I'm planning to do a bit of action research at home.
I have access to a child of 13 who challenged me on why I restricted his time on his online game. I suggested it was because children of his age did not have the capacity to regulate themselves when playing online games. He challenged me on that.
I'm looking for any literature on this.
I have found studies regarding access to sugar for children and the impact of restricted diets leading to more of a fixation on sugar or food.
I'm going to trial it for two weeks where he has access to the PS4 from 7am to 8.30pm each day, 9.30pm on non school days. My question is whether the child will be able to regulate their own intake of Fortnite over that two-week period.
I am going to build in some provisos regarding attendance at school but one week will be a usual school holiday. I'm going to take hourly observations to see how much time he spends online, gaming, outside with friends etc.
Any comments or know of any research which has looked into this already?
Do you need evidence? Maybe give your son the opportunity to work this out for himself. Trust goes a long way with teenagers and having an open dialogue with confidence shows some level of maturity on his part. The worst-case scenario here is that you are right, the best case, you and your son have an open relationship where he feels his father is always ready to listen. We cannot protect them from life but we can love and cherish them through it. And remember online gaming can be a serious career choice, would you want to restrict the time if he asked to study maths for a few extra hours a day? We have advanced rapidly since space invaders.
Thanks for the response, Vicky. I appreciate what you are saying however there are a number of assumptions made regarding our relationship, his ability to trust and other outside influences which would see such a restriction as a good thing.
I’m looking for any research which deals with outcomes of restricting access against unrestricted access. Do you know of any?
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