One concern with Minecraft is that parents often find it hard to ask kids good questions about it. The good news is that good questions don’t require specific jargon knowledge. Good questions help kids who are poor at managing their time playing it. It’s something that they (and you) can learn and work on.
I make no bones about it, games like Minecraft are exciting and rewarding to kids, often in exact proportion to how boring school and TV is. If you want your kid to be creative-curious-adventurous, Minecraft is hands down better than watching hours TV or copying a set of facts the board in a classroom. But parents – all of us – find managing game time a challenge, as most of us have no experience of it until it manifests in the home.
So, how do parents get better at managing Minecraft? Well its a two part solution.
First, think about the location and second, use questions that relate directly to potential behavioural changes (in you and them). It’s not so hard … but you do have to think rather than react to your own emotions. Yelling doesn’t make it better, which is not to suggest that it’s an easy thing to avoid when she freaks-out as you yank the modem out the wall. We’ve all been there. The first step it to try and better manage the situation.
This is best to do this in two ways. First is about location. Sitting with them as they play (their zone) or in a neural zone (the park). Don’t summon them to the kitchen for a lecture – kitchens are for noms. The second is about using questions that have been shown to promote behavioral change away from regressing back to conflict.
So here are 10 questions that I’ve found work.
1. What are some of the skills that have contributed to your success? (insight)
2. What get’s in your way of success? here (insight)
3. What do you find most rewarding things to do? (motivation)
4. What additional skills or things could I (the parent) do to help them you feel even more successful? (abilities)
5. What do other people say about your Minecraft builds? (real world)
6. What have you said about other people’s builds? (accountability)
7. How much time do you think you play a week? (accountability)
8. Have you ever griefed someones Minecraft build? Why/why not? (accountability)
9. What makes a great Minecraft server ?(insight)
10. If a new person came to you to learn how to play this – is that something you’d like to teach them? (motivation)
Not an exhaustive list – but these are ten ways to talk about Minecraft in a positive way and avoid yelling at each other. I’d appreciate it if you added some more that you find useful too. d
Educators who have adopted social media publicise use it to promote many things. There are only one representation of the future. The dominent one appears increasingly devoid of ethics – which is alarming, as teaching would appear to be a pillar of it.
The limited research available suggests around 5% of teachers have used social-media in relation to their professional needs. This is a distinction between using social media and using the Internet. Despite this, billions of dollars have been spent on the Internet, laptops and so called professional development in the last decade.
The universal phrase ‘the Internet’ is used to confusingly describe websites or services which they are willing accommodate in their day to day practice nothing more though in-culture popularity and bias, rather than any empirical evidence. This is whipped up by other people with un-fulfilled rock-star fantasies (twitter influencers) not practicing teachers or researchers. And this called professional development of teachers. It amazes me that there are no standards, ethics or accountability in this unregulated sector of education. I’m gobsmacked that at a time systems are cutting staff, head offices are still organising seminars to listen to these bar-stool experts. The best thing for kids in classrooms are teachers – ones that are there for a long time, not a lesson.
There’s proliferation of private educational providers which are unregulated, unaccountable, and out of control. The increasing globalised society is mediated though the 24/7 news and commerce cycle and has disrupted many things. However, education performs a particular function.
All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume. – Noam Chomsky
I wince at educational leaders who forge Twitter-famous identities to sprook their schools for their owners. Some are beginning claim games such as Minecraft can change the classroom As though this new-tech-interest is another spoon full of sugar that only those who ‘pay’ can access. It they believed it, they’d be out there doing it for everyone not just their patrons.
If we choose, we can live in a world of comforting illusion. – Noam Chomsky
I support the idea of society having open and quality communications. I don’t support those who seek to deny people of this right. Many who can most afford to help other schools, teachers, kids and parents – don’t. But if they are at their rich school with their luxury surrounded students – you bet they are on Twitter telling the world how awesome they are and how awesome technology is.
Perhaps consider the relationship between being a professional teacher and an ethical one before you post. I’m pleased you’re kids are doing well, but at the same time it’s those kids who grow up to let other kids sleep in cars not beds. Think before you tell people what the future is going to be. For 70% of kids, it looks like 50/50 unemployment right now, increased student debt and lower life earnings.
This is an image I drew in a short talk at the University of Canberra this week. I was making an argument that education has focused almost entirely on ‘the Internet’ in regard to technology based learning and ignores (somewhat on purpose) the significance of proprietary media networks such as Xbox Live and other models.
Many teachers are using technologies. They often do this with no empirical evidence at all and use it in ways that are not required in the syllabus at all. At times I listen to people and strongly suspect they are talking about things that they have little or no actual experience outside popular social culture. This is one of the essential problems with attempts to connect popular media to effective media channels for education.
While the Internet has disrupted whom we pay attention to (it’s easier to read a Tweet than a journal article) it is also self-serving. There’s a gap in research and investment towards the idea of developing proprietary media-channels that can be disruptive to the Internet itself. What I’m interested in are media networks which predominantly see the Internet as a transport layer and recognising that of itself, the Internet holds no information. It’s all held in proprietary servers almost exclusively.
My scenario was that where Universities begin to deliver (on demand) courses using Smart Television and Media Networks which perhaps use reputation systems such as XBox’s gamerscore. If you like what happens when you can study in the home – not in the study or bedroom, but in the lounge using human-interface devices (internet of things). It’s not too out-there, Open Edu continues in it’s 40th year of disrupting how, when and where people can study. With the arrival of a new Xbox perhaps (the current one is 10 years old) – these multi-core machines will extend their media-carrying ability. They already have SBS and ABC’s iView on demand.
But let’s not rush in, first we need to know a lot more about social-conceptions of this kind of media network – as clearly Xbox is seen as something set apart from the Internet. Will the drive of consumer culture (where most people spend most time with a few BIG brands such as iTunes, Google and Facebook) be shifted from the computer and tablet to the big-screen.
In short, if you’re thinking about the Internet and websites as being the future of educational technology. I don’t agree. Smart TVs and Games Based Media Networks (GBMN) can achieve a scale that simply won’t be achieved in web-based MOOCS in variations of the LMS.
I’ve been doing some work on e-books and e-readers. It’s so easy to wander into the near future with this stuff, given that e-ink and e-paper is so flexible and requires such low power.
One example is this. An android powered duel-screen smart phone. On one side, we have a typical ‘droid phone display and on the back e-paper powered screen. Imagine for a second that the future of classroom technology was born from the un-holy union of a musical birthday card and a e-reader. Imagine that a students writing book had an e-paper jacket.
Now they can read and write and cruise the internet (if only in black and white). But then again, some of us remember a small back and white pill-box computer that changed the world. Yet another reason not to assume the determinism of iFads and tablets is the future of classroom technology. Oh by the way, Amazon have a similar device with a patent and Sony can print you an phone from a ticket machine.
Perhaps the future classroom tech will be a smart-book that teachers can beam content to via a VPN … now that would be cool.
One of the things that is changing the way families experience games are the new media layers that games are appearing on. We’ve known for years that media works better when it is fluid. If you like, if we were to take the sum total of all forms of media that appear in popular culture, make them immersive and interactive – and where to you find yourself?
On the Internet is not the correct answer. The Internet is just the transport for media layers. Where you end up is inside one of several networks, which carries media more powerful and fluid than newspapers, radio, television, books, magazines – or websites.
Sony, Nintendo, Valve, Xbox, iTunes and Google Play are the network layers that manage to exist in two key areas of our lives. Firstly, the pocket. At any moment we can be entertained, thrilled and most importantly - consume and purchase. Secondly, in the lounge room. The one place that most families inhabit Not the study or a nook (where the PC lives) but front and centre of viewing.
Games are more powerful, because games are a significant part of these networks overall media business. Not just blockbuster games, but Indie games which are relatively smaller and cheaper to download. They exist alongside the DLC (downloadable content) which are ‘additions’ to the games you buy in the store – and you pay for. They sit along side downloadable videos, television, music and news. They link into you social feed. An Indie game, such as Super Meat Boy can turn 10,000 units in a day at 12000c a pop, which is somewhere around $20.00.
A big reason the media (be that television, print, or websites) will fail to win their relentless attempts to diminish games as a media (we already spend more time playing that doing anything else) is that games are central to the economic success (and growth) of these media networks. If you were born after say 1978, you grew up playing games on micro-computers. If you were born after 1990, you grew up on optical-media based consoles. If you were born after 2000, you are growing up on network-games.
The thing about this – the thing which seems of the most importance to me right now – is that we know almost nothing about the motivations and perceptions of parents towards their use in the home. In education, the scary thing is that these things are never mentioned in relation to ‘integrating ICT’. There’s a huge assumption that eventually, though the pathways put forward through popular Internet media layers (the feed of blogs, Twitter and so on) – sufficient adults will understand online information pathways to develop the skills (what skills) needed for the future. At best, this near future is seen as a shift from laptop top tablet.
This of course means that the ‘cutting edge’ in popular culture of online education is based on tablets, mobile phones and on maturation of Internet websites. It ignores completely the use of wearable technology, smart televisions, Kinect, Google Glass and many more technologies that have already entered the home. When educational futurists painted a vision of Web2.0, they assumed it would be on a computer, then a laptop and now a tablet.
The future of online learning won’t be these things. It will be in fast moving, on-demand content that can be immersive and fluid. It is perhaps the biggest reason I found the MS Surface tablet exciting. It looked, worked and talked to my Xbox network. It amases me in higher education that no one (or no one I can see) isn’t working really hard on how eLearning might look via a network layer such as Xbox live – one which has a mature system of reputation, avatar, history of use, money and of course downloadable content. How hard would it be to create an amazing learning managent system that worked on the Xbox network? Well, impossible actually – as education simply hasn’t considered that just about all of it’s ‘innovations’ for interactive screens, live cams, secure mail, gamification, flipped classroom, internet searching and so on can be done on Xbox live.
So when these media networks have machines hooked up to wall mounted LCDs pushing data at us though 8 cores of processing – and hiring thousands of programmers to do it … it seems almost Edwardian to suggest websites have much of a future. Every major media player in the world is on or trying to get on the network layers that sit in our pockets and lounge room walls.
My money (if I had any) is on the future being a solid return to subject mastery in classroom and a retreat from the high invested (low return) that we’ve seen in the last decade. I don’t imagine for a moment that student results will be diminished. I think that higher education and other offerings of ‘learning’ will make their way to layers such as Xbox live (and not just iTunesU) and we’ll be interacting in real time with real people using gesture based technology, wearable technology – because the networks which carry games such as Crysis3 are currently limited by the machines – the Wii, the Xbox and the PS3 are a decade old.
Imagine if the classroom had laptops and computers 10 years old, they would barely run todays software – and yet the ageing PS3 and Xbox still deliver media and games which you’d expect on your iFad3 or i7 PC. If anyone knows how to get the maximum interaction out of a machine – it’s game developers and all of these media networks (those used to selling movies, TV and music) know – if they want a future doing just that – then they need to fund the games industry … and that is expensive … like many millions and years of waiting for it expensive.
I doubt you’ll find a single proposal at ISTE last year, this year or next year, that will look at how networked media will flood into lives of kids in the next few years. We’re about to enter a new generation of machine – the PS4, the Xbox (720) and so on, which will quite simply transform the way media is delivered and interacted with. Instead theres a bunch of people who are in the old-marketpace. To me it’s like the boom and bust of the wheat farmers who ignored the cattle-men and believed the solution to low grain prices what to produce more grain to sell, or if the price of grain is high, plant more grain to make money.
The dust-storm is arriving … me, I’m working on figuring out how and why families choose the games and networks they do … as it’s only by getting that, could I then try to imagine how we might prepare teachers for the next generation – the ones who will grow up feeding on high-speed media via cheap boxes that know their name.
Now I”m going to play Fez – which is metaphor. The world is 3D, it has four sides, a top and a bottom – what I’m seeing in edu-tech is an unwillingness to accept change is not about changing one surface for another (web1.0 to web2.0, computer screen to laptop screen, laptop to tablet screen). It’s about waking up and realising there’s stuff going on around the back that your current feed does not want you to know about.
At times it feels ironic that what is presented as ‘the edge of new learning technologies’, quick to vilify ‘old methods’ – is already a chapter in history – relevant in the 1990s, but in denial of what comes next – for no greater reason than they don’t have a place in it, and about to find themselves living in the ‘digital dust bowl’.
It’s very exciting stuff. It’s like finding the Web all over again, or that whole – what am I doing here – thing that came with Second Life or Minecraft. I’m betting that the way MOOCS and online learning for adults will explode is exactly the same way they exploded for games. I’m also betting right now all the money for MOOCs and massive online learning delivery systems is going into dust-ware.
Me, I’m working on a game with Mr11 about a Monkey with a monocle – because his homework said to make a pencil box using a set-square. I’m by-passing the Google Sketch phase and going straight for the understanding of the design process.
I very recently bought Skylanders for Mr7 and Miss9. I keep hearing about it – the impression I got that was that Skylanders in someway was a better alternative to Minecraft, which I though was a pointless comparison, but interesting.
Skylanders is marketed by Activision Blizzard and rated +7. It’s a f merchandise game which works on you buying more and more ‘toys’ to feed your game experience. It isn’t actually made by them, but by Toys For Bob. It is a kids game, so it’s not up there with Warcraft.
It’s the kind of game I typically avoid and is really nickle and dimeware. Skylander’s is remarkable in that it is basically the same level repeated over and over using plastic characters. You put the plastic toy on a special plastic dish and it magically appears in the game. Of course you need to keep buying them, as the game only opens doors and does certain things with certain toys. Here’s a decent PDF list of characters.
If you are old, think about this as collecting hot-wheels. Its the ability to see the same toy to one person many times. I dare not compare it to Pokemon, as it lacks the kind of narrative and cultural backdrop. Nor are they Warhammer type miniatures as you don’t even get to paint them. They are, expensive plastic toys from the worlds most elaborate gum-ball machine.
It is essentially a repack of so many other co-op games such as Banjo and Kazooie or Crash but less. The adventuring is smooth and simple to get into. The controls handle well, the upgrades and improvements are intuitive enough.
It’s hard to say “it is a bad game” because it isn’t. It’s just not the kind of game-culture I’d entertain for long – for fear of turning my kids into consumer monsters. This is the same company that brought out half a dozen Guitar Hero games in a year after all.
Skylanders makes you buy more characters just to complete levels! It also makes kids share XP so there’s not enough to go around, so re-doing levels is common. It likes to give you previews of stuff you can buy as rewards (what’s with that?) so while playing it’s also advertising and telling you to spend more money. Skylanders is little more than exploitation of the children. This is Activision after all, who have fast become the douche-bags of gaming – according to PC gamers.
The online-upsell
You can now join Skylanders Universe. I played the video trailer to Miss9 and I could see the promo literally throwing invisible mind rays at her. As I tap this out, she’s gone off to play it, so I’ll get a test-pilot report later. The blurb says
“Seamlessly integrating with your children’s toy collection, Skylanders Universe extends and expands their game experience online with the opportunity to work with friends to visit far-away Skylands, earn achievements and points, and unlock new worlds and Skylanders.” – yeah right.
In terms of parenting … Skylanders is … terrible.
In summary Skylanders is probably the worst game you could choose. I was amazed there is so little written about is psychological nastiness and exploitative nature. It will demand money at every twist and turn, and probably be the latest craze in bullying and peer-trolling at school too. As a game, it is well put together – if unremarkable.
Skylanders is a million times worse that something like Minecraft in terms of having any educational value. If you just want a great game – Crash and Banjo are way better and just as much fun. Any game which seeks to nickle-and-dime kids via their parents is to be avoided – if what you buy is essentially the same experience. For example, I’m also playing Crysis 3. It’s not exactly a new game, more of an expansion of Crysis 2 – but it improved the ‘feel’ of some of the open areas and it felt like the game got better. Im not sure Skylanders is even interested in this. I am sure it will just keep adding more characters and more collectables.
It is interesting this nickel and dimeware with endless DLC is seen as okay (Skylanders is making plenty of money). Perhaps due to immersion in app-culture – and that $15 is seen as a cheap way to keep kids busy. So after 3 days of it, I have questions.
How long it took for your kids to start fighting over the characters
This is a great post at the Penny Arcade showing how the Surface Pro works for artists using the pressure sensitive pen. Yes, the pen could be better quality, but the fact it works this well has some real benefits over the finger-tappers. Many people are visual learners (me). We don’t like typing very much and we don’t like reading in a linear fashion. We like to draw and sketch our ideas. It seems interesting that the Surface Pro and the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 are pen-devices. Mentally, I feel better when I have a pen (especially an ink-nib pen) – and to be brutal, I hated that Apple reduced me to a finger pointer.
It has been said, more than a few times Minecraft is addicting kids. What this addiction is ( spending time being creative and learning how to use the Internet to reach ambitious computing goals) is less clear.
This post is for a kid called Jack, who replied to a previous post, saying how he didn’t think he could talk to his mum about Minecraft. So here’s some stuff that looks at why that might be, and what to do about it.
According to ‘gratification theory‘, kids and adults are drawn to media to meet their psychological needs (information, entertainment, social interaction, mastery, control and so on). As games are absorbing, they can act to reduce children’s anxiety and worry too. It sone reason I think teachers should think long and hard before rolling into kid-game-worlds with their subject mastery agenda. Yet it seems they are keen on gamifying their classrooms … regardless of whether this is a good thing or bad – it’s popular.
Some kids might be rich, they might have everything – but still feel alone. Minecraft might help them with that feeling. This is one of numerous plausible situations where a kid might find Minecraft a place to go to sooth unpleasant thoughts and feelings which are not being met by other games or other media such as Facebook or YouTube.
For each kid I’ve seen play or met during playing Minecraft – they are often interested in two things – self expression and social interaction. This is something they feel they are getting -regardless of parental belief of this. To the kid, this is real and concrete as that is how kids brains work.
Several studies have shown that kids watch television and play video games for entertainment, to spend time with family and when they are bored. Minecraft does this, but it also provides self expression and social interaction (beyond the family hierarchies)
More interestingly, kids choose games which suit their mood, where as adults tend to use media (television, video, the Internet) to improve their mood. For parents – young children are experimenting with social interaction, building knowledge and skills where as teens are using it to relax and escape. If she’s in the mood to be creative, she’s in the mood to play Minecraft. This doesn’t mean she’s in the mood to play Dishonoured, or that Dishonored would change her mood. Theres no association between wanting to play Minecraft and wanting to play an R-Rated game, but this doesn’t stop the media inferring it.
Minecraft is perhaps a new (and therefore more noticeable) media. But it’s still a media. Calling it ‘addictive’ serves to simplify games in the mind of adults lacking schemas and knowledge of games. The media is not particularly moral, ethical or interested in child development and is never un-biased or transparent.
For most adults, learning about Minecraft is hard (too hard). It doesn’t have an easily accessed ‘story’. Adults learn though stories not facts. For example, many people know about the story of Steve Jobs vs Bill Gates. They don’t know too many facts.
They probably know about the Facebook guy or the two guys that made Google, yet probably don’t know who Jens Bergensten is. But chances are, their kids know who Jeb is – and of course Notch. In case you didn’t know, Jeb is the lead developer for Minecraft, not Notch.
If you like, Jeb is one of the most important people in the game world – and from all accounts, a very nice guy – someone who I don’t think for a second would be anything less than an amazing influence on my own kids – should they ever meet him. To my kids, Jeb seems real. He’s not like Apple or some game studio – he’s a person, who appears on videos and is talked about all the time. If you like, Jeb is that neighbourhood kid that parents hear about, but don’t know. There is the story of Minecraft, the story of Notch and the ballard of Jeb. See below for a quick intro to what I mean.
So if games are inherently bad or even if good games go bad, then you’d think that those who make them are bad or go bad too. They are presented by the media at least as a type of anti-culture, like Nirvana or Slayer. Making millions by addicting kids to games. However we still have cigarettes and numerous things we know kill people. For example, if two countries want to war – why to they need guns? Why not just go and do some hand to hand? Well because people like to win – and tools help them win. In the media war on gaming, presenting them as the greedy bad-guy harming innocents in an excellent story.
But that isn’t the story I see, what Minecraft says to kids (to me is) - anyone can have a regular job, and still be in the running to do something they really love one day – and right now you can start making unique things from your imagination.
It might not be a cure for cancer, feed the world or regain flagging western interest in religion, but to many kids, Minecraft at least improves their spatial cognition, co-ordination and fine motor skills and is a social-network in it’s own right. It is far less toxic than Facebook (peer-pressure to create rather than be a target/entertainer) – and leads to the all important positive self-identity and agency all kids benefit from – if parents use it for a media-healthy diet.
Minecraft is not linked to poor general health. You won’t get fat, sick or become stupid playing Minecraft. All kids are notoriously poor at managing time. This is why parenting experts have argued for routines for decades. Negative things such as sleep deficit, less time undertaking heathy activities, mental health, education problems and so on, cannot be attributed to Minecraft any more than they can be attributed to television viewing – and numerous large studies have shown no association between screen-time and physical activities.
Kids are complicated, unique and individual. There is no A-typical gamer. Kids, like adults can make unhealthy lifestyle choices – when they lack information and experience. They can easily suffer from fear, anxiety and phobias, yet studies have shown there is no constant link between screen time and these things.
In short you can’t blame Jeb for the epidemic in childhood obesity (in fact he’s kind of skinny, but we can’t suggest he’s anorxic’s pin-up) ,. We can’t see Minecraft as the problem for monumentally un-imaginative classrooms, poor school funding, prejudice against people of colour, gender or ability either. But the media can, and does many of these – maybe not the Jeb bit.
Society can do that perfectly well without video games. It might do better with them. As young kids are concrete thinkers, the violence and monsters in Minecraft (or other games) has far less impact than seeing repeated natural disasters on TV or annual ‘biggest loser’ – which form concrete associations about the world and them. They know they are unlikely to meet a creeper, but the world does tend to kill people with trees and fat people are probably going to die sooner rather than later.
If you are a parent, then take some time to sit down and watch the Minecraft Story. It’s a great documentary. It’s just $8 or if that is too much you can also get it from the Pirate Bay for free (on purpose). You’ll begin to see what kids see in it – the other alternative is to watch Dr.Phil and others recycle fear and moral panic about games … something it seems parents are doing. It’s not a game, its a story which you can be part of. For most parents I’ve shown it to, the people at Mojang are exactly the kind of people many parents hope their kids will associate with – or be like. (I do a parent thing where we watch the film and un-pack it, it’s kind of fun).
And finally, the topic of agression. I accept only this (so far) … because this is what the research says about media violence, and games are a part of that medi – yet have unique properties. This means in all the research, games are the least studied, the least known. In over 30 years of research, there is evidence that media contributes as much as any other studied contributor to community violence. There is a disproportionate amount of media coverage about violence in ‘game media’ compared with other (television, radio, Internet, film and so on) which has a disproportionate impact on public views. This has been found in hundreds of studies over decades.
In short – in all the various forms of media, games are singled out more often and therefore seen as worse yet wholly unsupported in scholarly research which doesn’t see more games or more game-time as contributing to kids and [insert concern] as being a inevitable convergence. In education, there is a similar problem – that eventually subject-mastery and technology will converge. It’s a convenient idea at best to push an agenda, but unproven no matter how much people will it to be true.
Parents don’t have the kind of ‘knowledge structures’ needed to make sense of video games, especially Minecraft. It’s what they call – you are what you eat. If all you eat is an unhealthy diet of media-hate and opinion, then when she’s busy on Minecraft, all you see is negative.
If Minecraft has raised concerns, then this isn’t a bad thing. It’s like finding out eating Burgers and 10 liters of Coke a day is bad for you. It’s an opportunity to think about media more broadly – for yourself. It’s something worth doing, so you are more likely to do it. Thinking for yourself is fast becoming a lost-art in a culture addicted to media-feeds on Facebook, Twitter and so on. Surely not! I am so not addicted to social-media. Sure you are … you just don’t have a hand-controller.
Talk to kids about what they have seen online (in games, on TV as well)
Find out about the factors than enhance negative impacts of media (everyone has a screen in their pocket, the Internet is un-regulated, the media has a commercial agenda, pain and suffering gets human attention – so sells ad-space and so on).
There is no evidence that cartoon violence or fantasy (Harry Potter, Bugs Bunny, Minecraft) is harmless yet media constantly uses violence as a way to condition children that it can be used in lieu of being correct, to get your own way and as a punishment for non-compliance with the norm-behaviours. This is often exaggerated in television and film as fantasy telling a morality tale (See any Disney film ever).
We know being a good role model with your own media use and encouraging alternates – walking the dog, riding a bike, painting, reading and so on have positive impacts on kids. However, if a parent comes home, eats and settles down to an evening of television most days – this is un-heathy for the child. If the parents reads or listens to music and never turns on the TV, this too is un-healthy. If they carry a smart phone – and use it to socialise virtually and exclude the child (under 13s are usually banned) this in un-healthy for the child. If they watched Die Hard and said to their kids “its not appropriate, you can’t watch it”, this is unhealthy.
So before bagging Minecraft – take a look at the totality of media use in the house. Then try watching The MInecraft Story with your kids … you never know, it might be the first step in connecting the kids world and talking about it.
I hope Jack’s mum reads this … he feels like he can’t talk to you … and he wants to.
I’ve never really stopped to think about how little control people have on the Internet. There is the option not to use it, but increasingly choice as to how. For example. I wanted to create an email account today on Google to manage the kids various log ins they use in game networks. i was told that people don’t change their names more than a few times in thier life and my user name had to be a real name. I chose Aston Martin.
In dealing with on-line chat, my wife attempted to book a ticket. During the chat “William” turned a $90 fare into $120, citing prices can change policy. This took her almost 15 to get to this point as William didnt seemed to know what he was doing. When she asked to speak to his supervisor, her told her that time was up
Media saturates the world have the luxury of living in. The media is a fantasy where images of hope are crafted as deliberately as those of violence – and almost all of it is designed to entertain and sell. So we choose to pay attention to layers of media which once were deaf, and only now learning what happens when we shout back. Yesterday, my father in law died in Tasmania. My wife had booked a flight next week, as things were looking increasingly grim. Sadly he died yesterday. Amid the tears, we tried to book the next flight to Tasmania, calling Jetstar Reservations to explain the situation.
No. Is the simple answer. No you can’t change, and even if you hav insurance you have to pay is now, and we will assess your claim later. And the flight is $400 more than the other one – do you have a credit card.
The is the media at work, used to telling, demanding and controlling. Jetstar’s face is one of competitive prices and ‘welcome aboard’ is it not in the media?
Clearly, despite the PR and polished promotions, this is a fantasy. One which it seems real humans are forced to participate. Anyone remember this at the gate recently? Mostly its someone in a rain-coat with a shortwave radio glaring at passengers, daring them to ask “so how come we’re an hour over departure and you’ve said nothing”.
I posted our disgust on Facebook, and a friend pasted it into Jetstar’s fan page. It got a response. I am not sure how to elevate past’ quite concerning’ to ‘caring’.
“Thanks for getting in touch with us about this, it’s quite concerning to hear. We have a compassionate policy in place to assist passengers in these circumstances, but without knowing any further details, and without discussing this with a passenger or contact on the booking, its difficult for me to provide any further insight into this. I would encourage you to ask your friend to get in touch with our Reservations Team on 131 538 or alternatively, with us here and we’ll be able to look into this further for him. Thanks- Angela”
So after re-organising school (my son was on a bus coming home from camp at Coffs) – numerous people helping, my wife got to the airport on time. Of course she called ahead and used the website – but remember, I’m saying this is all fantasy.
This is media today. We don’t need to stay quiet and listen to the messages. And there are no agenderless media messages. Here Jetstar still don’t care or understand their Reservations Team are the issue – and simply repeat their demand in order to placate a negative media piece on their page.
In a compasionate world “Angela” would be a real person, who’d offer the cordial expressions of empathy. So I posted a reply on the media they are keen to use to promote their image as there is no other way to deal with an organisation which acts in this way – or thinks that social media is something to be triaged. It is something to take seriously. It isn’t an extension to your business model, it is a replacement.
Don’t replace it with media. You can get back to me here if you like Angela perhaps we can have a corporate happy ending photo? Call me. Okay.
d
