When i was younger, way back in the 90s, we were too stupid to use the internet, and entertained ourselves using what we could find. My childhood consisted of a precious few things: Pokemon, Zelda, <ario, beanie babies, and baseball. This is all i have memories of, but what do the kids of the new generation have to grow up on? Pokemon has become a joke now, with all the new Pokemon there are, so that's out. And with the internet being more popular than god himself, are we breeding a generation of kids so hooked on technology that they simply cannot survive by themselves? With the boom of video games, will today's youth become more violent? (Back in my day, games were 2D and innocent, oh how far we've come.) What will happen to today's technology dependent kids?

TheJavaPirate:
When i was younger, way back in the 90s, we were too stupid to use the internet, and entertained ourselves using what we could find. My childhood consisted of a precious few things: Pokemon, Zelda, <ario, beanie babies, and baseball. This is all i have memories of, but what do the kids of the new generation have to grow up on? Pokemon has become a joke now, with all the new Pokemon there are, so that's out. And with the internet being more popular than god himself, are we breeding a generation of kids so hooked on technology that they simply cannot survive by themselves? With the boom of video games, will today's youth become more violent? (Back in my day, games were 2D and innocent, oh how far we've come.) What will happen to today's technology dependent kids?

I know, it is a sad sad thing

I remember when a game didnt have to be rated M to be fun, I remember when single player was all you could do, those were the days

Thats a bleak outlook, I think having the ablity to gain so much information is good.

Don't worry, the good ol' days will return during the Digital Dark Age.
(when new technology is created so fast that data can't be transferred to it fast enough.)

THIS is why I vote for conscription. Yeah, civil liberties be damned, it's only a bit of fun. You'd learn all the skills you need plus it installs disciplin

This message brought to you by the British Army - Be the best

remember "ahhh real monsters"?

Games don't make kids violent, I've had enough of that nonsense. Anyway if society collapses and tech becomes useless then all these kids are doomed. most people will be to be quite honest. I worry about redundancy systems for fixing shit if it all goes bananas. If all tech breaks down and most people that know about it die or whatever, then all that tech becomes so much junk.

Here are some things that an Escapist frequenter would say:

1. Disney killed our kids with scantly dressed little girls
2. Teenagers shooting up schools are the parents' fault
3. The current generation of games are becoming worse/less creative
4. Kids online need to grow up, teenagers are stupid.

meatloaf231:
"Kids these days..." arguments have been made since ancient Greece. Every generation thinks the following one is "losing it's way."

Bugger. Exactly what I was going to say, except that you said it with more clarity.

The fear of change and being surpassed by your youngers is a common fear.

Saying that, kids of today do seem to care less about important things like world political events and more about what bra size jordan is.

theklng:
you think this is bad, wait till we get cybernetic implants as babies in about 100 years from now. then lets start talking about dependency.

Capitalisation is your best friend. Also to the OP, did you ever think that a child can use technology while being taught and parented? Children are not becoming more violent no matter what FOX news tells you.

TheJavaPirate:
When i was younger, way back in the 90s, we were too stupid to use the internet, and entertained ourselves using what we could find. My childhood consisted of a precious few things: Pokemon, Zelda, <ario, beanie babies, and baseball. This is all i have memories of, but what do the kids of the new generation have to grow up on? Pokemon has become a joke now, with all the new Pokemon there are, so that's out. And with the internet being more popular than god himself, are we breeding a generation of kids so hooked on technology that they simply cannot survive by themselves? With the boom of video games, will today's youth become more violent? (Back in my day, games were 2D and innocent, oh how far we've come.) What will happen to today's technology dependent kids?

How far we've come? Wolfenstein and Duke Nukem ring a bell? Games were just as violent back then. Also, criminology stats suggest violent crime among youth is down compared to the 1990s.

Also: there's more to life than Pokemon and the Internet, man. Give the youth some credit. They've become more expressive and creative than our generation ever was, in no small part due to the Internet.

You are, of course, free to sit back in your rocking chair, smoke your pipe and tell those mean lookin' teens to "get off m'land!"

Language, written and spoken, is a technology. Public utilities, writing utensils, food storage methods, they're all forms of technology. As long as humans communicate with each other, live in dwellings and use tools, no matter how simple the tools happen to be, we are going to be using some form of technology. Just by being able to describe yourself to yourself as a human makes you a prime example of the technology dependent class.

As far as "the boom of video games" is concerned, I welcome you to share an example of a newly discovered technology that wasn't misused in some form, accidentally or on purpose, upon it's introduction to a human society who previously had no concept of it's existence, much less it''s use. The application of technology will always be only as flawed as those who bother to apply it, and you know the track record of we humans when it comes to having flaws. As far as video games causing

"the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation."

-The definition of violence, according to the World Health Organization*

in children, my guess would be that it would all be based on how thoroughly the child in question was introduced to the concept of violence, it's uses, results and consequences.

What will happen to today's technology dependent kids? Depends on how you all have scheduled your upcoming day...

*Technology made me know this! Damn freely accessible stream of internet information!...

DangerChimp:

How far we've come? Wolfenstein and Duke Nukem ring a bell? Games were just as violent back then. Also, criminology stats suggest violent crime among youth is down compared to the 1990s.

That's probably because they are all to busy on the internet.

I agree, though, that what we had in the 90's was better by comparison to what kids have today. The reason they think what they have is better is because they were introduced to this new stuff before what we had, and think that the 90's 'fun' is too b-grade.
I'm aware that 90's kids would have said the same things about decades before them, but it is for the same reason. Nevertheless being a 90's kid myself I miss the good cartoons, the good games, and the simple entertainment before technology was more advanced than Tamagotchi.
Hell, I miss some of the older stuff too...I'm 17 and some of my favourite shows are from before my time, like Red Dwarf, The Young Ones, HR Puffinstuff...And then the 90's cartoons of course..Aahhh! Real Monsters, The Animals of White Stag Park, the ORIGINAL Pokemon (as in the first 150), Rocko's Modern Life and for some reason I still enjoy the extremely gross partnership of Ren and Stimpy.

TheJavaPirate:
When i was younger, way back in the 90s, we were too stupid to use the internet, and entertained ourselves using what we could find. My childhood consisted of a precious few things: Pokemon, Zelda, <ario, beanie babies, and baseball. This is all i have memories of, but what do the kids of the new generation have to grow up on? Pokemon has become a joke now, with all the new Pokemon there are, so that's out. And with the internet being more popular than god himself, are we breeding a generation of kids so hooked on technology that they simply cannot survive by themselves? With the boom of video games, will today's youth become more violent? (Back in my day, games were 2D and innocent, oh how far we've come.) What will happen to today's technology dependent kids?

What was your day? Mortal Kombat came out in the early-mid 90s, didn't it?

Well when I personally was a kid it was in the 80's. Very few of my friends parents would buy them the Atari or the Nintendo as both were expensive. I remember my first video game was football on an digital cheap'o game machine today (back then it was the stuff). We had the old green screen computers with role playing games that were all story mode with no graphics, and the internet...that was unknown. And this was also when Dungeons and Dragons was really really cool. We kept busy riding bikes, playing with our GI Joe's, and everyonce in awhile getting to go to the arcade. Oh, and I pumped a lot of quarters into the Pacman and Tron machines at our 7-11. Wow, this thread really made me think a lot about some stuff I haven't thought of in a long time. Hilarious. You know what? We were dependant on things back then...just like kids are now...just like kids were a long time ago. That's what kids do.

meatloaf231:
"Kids these days..." arguments have been made since ancient Greece. Every generation thinks the following one is "losing it's way."

We actually have a point, though. Have you ever seen High School Musical? Why that putrid vomit ever gained popularity is beyond me.

Meatloaf231....have you ever seen Grease?

Apocalypse Tank:
Disney killed our kids with scantly dressed little girls
.

It is still better than if Disney killed 'em without cantly dressed little girls.

Being "Politically Correct" must die. Die in a fiery furnace engufled in the flames of a fiery inferno of fire.

To my son:
"Billy, you lost. You're a failure. Get out of my sight before you fail me anymore. No, you cannot have a hug. I don't hug losers."

Tattaglia:
Being "Politically Correct" must die. Die in a fiery furnace engufled in the flames of a fiery inferno of fire.

To my son:
"Billy, you lost. You're a failure. Get out of my sight before you fail me anymore. No, you cannot have a hug. I don't hug losers."

agree on first thing. second part was too harsh.

I think the 90's was a great time to grow up, I think it would be better than say being 4-5 years of age with all this crap on TV now.

All of this technology hoo-hah is creating for us an inability to raise our kids. I don't have em, but my little brother, age 6, was using the remote before he turned 3. Christ, he was using Dr. Phil on my parents before they could use it on him!

I told my dad, "gimme 2 weeks, and I'll make television a repulsive thought to him."
I won't say what I did, but it backfired. Now he's addicted to playing with lego blocks online. It's a step up for sure, but what the hell is wrong with playing with the ten thousand he has in his bedroom?

What do kids have these days?

Eh, not much really. There's some genuinely good stuff out there, but a lot of things aimed at kids now is just total triple.

However, they do have Transformers Animated. Easily the best TF series since Beast Wars (making it the second best ever), and the best TF toyline ever.

Tattaglia:
Being "Politically Correct" must die. Die in a fiery furnace engufled in the flames of a fiery inferno of fire.

To my son:
"Billy, you lost. You're a failure. Get out of my sight before you fail me anymore. No, you cannot have a hug. I don't hug losers."

Yep, you'd make a great father. Your son would probably murder you in your sleep though.

TheJavaPirate:
When i was younger, way back in the 90s, we were too stupid to use the internet, and entertained ourselves using what we could find. My childhood consisted of a precious few things: Pokemon, Zelda, <ario, beanie babies, and baseball. This is all i have memories of, but what do the kids of the new generation have to grow up on? Pokemon has become a joke now, with all the new Pokemon there are, so that's out. And with the internet being more popular than god himself, are we breeding a generation of kids so hooked on technology that they simply cannot survive by themselves? With the boom of video games, will today's youth become more violent? (Back in my day, games were 2D and innocent, oh how far we've come.) What will happen to today's technology dependent kids?

You actually ever liked pokemon....? Well depending on how old you were I can understand that, I liked pokemon when it first came out...then I moved onto better animes and bette card games etc.

I grew up with the same stuff you did (culture wise) and i'm still the same youthful person inside :P

As the saying goes "You don't grow up because you grow old, you grow old because you grow up"

Why be serious when you can mock the work of the world and laugh in the face of danger?

As for conscription...you could try...you will probably fail. The generation who grew up from the pokemon era onwards have realised one key thing:

There are ways and means to get around every problem and legging it to somewhere where they can't touch you usually solves these problems.

Also I personally hate the military because its full of idiots who think I should serve my country...rofl =.= Silly people. The military has become a joke ever since they stopped using wmds. I refuse to fight for a country thats A) too chicken to commit genocide on their enemies and B) has screwed me over financially and socially. (i live in the UK btw:P)

And for those who thinks the british army is worth it...ummm lol? Once again, its a joke. We let our own troops get killed by american "Friendly fire" and don't go bat shit mental at them for it. Plus a lot of soldiers end up head cases.

I think today's youth will be incredibly narcissistic. Even more so than the youths of past, if that were even possible.

sequio:
I think today's youth will be incredibly narcissistic. Even more so than the youths of past, if that were even possible.

I totally agree