Man, I hadn't made the connection between my historical MUD experience (shout out Dark and Shattered Lands!) and my relative comfort in TUIs despite my somewhat non-technical background. My son is turning 7 this year and I'd love to get him into something like DSL....it was such a valuable experience for me across a variety of aspects -- obviously reading/typing certainly, but also strategy & problem solving, math, imagination, empathy/social interaction....What an incredible gift it was to have grown up in a time when graphics were worse and our brains weren't completely hacked yet.
DSL was my jam back in the day. Even though it was quite large and popular, I almost never see it brought up in these discussions which has always made me think I was dreaming up those years of playing it stealthily at school
Forgive me if I am misinterpreting or getting in the way of your primary point -- but I think it is relatively well recognized that, though cyberbullying might not be objectively worse than analog bullying (obviously direct physical abuse/altercations cant happen electronically....yet), the 24/7 pervasiveness, anonymity, lack of emotional feedback for the bully, reach, and permanence of cyberbullying has had a meaningful impact on the state of the bullying game and the impacts it has on children.
That doesn't mean I agree with the general thrust of taking technology away from kids and young adults....I don't. But I do think we should probably understand the bad that we are taking with the good.
I think a lot of people here just don't have kids of a relevant age yet. They assume either the bullying doesn't happen, or it isn't any different than bullying in person, or that it's easy to stop when it happens.
You can just not have phones, but it's socially isolating. You have to frequently audit what's on their phones because they often won't volunteer what's happening. You take them out of one group chat only to have the bullies reappear in another one.
Old fashioned bullying kept regular business hours. This gives them a portal into your home life 24/7, and that's the best case, when you put a ton of effort into managing it.
And if you're not having this problem somehow, you might want to double check and make sure your kid isn't the bully.
> You can just not have phones, but it's socially isolating.
I hear this plenty, but kids are literally forced to go be with their peers (hopefully including some friends) for 6+ hours a day (in my country). Don't they have enough time to arrange their social lives in person?
I seem to recall both of us being children once, although admittedly not at the same time. The research my daughter does as part of her charity work probably counts as well.
Learning about something doesn't invalidate it entirely on that basis alone, just like the experience of one parent doesn't speak for all parents, or those concerned about the impacts of phones on kids (who are future adults).
