Video games have brought an unprecedented transformation in the way young boys spend their free time, and not all for the good. As a volunteer who tutors kids in high school (and a former "hardcore gamer") and middle school I will say, anecdotally speaking, that they've made boys more sedentary, more isolated, and less interested in school.

I think the most insidious aspect of video games is that they are a success surrogate. I spent over a decade and a half playing games after dropping out of high school at age 16. What kept me going was the feeling of success and accomplishment I got from impressing my online friends in games.

Now in my mid-30s, I'm an undergrad in mathematics and finally putting my life back together. I've come to realize that video games are a terrible substitute for real life accomplishments and that online gaming friendships pale in comparison to building relationships with real people, in person.

Video games were also a very big part of my life. While it was fun and brought a lot of memories, I would still rate it as a net negative. There were so many opportunities that I missed(academically, socially, romantically, financially) because I would just prefer to either play in the arcades all day or play with my friend's house on their consoles.

While I would probably still enjoy playing video games, I have actively went out of my way to avoid them. I have replaced them with healthier solitary activities IMO(music production, UI design) or more outgoing activities like cultural meetups, hiking and the like.

I love video games, but there's something about playing video games for extended periods that really messes with your head. Compared to painting pictures and making music, there's a noticeable "brain fog" that I experience after video games. It's simply not there with music and art.

Not sure what the difference is, but it's definitely different. Whenever I get into a game, I try and limit playing time to 2 hours at a time. Which, can be quite hard to accomplish. Even as a 38 year old.

> and less interested in school.

Though my profession is probably owed to the unsanctioned time I spent online in my youth (especially time away from school), and I luckily never had access to enough unearned money to buy a fast enough computer to play video games, never really played video games much, and still don't now that I have threadrippers, hundreds of gigs of ram, and top tier GPUs sitting around everywhere.

Some parents see the issues with video games as extending to access to computers as a whole, and I think that could have its own social cost.

If I were raising a kid right now, I'd probably have them on a feature phone, and a PC which stops short of playing modern games; but I think a lot of people would struggle with hypocrisy if they did that, since they own gaming hardware and play video games themselves, and my own mother is rather attached to her smartphone.

> I'd probably have them on a feature phone ...

Everyone thinks that, and then caves under the pressure.

Grow a spine. If you are too weak to withhold a luxury electronic device from a child in your care, you are probably too weak to raise a child in general... I think.

I mean, I don't have kids, but I can't imagine being plied into spending hundreds of dollars on something which I don't want even for myself, and which I think is bad for the recipient.

> I don't have kids

It's easy to say you'll do this and that with kids, but things change when you have them.

I'm in my mid-30s as well and I agree w/ your conclusion. I find that games work best when played occasionally as a substitute for real life activities that aren't legal or safe. E.g., GTA V allows you to steal cars, play with gasoline and rob 711's; activities that if attempted IRL would either kill you or land you in prison.

> E.g., GTA V allows you to steal cars, play with gasoline and rob 711's; activities that if attempted IRL would either kill you or land you in prison.

This isn't true though, is it?

GTA V is simply cheaper for the sandbox space: but you're actually perfectly free to get some paintball guns, some cars, some gasoline, buy an old 7-11, fence it off, and play paintball GTA V.

That would just be more expensive and tiring, while less convenient.

(It sounds more fun to me, but YMMV -- and economically, you can probably rent the space to the police for training to break even.)

I think encouragement and all-else-being-equal preference for in-person vs. online is pretty much a non-factor, short of extreme cases.

As mentioned above, there's just no comparison any more. I grew up in the city and had very, very few restrictions[1] on where/when I was out from around age 15, and we still preferred online. Going out in person is expensive, not everyone had equal transit access (and no one had a consistently available car), etc.

Yes, there were people who didn't join up online, who I would've loved to see more of. Meeting up with them more often would have been great, but doing it regularly just wasn't feasible - we'd see everyone at school and maybe after for 15-30 minutes while people cleared out, but that was the only regular thing.

[1] Mostly of the 'tell us where and when' variety - if my parents knew roughly how to find me if needed, that was good enough.

It sounds like your encouragement for your son is in the right direction. The thing about the present situation is that it's not just about what individual parents allow and disallow. It's about process works on average for a group of friends. And often, what they see other friends do.

So if online interactions is the average, it will be hard to change that.