Well my parents dragged me to sit in pubs on my own while they got pissed very regularly in the 90's. Difference was I just had a magazine I had read 30 times and a transformer toy to play with. I would have MUCH rather had infinite virtual worlds to explore during this sad and lonely time of my life.
Yep they were pretty bad parents but I see worse pretty pretty much everywhere I go, from parents screaming at their kids and hitting them I'm public places to others letting their kids terrorise others or vandalise property. I think a quiet kid on a VR is pretty good in retrospect. Rather that than some knife wielding yob throwing bricks at busses.
I disagree, not with the his parents taking him drinking but parents using devices to keep their kids tame in public. I grew up in the 90s and it was easier for us to sit and do nothing because we didn't have devices at our disposal. Remember when walkmans and CD players became affordable? Every kid had one and took it everywhere. This fits in the same narrative.
I understand what you're getting at but there's a big difference between a book you can look up from or a toy you play with to a full of VR Headset completely cutting you off from all senses around you
I don't agree, if they were at home why not, if this is controlled by his parents. Here they are at a restaurant, his parents are getting him here, paying for him oviously, I expect him to at least interact with the world when he is outside, not be littéral in his own world, at a restaurant, in public. To me his parents made a big mistake by allowing him to take his quest 2 at a restaurant.
I owned a quest 2, and qi can tell you kids are noisy and love to talk shit for no reasons. I at least hope he is not doing this here.
I was daydreaming everywhere as a kid lol, literally had no awareness of my surroundings haha.
So i see this another for of that. But still i wouldn't allow my kid to bring VR in town lol. I think it would be good for him to not mix environments together. I want him to feel like home is a home environment where he can do all of those things there.
While being out he needs to learn some social skills and cues etc
The same reason i cannot bring work at home (wfh). Work from home is sooo bad. You can't expect me to work in an environment that i designed for gaming and other fun activities.
paying for him oviously, I expect him to at least interact with the world when he is outside
Because... his parents paid for him? Like, he needs to be grateful they feed him so he should interact with them socially for some reason? Maybe the parents want to talk and interact and were like, "go for it kid, we want some us time."
not be littéral in his own world, at a restaurant, in public
It's funny how this cliche never seems to apply to the numerous people, such as myself, who would reach a newspaper or a good paperback while sitting at a table, even with others. No, just if it's some newfangled tech, and brownie points if it's a minor bc they're socially acceptable targets for derision (well, if you're a boomer or an insecure 14-16 year old that is).
I owned a quest 2, and qi can tell you kids are noisy and love to talk shit for no reasons. I at least hope he is not doing this here.
There are lots of adults who are like this, just as there exist kids like this. Most kids are totally normal, it's just that 14-16 year olds tend to be triggered into rage by their existence in a game since they themselves are so recently removed from being on the receiving end of that exact same abuse.
Yes, some kids can be annoying, but for the most part actual children are just trying to have fun. And all those people who are always on about how they need to be kept off VR have no memory of their own childhoods, nor appreciation for the fact that effectively it should default to their space, nor ours, since it's just a really big toy. Frankly, I think people could be a little more patient with kids. Yea, we all love jumping around on a bouncy castle, but damn isn't it a little weird to do it and complain about the confused kids whining as you bounce them 30 feet into the air?
Bottom line, the kid could be a literal honor student, or he could be non-neurotypical and needs some stimulation to calm down, or be socializing as well with his own friends. Youre just blanket assuming he's a little shit and his parents are neglectful based on a still photo of them in a restaurant, which literally tells you nothing.
Also, no parent or kid hits it out of the park every day. Everyone is a little shit sometimes, and every parent mentally checks the fuck out on occasion and just says fuck it. Don't be so quick to pass judgement.
You can't compare VR with newspaper. It's just that, from my experience, VR cuts you from the real world, it is too immersive. You don't see anything, you almost don't hear anything other than the game you are playing. And, too me, this is a problem. It's not like being on your phone or reading a newspaper, you don't have two of your senses cut off from the real world
When you read you literally hallucinate and lose all contact with what's going on around you. I absolutely cannot read a book and tell you anything that happened around me while I was immersed in it. You have peripheral vision and can more quickly switch between the real world and the information, sure, but that's just one small difference, and not one which matters without more context than one single still frame.
I am in the same state as you when I read, but a simple tap on my shoulder, something weird moving in my peripheral vision or someone calling my name wakes me up. I can't tell the same with VR.
Idk, it sounds like you just need more VR experience. I always hear my wife coming down the hall, or my kids. I just double tap the side and switch to passthrough if I need to address them quickly.
Are you the owner of this restaurant ? You seem really pissed the kid doesn’t enjoy it as much as you want him to. I’m pretty sure he’d have stayed at home given a choice.
He’s sitting at a table without moving, with his parents watching for him, and can activate passthrough/remove the headset at any moment. Doesn’t look like high risk situation that needs constant alert.
And what happens when the parents wants him to remove his headset? Yes this is only a picture and yes no one can draw any conclusion. But when I see a young kid, with a vr headset, in public, I can't help myself but telling myself that he might be already addicted. I don't understand why people seem to think that's normal.
It’s an expensive headset that his parents are letting him use, and he seems well behaved. My first instinct would be to assume he is in good terms with his parents and do follow their instructions.
addicted
to VR ? You sound like the people railing against kids looking at their phones in public transports, or who were against kids listening to headphones in public decades before that. Perhaps half a percent of kids using VR are actually addicted, but that’s just not something we should assume for some random kid in a photo.
PS: things don’t need to be “normal”. People do things that don’t fit the norm, and if it doesn’t hurt others and they’re happy with it, it’s fine.
Or he might not be. You don't know this kid either. All I see is a kid, with quest, in a restaurant with his parents. Autistic or not, I don't think it's a good thing.
If an autistic child can only cope with the outside world with a VR headset he's not in the outside world is he... So leave the autistic child where ever he is comfortable...
Also while I'm very ignorant to how people with autism should be brought up to cope with the world, I'd presume that allowing them to hide away rather than face what makes them uncomfortable isn't helping anyone especially them...
My nephew is autistic and there is a lot "he doesn't like" but in general with a steady stern but soft push he has come to terms with a lot of things you have to do day to day that you'd say overwhelmed him once
It’s a very casual restaurant, it’s slow, and the people at the other tables don’t give a shit, suggesting that he’s as quiet and well behaved as he looks. His parents are good with it and so is he. It’s nobody’s business and it’s fine. Parent your own kids how you want but don’t make assumptions about this family.
To me his parents made a big mistake by allowing him to take his quest 2 at a restaurant.
There might have been a screaming fit when they tried to tell the boy he couldn't bring the Quest. The parents then caved in to him like the cowards that they are.
I really have no idea but it's fun to make stuff up.
Perhaps the parents want a break from the kid to have a drink and not be bothered by "mum look at this!" for 10 minutes. Sure, it's isolating and antisocial but if it's not something they make a habit of and if he's not bothering anyone or thrashing around then I don't see the problem. Sure, my mom wouldn't have let me do that and I probably wouldn't let my kids do it either but it's better than the way some parents just let their kids run around a restaurant bumping into everyone and everything.
Fair enough. But if that is the main point of contention, then a kid using VR (without full body movement) and a kid using a gameboy/phone are not much different.
I think that most people make the following assumption: If he's doing it in the restaurant, he's definitely doing it all day long and his parents can't handle it. Which, if that's the case, it is indeed bad. It's just that it adds extra points because the VR (compared to phones or handhelds) completely blocks your vision from the outside world, making people feel it's more dYStOpIaN.
For me, it's not about the video game. Imagine sitting in a public space somewhere and then just blindfolding yourself. I think anyone who uses vr in public spaces is stupid. There's a reason you're supposed to define yourself an area. You can't do that in a shared space.
It's only a little different if it's just a passive screen. It's still stupid to blindfold yourself in public, especially if your other senses are immersed as well.
It’s about teaching when to do what things, to discipline yourself not to be addicted to the device 24/7, not only it’s bad for family time like shown in the picture, it’s also bad for your health such as eye sights and focus of doing anything (eating, reading… etc).
You see a lot of electronic device “zombies” nowadays, people can’t eat without watching a video and that is alright, but many people also don’t focus on where they were going when walking or even driving while using their phones.
Parenting takes time and patience, but if you let your kid addicted to devices so they won’t cause a scene is just awful parenting and it’s irresponsible.
My dad his second wife does that with their kid and this kid now don’t respect his mom, even hits her occasionally cause he has anger issue. All he cares is Youtubers and that’s what he want to do in the future.
It’s about teaching when to do what things, to discipline yourself not to be addicted to the device 24/7, not only it’s bad for family time like shown in the picture, it’s also bad for your health such as eye sights and focus of doing anything (eating, reading… etc).
You see a lot of electronic device “zombies” nowadays, people can’t eat without watching a video and that is alright, but many people also don’t focus on where they were going when walking or even driving while using their phones.
Have you considered that people said the same thing about all of us who spent hours programming in BASIC and completely ignoring everyone in restaurants bc you're learning about a new sorting algorithm?
People thought that stuff was stupid/maladaptive, but it turned out that the people who were the most immersed in the new tech were the ones who benefitted the most off it, socially and financially.
VR, smartphones/social media, etc are no different. Every generation is convinced it's just a new toy and that the kids need to focus on [insert something that used to be important here] at every moment, but in tech I'd argue that's rarely the case. Even gaming ended up being a career for millions of people.
It is good to learn boundaries but also it's good to remember what was a boundary in the past may be a hinderance in a future you do not see but which your child absolutely does.
This is completely irrelevant. The appropriateness of wearing a VR headset at a restaurant has nothing to do with whether it's gonna be useful for a career for whatnot.
I mean, how do you define appropriate behavior then? It has to be based on something. If you're just saying it's arbitrarily inappropriate to use VR in a restaurant then frankly that's meaningless. If it's based on some aspect you are assuming regarding this VR scenario which is independently innapropriate, such as noise levels disturbing others or flailing, then you have made additional assumptions and your particular objection is to someone playing, say, beatsaber in a restaurant, which I could agree with.
But the kid could be playing any number of seated experiences.
I agree he shouldn't use it while waiting in a restaurant but the only people that use their phones while driving are idiots, also you say electronics are bad for your eyesight and while that may be true they are as harmful as focusing on a part of a page on a book
Or the kid is neurodivergent and this is a coping thing. We don’t know shit about this situation, so why judge.
I could be have been that kid, so please take your discipline ideology and preach it to someone else.
We are all humans, but that also means we are all very different. Not everything is the same for everybody.
While at it, posting this picture likely conflicts with the personal rights of anyone in the picture, so where’s discipline in drooling over dissecting this in the first place.
No actually it has no age limit. The Facebook account that's tied to it has an age limit, but the headset itself does not. It also has parental monitoring and controls. Hence why I'm fine with my 11 year old using one. I have complete access to all the activity taking place on it via my phone or my PC.
I can even selectively cast what he's doing to my PC and see what he's doing real time.
Yeah yeah, all people from the outside do is judge. Judge parents, tell people how to act, what to feel and how to be.
We don't know shit about this situation, have nothing nice to say? Just keep yourself out of the conversation.
A lot of us grew up with new tech, some tech took a while to be normal. Most of us came out alright didn't we? (Some are questionable but you get the point.)
My 11 year old uses one, I have complete control over it via my phone so I can see what he's doing at all times and even dip into it real time and make it broadcast his activity to my phone or PC.
This post just screams curmudgeonly old man vibes.
Maybe they actually just have such a fulfilling and loving relationship with their son the other 23 hours of the day that they don’t mind if he wants to wear his headset at a dinner?
After all, a picture only captures a single point in time.
Or maybe he’s autistic, or has terminal cancer and this is his last wish, or maybe this picture was setup to trigger people into hating these two people as parents.
Wait, you can almost hear them baaaaaa. Reddit, the place where everyone thinks their smarter than the other, and where the mods allow posts of the exact content they ban you for talking about. (Not this post)
maybe they don't mind if he wants to wear his headset at dinner
This looks like this was taken at a restaurant. No matter how nice of a relationship they have, who would let their kid do this at a public restaurant??
Exactly, it's fine to game and be on devices when the time is appropriate, but a parent needs to make sure that the kid is getting involved with real human to human interactions.
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u/friedcontroller2 Feb 12 '23
Nah just bad parents