hard to consistently do well.”

RPG - Role Playing Game; a game in which the player acts as a fictional character within a world, e.g. playing as a knight in a medieval kingdom. 

Server - A virtual space in which people can interact with one another. “What server are you on? I want to play with you.”

Single-player - Describes games designed to be played alone. “Zelda games are single-player, so let’s pick a different game to play together.”

Skins - Cosmetic, non-functional changes to a character or item, e.g., alternate clothing colors or hairstyles. 

Spamming - Rapidly and repeatedly pressing a button, usually to attack as quickly as possible. “It was so annoying, he spent the whole time just spamming the spacebar.”

Speedrunning - Trying to complete a video game as fast as possible, often trying to beat others’ record times.

Steam - A downloadable computer program which hosts and sells a wide variety of video games. 

Streamer - A person who broadcasts their activities to a live audience who watch online. 

Sweaty - 

Sus - Suspicious. 

Tank - A character who focuses on defending and protecting their teammates from harm. “Where’s our tank? We’re getting shot at!”

Trolling - Intentionally upsetting others for fun. 

Tryhard - A derisive word for someone who takes games too seriously. “I hate playing with him, he’s such a tryhard. He can’t stand it if you don’t use the most powerful characters.”

Turn-based - Describes a game in which players act one at a time, like chess. 

Twitch - A website which features live videos of people, most commonly while they play and comment on video games. 

Walkthrough - A guide to completing a challenge or game.

Appendix

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Phipps, John. 2018. “Ignore the Panic, Video Games Are Not Training Shooters.” Polygon. https://www.polygon.com/2018/3/21/17138766/video-game-gun-violence-firearms-training-vr-virtual-reality.

Przybylski, Andrew K., Edward L. Deci, C. S. Rigby, and Richard M. Ryan. 2013. “Competence-Impeding Electronic Games and Players' Aggressive Feelings, Thoughts, and Behaviors.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 106 (3): 441-457. 10.1037/a0034820.

Przybylski, Andrew K., and Netta Weinstein. 2019. “Violent Video Game Engagement Is Not Associated with Adolescents' Aggressive Behaviour: Evidence from a Registered Report.” Royal Society Open Science 6, no. 2 (February). 10.1098/rsos.171474.

Rao, Devika. 2024. “Third Places Are Disappearing as the World Goes More Online.” The Week. https://theweek.com/culture-life/third-places-disappearing.

Reach3 Insights. 2021. “Reach3 Insights’ New Research Reveals 59% of Women Surveyed Use a Non-Gendered/Male Identity to Avoid Harassment While Gaming.” Reach3 Insights. https://www.reach3insights.com/women-gaming-study.

Rogers Park Business Alliance. n.d. “Glenwood Alfresco.” Rogers Park Business Alliance. Accessed June 22, 2024. https://rpba.org/glenwood-avenue-alfresco/.

Roseberry, Sarah, Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, and Roberta M. Golinkoff. 2014. “Skype Me! Socially Contingent Interactions Help Toddlers Learn Language.” Child Development 85, no. 3 (May): 956-970. 10.1111/cdev.12166.

Roseberry, Sarah, Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, and Robert M. Golinkoff. 2014. “Skype me! Socially Contingent Interactions Help Toddlers Learn Language.” Society for Research in Child Development 85 (3): 956-970. 10.1111/cdev.12166.

Santora, Tyler. 2021. “Why Do We Blink?” Live Science, July 6, 2021. https://www.livescience.com/why-do-we-blink.html.

Schlosser, Ralf W., and Oliver Wendt. 2008. “Effects of Augmentative and Alternative Communication Intervention on Speech Production in Children With Autism: A Systematic Review.” American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology 17, no. 3 (August): 212-230. 10.1044/1058-0360.

Schreier, Jason. 2015. “Why Most Video Game "Aggression" Studies Are Nonsense.” Kotaku, August 14, 2015. https://kotaku.com/why-most-video-game-aggression-studies-are-nonsense-1724116744.

Schwartz, Sarah. 2023. “Kids Understand More From Books Than Screens, But That's Not Always the Case.” Education Week, March 15, 2023. https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/kids-understand-more-from-books-than-screens-but-thats-not-always-the-case/2023/03.

Silksheets. 2021. “COD SLUR SPEEDRUN TikTok Compilation (N-word) | ORIGINAL CREATOR.” YouTube. YouTube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBVQGJVcgmQ&ab_channel=Silksheets.

Siragusa, Kaitlyn. 2021. “I don’t hate WHAT I do. I don’t hate how much I do it usually even. It’s the harassment, the unwarranted danger that comes from it when I’m just doing my own thin, minding my own biz and not hurting anyone. Someone lacking empathy or smol just wouldn’t.” Twitter. https://twitter.com/wildkait/status/1477013354216579074?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1477013354216579074%7Ctwgr%5E1eaeda9b79bff9345e4231e705bb9883a0295145%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fgamerant.com%2Ftwitch-amouranth-fame-dang.

Smith, Craig. 2017. “Candy Crush Saga Player Counts and Game Details | The Ultimate Game Guide.” Video Games Stats. https://videogamesstats.com/candy-crush-facts-statistics/.

Stewart, Sara. 2024. “Opinion: These people are fat. It’s none of your business.” CNN, January 4, 2024. https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/04/opinions/aubrey-gordon-your-fat-friend-ally-stewart/index.html.

Strauss, Elissa. 2019. “The argument for playing video games with our kids.” CNN, February 18, 2019. https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/18/health/video-games-parenting-strauss/index.html.

Tang, Wai Y. 2016. “Sexual Harassment in Online Videogames: What We Found So Far.” Game Developer. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/sexual-harassment-in-online-videogames-what-we-found-so-far.

Taub, Shais. 2022. “Children need to feel safe with us, really safe. Safe doesn't just mean physically safe. It also means emotionally safe. Safe from being insulted or rejected...” TikTok. Video. https://www.tiktok.com/@rabbi_shais_taub/video/7130438825700265262?lang=en.

Thompson, Clive. 2014. “How Videogames Like Minecraft Actually Help Kids Learn to Read.” WIRED. https://www.wired.com/2014/10/video-game-literacy/.

Tobin, Simon, and Simon Grondin. 2009. “Video Games and the Perception of Very Long Durations by Adolescents.” Computers in Human Behavior 25, no. 2 (March): 554-559. 10.1016/j.chb.2008.12.002.

The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. 2015. “Jack Black's Son Racked Up a $3K App Bill.” YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Y4YSpF6d6w&list=PLhhFL5u2kfAVLY_voCpx9rWPdiBOeCGkM&index=32.

University of Washington College of Engineering. n.d. “Virtual Reality Pain Reduction.” UW Human Photonics Lab. Accessed September 8, 2024. https://depts.washington.edu/hplab/research/virtual-reality/.

Vertuno, Jim. 2024. “Call of Duty maker sued by families of Uvalde school shooting victims.” AP News, May 24, 2024. https://apnews.com/article/uvalde-shooting-elementary-anniversary-texas-a20e7fefa9d66058a8ff6611fa808df8.

Yee, Nick. 2017. “Beyond 50/50: Breaking Down The Percentage of Female Gamers By Genre.” Quantic Foundry. https://quanticfoundry.com/2017/01/19/female-gamers-by-genre/.

Notes

1. 1 1.3 billion times: As of 2017, according to Smith, Craig. 2017. “Candy Crush Saga Player Counts and Game Details | The Ultimate Game Guide.” Video Games Stats. https://videogamesstats.com/candy-crush-facts-statistics/.

2. “race to the bottom of the brainstem”: U.S. Congress, Senate, Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, Innovation and the Internet of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. 2019. “Optimizing for Engagement: Understanding the Use of Persuasive Technology on Internet Platforms.” https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-116shrg52609/html/CHRG-116shrg52609.htm.

3. 2 “I glanced up and down”: Cline, Ernest. 2012. Ready Player One. N.p.: Random House Publishing Group.

4. 3 Self-determination Theory: O'Hara, Delia. 2017. “The intrinsic motivation of Richard Ryan and Edward Deci.” American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/members/content/intrinsic-motivation.

5. 4 Sixty-one percent of CEOs: McGonigal, Jane. 2011. Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and how They Can Change the World. N.p.: Penguin Press.

6. 5 About sixty-one percent: Entertainment Software Association. 2024. “2024 Essential Facts About the U.S. Video Game Industry.” Entertainment Software Association. https://www.theesa.com/resources/essential-facts-about-the-us-video-game-industry/2024-data/.

7. 6 The latter does not exist: Bean, Anthony, Rune K. Nielsen, Antonius J. van Rooij, and Christopher J. Ferguson. 2017. “Video Game Addiction: The Push to Pathologize Video Games.” Professional Psychology Research and Practice 48, no. 5 (July). 10.1037/pro0000150.

8. 7 Children with ADHD are more likely: Mazurek, Micah, and Christopher R. Engelhardt. 2013. “Video Game Use in Boys with Autism Spectrum Disorder, ADHD, or Typical Development.” Pediatrics 132, no. 2 (July). 10.1542/peds.2012-3956.

9. 8 Autistic adolescent boys exhibit: Mazurek, 122-130.

10. 9 Many autistic adults said: Mazurek, Micah O., Christopher R. Engelhardt, and Kelsey E. Clark. 2015. “Video Games from the Perspective of Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder.” Computers in Human Behavior 51 (October): 122-130. 10.1016/j.chb.2015.04.062.

11. 10 Some consider the term “Asperger’s” to be offensive and prefer to be referred to as autistic. In 2013, the two were combined into “Autism Spectrum Disorder” in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, which is used for diagnosis. I have used “Asperger’s” here to reflect the speaker’s apparent preference. For more information, see Diament, Michelle. 2022. “'Autistic' Or 'Person With Autism'? It Depends.” Disability Scoop. 

12. 11 “We play video games”: Asperger Experts. 2016. “Why People with Asperger's Play Video Games.” YouTube. Video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBQA-6n7mnM&ab_channel=AspergerExperts.

13. 12 “Ninja” reportedly earned: Jenny. 2021. “Ninja Reportedly Becomes the Richest Gamer With Over $100 Million Earned From Gaming.” EssentiallySports. https://www.essentiallysports.com/esports-news-ninja-reportedly-becomes-the-richest-gamer-with-over-100-million-earned-from-gaming/.

14. 13 Ninja reported: Grayson, Nathan. 2018. “Ninja Takes Two-Day Break, Loses 40,000 Subscribers.” Kotaku. https://kotaku.com/ninja-takes-two-day-break-loses-40-000-subscribers-1826813300.

15. 14 “I don’t hate”: Siragusa, Kaitlyn. 2021. “I don’t hate WHAT I do. I don’t hate how much I do it usually even. It’s the harassment, the unwarranted danger that comes from it when I’m just doing my own thin, minding my own biz and not hurting anyone. Someone lacking empathy or smol just wouldn’t.” Twitter. https://twitter.com/wildkait/status/1477013354216579074?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1477013354216579074%7Ctwgr%5E1eaeda9b79bff9345e4231e705bb9883a0295145%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fgamerant.com%2Ftwitch-amouranth-fame-dang.

16. 15 software engineers included: Levin, Josh. 2008. “Solitaire-y Confinement.” Slate Magazine. https://slate.com/human-interest/2008/05/why-we-can-t-stop-playing-computer-solitaire.html.

17. 16 Seventy-seven percent: Lenhart, Amanda. 2015. “Video Games, Teen Boys and Building Social Skills and Friendships.” Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2015/08/06/chapter-3-video-games-are-key-elements-in-friendships-for-many-boys/.

18. 17 researchers examined thousands: Peña, Jorge, and Jeffrey T. Hancock. 2006. “An Analysis of Socioemotional and Task Communication in Online Multiplayer Video Games.” Communication Research 33, no. 1 (February). 10.1177/0093650205283103.

19. 18 some therapists even: D'Anastasio, Cecilia. 2017. “Therapists Are Using Dungeons & Dragons to Get Kids to Open Up.” Kotaku, May 1, 2017. https://kotaku.com/therapists-are-using-dungeons-dragons-to-get-kids-to-1794806159.

20. 19 research has shown: Kowert, Rachel, and Linda K. Kaye. 2018. Video Game Influences on Aggression, Cognition, and Attention. Edited by Christopher J. Ferguson. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing. 10.1007/978-3-319-95495-0_15.

21. 20 If someone assigned male: Flores, Andrew R., Ilan H. Meyer, Lynn Langton, and Jody L. Herman. 2018. “Gender Identity Disparities in Criminal Victimization: National Crime Victimization Survey, 2017-2018.” American Journal of Public Health 111, no. 4 (February): 726-729. 10.2105/AJPH.2020.306099.

22. 21 “In real life, I couldn’t”: Martinez, Luna. 2019. “How Bloodborne Helped Me Transition Gender and Choose a New Name.” VG247. https://www.vg247.com/bloodborne-helped-transition-gender.

23. 22 President Trump stated: CNN. 2018. “Trump blames video games, movies for violence,” YouTube video. YouTube. YouTube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RKZn2Sf7bo&ab_channel=CNN.

24. 23 Jimmy Kimmel humorously: Jimmy Kimmel Live. 2018. “Hey Jimmy Kimmel, I Turned Off the TV During Fortnite.” YouTube. YouTube Video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AggZU8sg5HI&ab_channel=JimmyKimmelLive.

25. 24 hot sauce paradigm: Lieberman, Joel D., Sheldon Solomon, Jeff L. Greenberg, and Holly McGregor. 1999. “A Hot New Way to Measure Aggression: Hot Sauce Allocation.” Aggressive Behavior 25:331-348. 10.1002/(SICI)1098-2337(1999)25:5<331::AID-AB2>3.0.CO;2-1.

26. 25 Competitive Reaction Time Test: Chester, David S., and Emily Lasko. 2018. “Validating a Standardized Approach to the Taylor Aggression Paradigm.” Social Psychology and Personality Science 10, no. 5 (June): 620-631. 10.1177/1948550618775408.

27. 26 word- or story-completion task: Anderson, Craig A., and Nicholas L. Carnagey. 2003. “Exposure to Violent Media: The Effects of Songs with Violent Lyrics on Aggressive Thoughts and Feelings.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 84 (5): 960-071. 10.1037/0022-3514.84.5.960.

28. 27 Competitive Reaction Time Test: Anderson, Craig A., and Karen E. Dill. 2000. “Video Games and Aggressive Thoughts, Feelings, and Behavior in the Laboratory and in Life.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 78 (4): 772-790. 10.1037//0022-3514.78.4.772.

29. 28 2002: Undergraduate students played: Bushman, Brad J., and Craig A. Anderson. 2002. “Violent Video Games and Hostile Expectations: A Test of the General Aggression Model.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 28, no. 12 (December): 1679-1686. 10.1177/014616702237649.

30. 29 2004: Undergraduate students played: Anderson, Craig A., Nicholas L. Carnagey, Mindy E. Flanagan, Arlen, Jr. J. Benjamin, Janie Eubanks, and Jeffery C. Valentine. 2004. “Violent Video Games: Specific Effects of Violent Content on Aggressive Thoughts and Behavior.” Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 36 (December): 199-249. 10.1016/S0065-2601(04)36004-1.

31. 30 **ibid 2004: Undergraduate students played: Anderson, Craig A., Nicholas L. Carnagey, Mindy E. Flanagan, Arlen, Jr. J. Benjamin, Janie Eubanks, and Jeffery C. Valentine. 2004. “Violent Video Games: Specific Effects of Violent Content on Aggressive Thoughts and Behavior.” Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 36 (December): 199-249. 10.1016/S0065-2601(04)36004-1.

32. 31 2014: Undergraduate students played: Hollingdale, Jack, and Tobias Greitemeyer. 2014. “The Effect of Online Violent Video Games on Levels of Aggression.” PLoS ONE 9, no. 11 (November). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0111790.

33. 32 “violent video game use”: American Psychological Association Task Force on Violent Media. 2015. “Technical Report on the Review of the Violent Video Game Literature,” Technical Report. American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/pi/families/violent-media.aspx.

34. 33 more competitive and harder: Przybylski, Andrew K., Edward L. Deci, C. S. Rigby, and Richard M. Ryan. 2013. “Competence-Impeding Electronic Games and Players' Aggressive Feelings, Thoughts, and Behaviors.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 106 (3): 441-457. 10.1037/a0034820.

35. 34 simply because they lost: Breur, Johannes, Michael Scharkow, and Thorsten Quandt. 2013. “Sore Losers? A Reexamination of the Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis for Colocated Video Game Play.” Psychology of Popular Media Culture 4, no. 2 (December): 126-137. 10.1037/ppm0000020.

36. 35 One clever set of studies: Przybylski, Andrew K., Edward L. Deci, C. S. Rigby, and Richard M. Ryan. 2013. “Competence-Impeding Electronic Games and Players' Aggressive Feelings, Thoughts, and Behaviors.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 106 (3): 441-457. 10.1037/a0034820.

37. 36 Markiplier’s first attempt: Fischbach, Mark E. 2017. “I LITERALLY THROW A CHAIR IN RAGE | Getting Over It - Part 1.” YouTube. YouTube Video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH9w9VlyNO4.

38. 37 In May 2022: Vertuno, Jim. 2024. “Call of Duty maker sued by families of Uvalde school shooting victims.” AP News, May 24, 2024. https://apnews.com/article/uvalde-shooting-elementary-anniversary-texas-a20e7fefa9d66058a8ff6611fa808df8.

39. 38 Ibid

40. 39 “There is an ocean of difference”: Phipps, John. 2018. “Ignore the Panic, Video Games Are Not Training Shooters.” Polygon. https://www.polygon.com/2018/3/21/17138766/video-game-gun-violence-firearms-training-vr-virtual-reality.

41. 43 “What makes you angrier”: Schreier, Jason. 2015. “Why Most Video Game "Aggression" Studies Are Nonsense.” Kotaku, August 14, 2015. https://kotaku.com/why-most-video-game-aggression-studies-are-nonsense-1724116744.

42. 43 blinking takes roughly: Santora, Tyler. 2021. “Why Do We Blink?” Live Science, July 6, 2021. https://www.livescience.com/why-do-we-blink.html.

43. 41 this small increase in aggression: Barlett, Christopher, Omar Branch, Christopher Rodeheffer, and Richard Harris. 2009. “How Long Do the Short-Term Violent Video Game Effects Last?” Aggressive Behavior 35, no. 3 (May): 225-236. 10.1002/ab.20301.

44. 42 “Journalists and policy-makers”: Ferguson, Chris, Dana Klisinan, Jerri L. Hogg, June Wilson, Patrick Markey, Andy Przybylski, Malte Elson, et al. 2017. “News Media, Public Education and Public Policy Committee: Societal Violence and Video Games: Public Statements of a Link are Problematic.” The Amplifier Magazine, 2017. https://div46amplifier.com/2017/06/12/news-media-public-education-and-public-policy-committee/.

45. 43 only fourteen percent of school shooters: Ferguson, Christopher. 2008. “The School Shooting/Violent Video Game Link: Causal Link or Moral Panic.” Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling 5. 10.1002/jip.76.

46. a tattoo artist painlessly: GLOSS [@gloss]. 2024. “"What an amazing ear piercer @BearReed is! The little girl didn't even notice! 🤯 #fyp #foryou #ears #piercing" [Video].” https://www.tiktok.com/@gloss/video/7365678533332553003.

47. On a scale from 0-10: Hoffman, Hunter G., Gloria T. Chambers, Walter J. Meyer III, Lisa L. Arceneaux, William J. Russell, Eric J. Seibel, Todd L. Richards, Sam R. Sharar, and David R. Patterson. 2011. “Virtual Reality as an Adjunctive Non-pharmacologic Analgesic for Acute Burn Pain During Medical Procedures.” Annals of Behavioral Medicine 41, no. 2 (April): 183-191. 10.1007/s12160-010-9248-7.

48. virtual reality (VR) game SnowWorld: University of Washington College of Engineering. n.d. “Virtual Reality Pain Reduction.” UW Human Photonics Lab. Accessed September 8, 2024. https://depts.washington.edu/hplab/research/virtual-reality/.

49. opioids often fail: Hoffman, Hunter G., Gloria T. Chambers, Walter J. Meyer III, Lisa L. Arceneaux, William J. Russell, Eric J. Seibel, Todd L. Richards, Sam R. Sharar, and David R. Patterson. 2011. “Virtual Reality as an Adjunctive Non-pharmacologic Analgesic for Acute Burn Pain During Medical Procedures.” Annals of Behavioral Medicine 41, no. 2 (April): 183-191. 10.1007/s12160-010-9248-7.

50. A meta-analysis reviewed: Garrido-Ardila, Elisa M., María Santos-Domínguez, Juan Rodríguez-Mansilla, Silvia T. Torres-Piles, María T. Rodríguez-Domínguez, Blanca González-Sánchez, and María Jiménez-Palomares. 2022. “A Systematic Review of the Effectiveness of Virtual Reality-Based Interventions on Pain and Range of Joint Movement Associated with Burn Injuries.” Journal of Personalized Medicine 12, no. 8 (August). 10.3390/jpm12081269.

51. “...just what effect is this digital drug…”: Kardaras, Nicholas. 2016. Glow Kids: How Screen Addiction Is Hijacking Our Kids - and How to Break the Trance. N.p.: St. Martin's Publishing Group.

52. they’re both interesting and safe: Compton-Lilly, Catherine. 2007. “What Can Video Games Teach Us About Teaching Reading.” The Reading Teacher 60, no. 8 (May): 718-727. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/238445863_What_Can_Video_Games_Teach_Us_About_Teaching_Reading.

53. The average tenth-grade student: Thompson, Clive. 2014. “How Videogames Like Minecraft Actually Help Kids Learn to Read.” WIRED. https://www.wired.com/2014/10/video-game-literacy/.

54. 60% of 8- to 18-year-olds: National Literacy Trust. 2021. “Children and young people's video game playing and literacy in 2021.” National Literacy Trust. https://literacytrust.org.uk/research-services/research-reports/children-and-young-peoples-video-game-playing-and-literacy-in-2021/.

55. Children recalled more details: Schwartz, Sarah. 2023. “Kids Understand More From Books Than Screens, But That's Not Always the Case.” Education Week, March 15, 2023. https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/kids-understand-more-from-books-than-screens-but-thats-not-always-the-case/2023/03.

56. Many teachers fear: Heubeck, Elizabeth. 2024. “Is Too Much Screen Time, Too Early, Hindering Reading Comprehension?” Education Week, January 15, 2024. https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/is-too-much-screen-time-too-early-hindering-reading-comprehension/2024/01.

57. children under three years old: Roseberry, Sarah, Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, and Roberta M. Golinkoff. 2014. “Skype Me! Socially Contingent Interactions Help Toddlers Learn Language.” Child Development 85, no. 3 (May): 956-970. 10.1111/cdev.12166.

58. 44 the General Aggression Model: Allen, Johnie J., Craig A. Anderson, and Brad J. Bushman. 2017. “The General Aggression Model.” Current Opinion in Psychology 19 (April). 10.1016/j.copsyc.2017.03.034.

59. 45 Researchers recently surveyed: Przybylski, Andrew K., and Netta Weinstein. 2019. “Violent Video Game Engagement Is Not Associated with Adolescents' Aggressive Behaviour: Evidence from a Registered Report.” Royal Society Open Science 6, no. 2 (February). 10.1098/rsos.171474.

60. 39 The European Union-based: Lamphere-Englund, Galen. 2024. “Theories of Digital Games and Radicalization.” In Gaming and Extremism: The Radicalization of Digital Playgrounds, edited by Rachel Kowert. N.p.: Taylor & Francis Limited (Sales), 33.

61. 40 it is a convenient way: Newhouse, Alex, and Rachel Kowert. 2024. “Digital Games as Vehicles for Extremist Recruitment and Mobilization.” In Gaming and Extremism: The Radicalization of Digital Playgrounds, edited by Linda Schlegel and Rachel Kowert. N.p.: Taylor & Francis Limited (Sales), 75-77.

62. 41 most young people: Lenhart, Amanda. 2015. “Video Games, Teen Boys and Building Social Skills and Friendships.” Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2015/08/06/chapter-3-video-games-are-key-elements-in-friendships-for-many-boys/.

63. 42 “Over a short period of time”: it is a convenient way: Newhouse, Alex, and Rachel Kowert. 2024. “Digital Games as Vehicles for Extremist Recruitment and Mobilization.” In Gaming and Extremism: The Radicalization of Digital Playgrounds, edited by Linda Schlegel and Rachel Kowert. N.p.: Taylor & Francis Limited (Sales), 79.

65. 46 He loves this one game”: The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. 2015. “Jack Black's Son Racked Up a $3K App Bill.” YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Y4YSpF6d6w&list=PLhhFL5u2kfAVLY_voCpx9rWPdiBOeCGkM&index=32.

66. 47 They chose to market: Lien, Tracey. 2013. “No Girls Allowed.” Polygon. https://www.polygon.com/features/2013/12/2/5143856/no-girls-allowed.

67. 48 Only 30% of game developers: MacDonald, Keza. 2020. “Not So White, Male and Straight: The Video Games Industry is Changing.” The Guardian, February 19, 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/games/2020/feb/19/video-games-industry-diversity-women-people-of-colour.

68. 49 3% in 1989: Lynch, Teresa, Jessica E. Tompkins, Irene I. van Driel, and Niki Fritz. 2016. “Sexy, Strong, and Secondary: A ContentAnalysis of Female Characters in Video Games across 31 Years.” Journal of Communication 66, no. 4 (June). 10.1111/jcom.12237.

69. 50 women often avoid: Fox, Jesse, and Wai Y. Tang. 2016. “Women's Experiences with General and Sexual Harassment in Online Video Games: Rumination, Organizational Responsiveness, Withdrawal, and Coping Strategies.” New Media & Society 19, no. 8 (March). 10.1177/14614448166357.

70. 51 only 7% of people: Yee, Nick. 2017. “Beyond 50/50: Breaking Down The Percentage of Female Gamers By Genre.” Quantic Foundry. https://quanticfoundry.com/2017/01/19/female-gamers-by-genre/.

71. 52 “ambient sexual harassment”: Tang, Wai Y. 2016. “Sexual Harassment in Online Videogames: What We Found So Far.” Game Developer. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/sexual-harassment-in-online-videogames-what-we-found-so-far.

72. 53 a Black streamer named silksheets: Silksheets. 2021. “COD SLUR SPEEDRUN TikTok Compilation (N-word) | ORIGINAL CREATOR.” YouTube. YouTube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBVQGJVcgmQ&ab_channel=Silksheets.

73. 54 Nearly half of people: only 7% of people: Yee, Nick. 2017. “Beyond 50/50: Breaking Down The Percentage of Female Gamers By Genre.” Quantic Foundry. https://quanticfoundry.com/2017/01/19/female-gamers-by-genre/.

74. 55 “I’ve almost completely hidden”: McLean, Lavinia, and Mark D. Griffiths. 2018. “Female Gamers' Experience of Online Harassment and Social Support in Online Gaming: A Qualitative Study.” International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction 17, no. 5 (July). 10.1007/s11469-018-9962-0.

75. 56 More than half of “gamer girls”: Hetfeld, Malindy. 2021. “A New Survey Shows 59% of Women Hide Their Gender While Gaming to Avoid Harassment.” PC Gamer. https://www.pcgamer.com/a-new-survey-shows-59-of-women-hide-their-gender-while-gaming-to-avoid-harassment/.

76. 57 One woman decided: McLean, Lavinia, and Mark D. Griffiths. 2018. “Female Gamers' Experience of Online Harassment and Social Support in Online Gaming: A Qualitative Study.” International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction 17, no. 5 (July). 10.1007/s11469-018-9962-0.

77. 58 women who used voice chat: Reach3 Insights. 2021. “Reach3 Insights’ New Research Reveals 59% of Women Surveyed Use a Non-Gendered/Male Identity to Avoid Harassment While Gaming.” Reach3 Insights. https://www.reach3insights.com/women-gaming-study.

78. 59 “If I spoke up”: Noll, Morgan. 2021. “Facing Death Threats and Police Checks, Women and Nonbinary Gamers Are Left to Protect Themselves.” HelloGiggles, May 17, 2021. https://archive.ph/16FZq.

79. **58 She has endured racial slurs: Parrish, Ash. 2020. “Speaking from the Chest: Streamer Receives Death Threats After Holding Console Makers to Account.” Kotaku. https://kotaku.com/speaking-from-the-chest-one-black-womans-fight-for-vis-1845842151.

80. 59 a 2010 survey: Patchin, Justin W., and Sameer Hinduja. 2010. “Cyberbullying and Self-Esteem.” Journal of School Health 80, no. 12 (December): 614-621. 10.1111/j.1746-1561.2010.00548.x.

81. 60 Sexual harassment has: Houle, Jason N., Jeremy Staff, Jeylan T. Mortimer, Christopher Uggen, and Amy Blackstone. 2011. “The Impact of Sexual Harassment on Depressive Symptoms During the Early Occupational Career.” Society and Mental Health 1, no. 2 (November): 89-105. 10.1177/2156869311416827.

82. 61 Women gamers often respond: Fox, Jesse, and Wai Y. Tang. 2016. “Women's Experiences with General and Sexual Harassment in Online Video Games: Rumination, Organizational Responsiveness, Withdrawal, and Coping Strategies.” New Media & Society 19, no. 8 (March). 10.1177/14614448166357.

83. 62 “When my child grows up”: Taub, Shais. 2022. “Children need to feel safe with us, really safe. Safe doesn't just mean physically safe. It also means emotionally safe. Safe from being insulted or rejected...” TikTok. Video. https://www.tiktok.com/@rabbi_shais_taub/video/7130438825700265262?lang=en.

84. 63 I use the word “fat” here rather than a euphemism like “heavy,” “plus-size” or “overweight” because many activists have been working to reclaim the word. They argue that “fat” is only a word to be avoided if you believe that it is bad to be fat. See: Stewart, Sara. 2024. “Opinion: These people are fat. It’s none of your business.” CNN, January 4, 2024. https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/04/opinions/aubrey-gordon-your-fat-friend-ally-stewart/index.html.

85. 64 Many who play video games: Leporati, Gregory. 2022. “Aching Wrists, Early Retirement and the Surprising Physical Toll of Esports.” Washington Post, March 14, 2022. https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/esports/2022/03/14/professional-esports-athlete-injuries/.

86. 71 people cannot accurately estimate: Tobin, Simon, and Simon Grondin. 2009. “Video Games and the Perception of Very Long Durations by Adolescents.” Computers in Human Behavior 25, no. 2 (March): 554-559. 10.1016/j.chb.2008.12.002.

87. 65 children ages 5 to 11: Binder, Alice, Brigitte Naderer, and Jörg Matthes. 2020. “A "Forbidden Fruit Effect": An Eye-Tracking Study on Children's Visual Attention to Food Marketing.” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 17, no. 6 (March). 10.3390/ijerph17061859.

88. 66 children ages 5 and 6: Jansen, Esther, Sandra Mulkens, and Anita Jansen. 2007. “Do Not Eat the Red Food! Prohibition of Snacks Leads to Their Relatively Higher Consumption in Children.” Appetite 49, no. 3 (March): 572-577. 10.1016/j.appet.2007.03.229.

89. 67 Although many refer to autistic people as “people with autism” or “people with autism spectrum disorders,” almost 90% of autistic adults prefer “autistic person” (Diament 2022). This language is used here to respect that preference. Diament, Michelle. 2022. “'Autistic' Or 'Person With Autism'? It Depends.” Disability Scoop. https://www.disabilityscoop.com/2022/12/02/autistic-or-person-with-autism-it-depends/30154/.

90. 68 “Jack” is a combination of several real-life clients to preserve anonymity. 

91. acting aggressively does not: Bushman, Brad J. 2022. “Does Venting Anger Feed or Extinguish the Flame? Catharsis, Rumination, Distraction, Anger, and Aggressive Responding.” Society for Personality and Social Psychology 28, no. 6 (June). 10.1177/0146167202289002.

92. 69 the screen is not the problem: Roseberry, Sarah, Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, and Robert M. Golinkoff. 2014. “Skype me! Socially Contingent Interactions Help Toddlers Learn Language.” Society for Research in Child Development 85 (3): 956-970. 10.1111/cdev.12166.

93. 70 Many disabled people prefer to be referred to as a “disabled person” rather than a “person with a disability,” especially those who view their disability as inextricably linked to their identity and a source of pride. 

94. 71 using augmentative and alternative: Schlosser, Ralf W., and Oliver Wendt. 2008. “Effects of Augmentative and Alternative Communication Intervention on Speech Production in Children With Autism: A Systematic Review.” American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology 17, no. 3 (August): 212-230. 10.1044/1058-0360.

95. 72 “Most of ‘how those things’”: Kamenetz, Anya. 2018. The Art of Screen Time: How Your Family Can Balance Digital Media and Real Life. New York City, New York: PublicAffairs.

96. 73 teens who had a television: Barr-Anderson, Daheia J., Patricia van den Berg, Dianne Neurmark-Sztainer, and Mary Story. 2008. “Characteristics Associated with Older Adolescents Who Have a Television in Their Bedrooms.” Pediatrics 121, no. 4 (May): 718-724. 10.1542/peds.2007-1546.

97. 74 the bright blue light: Kurek, Justyna, Anna Gadomska, Rafał Gorzyński, Justyna Molczyk-Sieńzcak, Michał Garstka, Hanna Dominik, Zuzanna Czudy, Wojciech Pawęska, Jan Radwański, and Marika Polatowska. 2023. “Blue Light Emitted from Digital Devices - Impact on Our Sleep.” Journal of Education, Health and Sport 40 (1): 68-82. 10.12775/JEHS.2023.40.01.007.

98. 75 If you or a loved one are experiencing symptoms listed above, please seek help from a licensed professional with experience working with addictions. 

99. 76 If a person experiences: American Psychiatric Association. 2013. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-5. N.p.: American Psychiatric Association.

100. 77 One mother decided: Strauss, Elissa. 2019. “The argument for playing video games with our kids.” CNN, February 18, 2019. https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/18/health/video-games-parenting-strauss/index.html.

101. 78 third places reduce loneliness: Choi, Yeon J. 2022. “The Role of Third Places in Reducing Loneliness Among Caregiving Spouses.” Innovation in Aging 6 (December): 559. 10.1093/geroni/igac059.2111.

102. 79 The roller skating rinks: Rao, Devika. 2024. “Third Places Are Disappearing as the World Goes More Online.” The Week. https://theweek.com/culture-life/third-places-disappearing.

103. 80 More than a third: Harris, Carmen D., Prabasaj Paul, Randall Young, Xingyou Zhang, and Janet E. Fulton. 2015. “Park Access Among School-Age Youth in the United States.” Journal of Physical Activity and Health 12:S94-S101. 10.1123/jpah.2015-0119.

104. 81 Lev's story is a combination of several real-world cases to preserve anonymity.

105. 83 Online spaces can be: Kowert, Rachel, and Julian A. Oldmeadow. 2015. “Playing for Social Comfort: Online Video Game Play as a Social Accommodator for the Insecurely Attached.” Computers in Human Behavior 53 (December): 556-566. 10.1016/j.chb.2014.05.004.

106. 83 they are often less meaningful: Griggs, Andrew, Emily Rickel, Elizabeth Lazzara, and Christina Frederick. 2021. “Add Me as a Friend: Face to Face vs. Online Friendships and Implications for Happiness.” Academia Letters, (September). 10.20935/AL3565.

107. 84 This small one-way street: Rogers Park Business Alliance. n.d. “Glenwood Alfresco.” Rogers Park Business Alliance. Accessed June 22, 2024. https://rpba.org/glenwood-avenue-alfresco/.

108. 85 Players can communicate: Myers, Maddy. 2018. “Mario Kart Has Voice Chat Now And It's Very Wholesome.” Kotaku. https://kotaku.com/mario-kart-has-voice-chat-now-and-its-very-wholesome-1829225720.

109. Investment research group: Hindenburg Research. 2024. “Roblox: Inflated Key Metrics For Wall Street And A Pedophile Hellscape For Kids – Hindenburg Research.” Hindenburg Research. https://hindenburgresearch.com/roblox/.