Difficulty Curve? Attention Spans changing?

[Zing]

I'm not sure how "kids" is being defined in the OP, but I will give my personal story. As a young child, ages 4-6, I had played a bit of Atari 2600 and arcade games. I'd like to think I was good at them, but I suspect not.

At age six, I received a Coleco Vision, Module #1, and two games: Donkey Kong (CV pack-in) and Grand Prix (2600 cart). I played nothing but those two games for three months. I played a lot. My controllers actually wore down from all the Donkey Kong I played. I probably sucked big time. Three months spent on basically one game. Any children these days have the opportunity to play just one game for months? Their friends and family wouldn't give them the chance, before handing the next new disposable toy or electronic device to them.

It' difficult to imagine my seven-year-old daughter playing a single game for months. Then I recall how for weeks she wanted me to play Luigis Mansion while she watched. I have played through that game three times for her. Almost the same time was spent with her watching me play Wind Waker. Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 were another long time spent on a single game, this time she could join in. She spent quite a bit of time herself playing Harvest Moon SNES.

I don't know what I am trying to say here. I think that kids have the same potential for focus, skill, and attention span that we had. They just have far more distractions. It's the same way that our grandparents had the patience as a kid to sit around and whittle wood, or spend all day fishing. Children, raised in an environment where focus, skill, and deep practice are encouraged could easily turn out to be great gamers.

[jinx]

I'm not sure how "kids" is being defined in the OP, but I will give my personal story. As a young child, ages 4-6, I had played a bit of Atari 2600 and arcade games. I'd like to think I was good at them, but I suspect not.

At age six, I received a Coleco Vision, Module #1, and two games: Donkey Kong (CV pack-in) and Grand Prix (2600 cart). I played nothing but those two games for three months. I played a lot. My controllers actually wore down from all the Donkey Kong I played. I probably sucked big time. Three months spent on basically one game.

It' difficult to imagine my seven-year-old daughter playing a single game for months. Then I recall how for weeks she wanted me to play Luigis Mansion while she watched. I have played thought that game three times for her. Almost the same time was spent with her watching me play Wind Waker. Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 were another long time spent on a single game, this time she could join in. She spent quite a bit of time herself playing Harvest Moon SNES.

I don't know what I am trying to say here. I think that kids have the same potential for focus, skill, and attention span that we had. They just have far more distractions. It's the same way that our grandparents had the patience as a kid to sit around and whittle wood, or spend all day fishing. Children, raised in an environment where focus, skill, and deep practice are encouraged could easily turn out to be great gamers.

That's a pretty good point (is it even really a point?). My brothers couldn't sit two minutes with a single game, and kept switching roms/games all throughout the night. However, one of my little brothers can spend hours upon hours making redstone contraptions in Minecraft. Another brother spent my entire week of vacation playing Pokemon and Phantasy Star Portable non-stop. Sometimes I feel like they don't have the attention span to sit down and learn a new game, but if it's something they're good at or familiar with already, they have no issues wasting away nights playing the same game.

Just an observation...

[Menegrothx]

I don't know what I am trying to say here. I think that kids have the same potential for focus, skill, and attention span that we had.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 161923.htm
Childhood Diagnosis of ADHD Increased Dramatically Over 9-Year Period
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 134214.htm
Diagnosis of ADHD On the Rise
http://healthland.time.com/2013/04/02/u ... -affected/
The rates of U.S. children affected by attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are skyrocketing, according to a recent report

[isiolia]

Did you actually read the articles you linked? Because they're not exactly proof of an actual change in the mental health of kids. More that there's a greater awareness of ADHD, leading more people to get their children diagnosed...and in turn, for the last one, a chance that it's being overdiagnosed.

Maybe it's more a rise in "it's not my kid's fault" syndrome?

[jinx]

Did you actually read the articles you linked? Because they're not exactly proof of an actual change in the mental health of kids. More that there's a greater awareness of ADHD, leading more people to get their children diagnosed...and in turn, for the last one, a chance that it's being overdiagnosed.

Maybe it's more a rise in "it's not my kid's fault" syndrome?

I agree with this. The mid to late 90's was a great time to get your kid diagnosed and put on Ritalin (I was one). All because I had an "over-active" imagination and would often "role-play" various video games and scenes from movies. My brothers didn't fair any better.

[Gunstar Green]

Kids haven't change but choices have is exactly it and what I was trying to say earlier in the thread. It's not that kids have smaller attention spans it's that they have far more media to consume.

When most of us here grew up we had cartoons on Saturday morning and whatever games were in our and our friends' collections.

Now kids have instant access to just about anything they want to watch or play. They have the entire library of games we grew up with at their fingertips. They have a head-spinning amount of new and old cartoons to watch on several different static and portable devices of their choosing.

How many adults here have downloaded entire rom sets only to spend five or ten minutes on a bunch of different games? I know I have.

[Menegrothx]

Did you actually read the articles you linked? Because they're not exactly proof of an actual change in the mental health of kids. More that there's a greater awareness of ADHD, leading more people to get their children diagnosed...and in turn, for the last one, a chance that it's being overdiagnosed.

Maybe it's more a rise in "it's not my kid's fault" syndrome?

Just the first three articles that came up on Google. It's not like those are the only places where you see headlines like that.
There are other factors too. There are more single parents these days. The food we consume has changed quite radically over the last 4 or 5 decades. The potentially permanent effect that chemicals can have on your brain could easily be an explanation, or at least a major contributing factor. There are other things to, like how modern cartoons tend to be very fast paced and "ADHD" and how the internet is not just full of information, but also gives you the ability to jump between different articles, videos etc with out having to wait a second.

[BurningDoom]

Kids haven't change but choices have is exactly it and what I was trying to say earlier in the thread. It's not that kids have smaller attention spans it's that they have far more media to consume.

When most of us here grew up we had cartoons on Saturday morning and whatever games were in our and our friends' collections.

Now kids have instant access to just about anything they want to watch or play. They have the entire library of games we grew up with at their fingertips. They have a head-spinning amount of new and old cartoons to watch on several different static and portable devices of their choosing.

How many adults here have downloaded entire rom sets only to spend five or ten minutes on a bunch of different games? I know I have.

I was just thinking about this earlier today. Kids today (and heck the general public for that matter as well) have much less appreciation for games and movies. They are much more ready to to point out the flaws while overlooking the good qualities, or they simply get bored too easily.

And I completely agree that it's not so much their fault, as it is the amount of media available to us. Between cable T.V., On Demand, NetFlix, RedBox, YouTube, Torrents, GameFly, Smart Phones, etc.; it's all around us all the freaking time.

[Forlorn Drifter]

How you're raised makes a difference. I know that when I was a kid, I got one hour of "Kid" TV a day for a long while, because all we had was local channels up until we got cable. I think it made a difference in me, as I had to focus on the TV at that time, or I didn't get to watch any TV I wanted to that day.

Besides that, I didn't really have anything else to do during the day. It was mostly staring at the wall and imagining things, alongside stick fighting against any number of imagined things.

I kept this into gaming. When I finally got that Gameboy at 6, I played a Frogger game I had for about a year straight before I got a new game, and I used the hour a day I got to game every day I could.

[AppleQueso]

There are other things to, like how modern cartoons tend to be very fast paced and "ADHD" and how the internet is not just full of information, but also gives you the ability to jump between different articles, videos etc with out having to wait a second.

wait wait wait, modern cartoons are hyperactive?

Most cartoons nowadays still have nothing on Tex Avery.