Summer is upon us and now it is time to relax and unwind. A big component of our GDC curriculum is finding a balance in your life between your onscreen time and off screen time. Recently I had my first real MMO (massively multiplayer online) gaming experience. About four weeks ago some of my staff thought it a good idea to engage some of our students in the game Clash of Clans. It has been enlightening for me to feel the addiction these games generate. The whole concept of screen time balance was foreign to me prior to the start of this game. The first two weeks, I could not get off the screen, I was consumed by the allure of building bigger villages, developing stronger defences and building stronger troops. It is week four, I am finally now realizing that I will never win nor get to a place I can feel like I have arrived in the game.
Recently the National Post newspaper published on article on game addiction in China. There are now 400 rehabilitation centres for the Internet addicted and China is among the first countries to classify Internet addiction as a clinical disorder. The article went on to describe one resident the once played for 40 days straight, no stopping, no eating, and no washing.
I will follow our Good Digital Citizenship pillars and unplug myself from the game. I will leave my devices at home, load up my boat, drive to the west side a Vancouver Island and go fishing. I will be back sometime in August. See you then, and I hope you will unplug your devices, your children’s devices and get outdoors!
Nicely done. I appreciate you modelling a Sabbath rest from our devices. I hope to do the same at some point in the summer. It’s a good practice to be able to turn them off and put them away. Something we need to do even after our summer rest. Have a good time fishing!
I really respect and appreciate that you tried it. It is hard for our children to understand our concerns when they see that we grew up in a different world and don’t understand theirs. But when I can say, “Well, there was that time I stayed up all night playing Tetris (or got hooked on Clash of Clans), and then I realized…” then they know that we do appreciate their struggles, we see the good with the bad, and we actually have wisdom to advise them.