It’s no secret that I am generally pro-gaming and pro-social media and tech when it comes to kids. I think that the research is emerging that gaming actually has benefits and schools are starting to take notice.
But there are moments when I definitely feel like hitting the pause button.
Like when I got a text message from ATT letting me know that my son was about to go over his allotted 200MB of data usage on his phone for the month. While I really appreciated the notification, I was mystified. I’m aware that my son is not good at self-regulating his texting — that’s why I ante up the bucks for SmartLimits every month. But data usage? I’d never seen him surf the web, or really ever use the network dependent functions of his phone.
So I mentioned to him that he was nearing his limit and asked what might be gobbling all the data. “Oh, well, I am pretty much constantly listening to Pandora.” A light went on. It explained why, when he finally wrested control of the car stereo control away from me on a recent road trip, he seemed to know the lyrics of every Top 40 song that came on the Enclave’s XM (and made my ears bleed). I had wondered if he spent lots of time over at friends’ houses listening to music, because I know what’s on his iPod, and Kei$ha is nowhere to be found (I pay for that after all).
The constantly dangling earphones weren’t channeling the carefully curated playlists of Americana, singer/songwriter and classic rock that I had created for him. He had wandered off the musical reservation.
I was at least a little relieved when I remembered that in setting up his Pandora account I had used the parental features to block explicit material (and I also have a volume limiter set on his hand-me-down iPhone).
I realized pretty quickly that I was actually kind of glad that he was using the service to explore different musical styles than what he hears at home. Didn’t we all do that? Now I just need to find a way for him to explore without requiring 2 gigs of data a month. Wait a minute, FM still works, right?
Bubba isn’t the only one consuming the 1s and 0s in the house. Ri-ri came up to me and requested that I add two specific apps to our iPod Touch: Virtual Family and Pigeon Squadron. I stupidly asked her how she had heard about these apps before remembering why millions are spent each year marketing to 9-year-old girls — they have a Word of Mouth network that puts mommybloggers to shame.
Pigeon Squadron is an accelerometer game in which you guide your flock around, pooping on people and other targets. So that’s that.
Virtual Families is a strategy game of sorts, a cross between Sims and Pocket God. You run a very full-featured little household economy, tending to the health and well-being of a growing family. Playing house, New Media style. I thought the graphics were cute, but some buttons were microscopic — not a challenge for girly fingers, but my virtual kids were starving almost immediately as a result.
One queasy moment as my daughter was narrating her game to a friend in the back seat: “They’re going into the bedroom, they must be tired. Oh, look! They have a baby!”
Maybe that is why the game is rated 9+ for “mildly adult situations.”
Despite the flutter, I like how the game gives Ri-ri a tiny taste of the complexity of running a household. And she seems to like caretaking her Virtual Family. This one gets my DL Seal of Approval.
