hmm. Not me.

I'll pass.

Because the pandemic has been nothing but a script straight from a horror movie, I have been watching more comedy, family oriented movies and action films.

Sorry, I will have to pass on this one

Kids that play role play games like Roblox probably take Covid in stride easier than adults because they are up against great viruses and toxic waste trying to destroy them in the realistic role play games everyday.

I've bumped into several articles indicating that medical horror movie fans are coping better, as well. I've never been a horror movie fan, but at this point, I'm willing to try most anything. Coronaville ain't getting any easier to live in. I feel less safe by the marshal law upgrade and command to, "Stay Safe."

Ah. Glad to see that games might be the way to help people find a better balance.

Makes sense to me.

The video gamers are among those whom I figured the shutdown didn't change their lives much. The ones I know personally were isolated and masked long before Corona.

Hm-m-m-m-m. . . I never thought to call on-line time, "Socialization." I'm not anywhere near to sure I'm buying it. Most of my own on-line time is to help me escape the world around me.

I'm terrified to let my 7 year old foster son play games on-line and am miffed that the video game market has become so intensively on-line. It gives me images of letting him cavort with glow-in-the-dark, 40 year old pervs who haven't been outside their boxes in decades. I have yet to meet one who can support themselves and/or has friends they have ever met in the flesh.

Is a 7 year old ready to spot and defend himself against the scammers? I'm not interested enough in video games nor gamers to do the research for him. I have on-going fantasies of breaking his PS4.

I know some young ones who play on line, and in a couple of cases, it's friends who are in touch with their guardian who are keeping tabs and working with the young ones.

Socialization through the games as invisible mentions is the 'new' normal. The young ones can give vibes about other players - and it's interesting to watch them handle it as resilient as they do.

The only gamers I know whom I would trust to guide a 7 year old through the new normal of on-line video arcades died in that car crash last September. At the time of their deaths, they, too, were wondering if they were e-addicts. Neither of them ever abused a drug in their lives, but their e-toys took them so far from reality that their children were in protective custody.

The other adult gamers I know are so far dissociated off-line that I don't trust them to know the day of the week, much less what is age appropriate.

I'd far rather break his game console than learn the ins and outs of those social etiquettes, myself. I started my computer career in 1973, long before the advent of the WWW. Anything digital looks like work to me.

Definitely be safe letting your kids online. My mom did not monitor my internet usage and I got myself into a lot of bad things. Things that have like messed up my brain pretty bad.

At one point a man was trying to groom me. Straight up told me he watched child porn but I was so blinded by the fact that he was my only friend that I didn't leave. I was pretty lonely then so I just kept talking to him.

So just keep an eye on them. I know I wouldn't have liked my mom messing around in my personal stuff but in the long haul id probably be greatful.

Proof unavailable, but I strongly believe you are one of many who were deeply hurt by unsupervised use of the internet, Frog. We still don't have words for the hurt, but I am increasingly convinced ^it^ is the meanest pandemic in the World Wide petri dish.

My sons were in elementary school when home video game systems hit the market. My eldest was in HS when the internet became a viable hunting ground for predators. My youngest was still in elementary school. I had been working internets since before the tech which created the World Wide Web existed, with all my child prostitute insights to predatory yaddahs and even **I** was blindsided by ^it^. I am still short on words for ^it^? How do you say, "Pimp" in technobabble? How do you translate ^that^ into 7 year old language without traumatizing the kid?

I have blocked his PS4 internet access as far as I can, but my hyper-vigilance is still inclined to discretely break the console while he is at school. They just don't make game consoles like they used to, my child.