I don't know if they parents in the study were stupid or not. what's stupid is really on a device to tell you whats right or wrong.

Kikimon

@poduski: Your mom rocks, rofl

Norellicus

Anyways, the results actually do shock me somewhat. I thought the failure rate would be much higher. I mean, think of how many people can't even figure out how to set up their VCR properly.

Purple Dave

 
Oh.... Bullocks.

 
The people that keep inventing all the new technologies/processes/ideas are just as old as the people who are only need comprehend them on a rudimentary level. No one is asking them to change their belief system entirely, just spend 10 minutes figuring out instructions and pushing a couple buttons.

 
Humans don't lose the capacity to learn anywhere near what myths about learning suggest... but I see plenty (not all) of lazy parents that are just too damn involved in their own little worlds to pay attention to or care what they're children are into and participate in the child's life as anything more than a provider of food, shelter, and bad examples on how to live.

 
Speaking specifically to the idea that humans stop being able to learn: this is mostly a myth. Neuroscientists have been debunking that for years. One reality is that ALL humans have built-in brain processes that more easily accept what they believe to be true and reject what they believe to be false. When we're younger, we tend to trust more and accept that what we're being told is true... hence the absorption of new information because we see it as truth (children don't expect adults to be lying to them at all times... they see all this information from all sources being sources of truth). As we get older, our brains fill with more and more information and it tends to push aside new input that contradicts what it already understands to be true/fits the existing status quo. In other words... we don't lack a capacity to "learn"... we lack a capacity to "unlearn" or to assimilate "contradiction".

 
Adults learn new things all the time... we meet new people, we read the paper, watch television, listen to music, pursue hobbies, work, etc... all of these activities add new information to the brain.

 
Short of contracting Alzheimer's or similar debilitating mental conditions, humans are more than capable of following something as simple as on-screen instructions for parental controls...

 
... unless their brains have convinced them that the myth that they are unable to learn new things is true... and that such activity fits into the category of "something new", of course. :)

dv8godd

rdj

poduski

Now for TVs, that's a different story. Most menus on any given TV are in fact, crap. Crap. It took me forever to train my parents to turn on closed captioning on our TV, and that was a simple menu.

But my parents aren't stupid. They understand TV & movie ratings. I figure that they understand game ratings, but I've never asked (out of self preservation ;p ).

CyberSkull

TheLordRandom

Remember we are talking about the same masses that believe people everywhere in the U.S. are defaulting on their house mortgage because a study said that 5% of new home owners aren't capable of paying mortgage.

LxLegend

brent_w

Then the results would have been much higher. Chimpanzees are able to perform tasks better once trained then creationists.

Yetanotheruninspiredscreename

tcolberg

Xagest

Generico

FOXHOUND

Attomoku

Zodiack

Eville1

I've heard the threat quite a few times from my experience in retail. "TEACHER said you have to treat me right or you'll get taken away." It's disgusting, and quite disturbing when you think about it.

RPGuy

Even if an 'easy' -able to adjust in a daze easy- system was available, the majority of parents would not use it, cause they just don't care that much.

KRIEG1986

"Study Finds Fault in Parental Controls: Parents"

Or was that already what you meant?

Final-Fan

So the real question, to me, is whether the industry is really doing a bad job at designing parental blocking tools or whether most parents just aren't interested enough in learning how they work.

I wonder how many households really use NetNanny or the like -- seems like it's probably a tiny, tiny fraction.

DrFresh

"I'm too busy to monitor what my children play, and too stupid to figure out how to set up my parental controls, so please government, do it for me..."

JakeLL

RPGr

stranger

On top of everything, a sample size of 20 isn't going to yield very statistically significant results.

JakeLL

swankychameleon

"Oh no, if I don't get this for my child they'll hate me forever!"

TheDollHouse

poduski

jaredgood1

If someone said "Hi, could you take this 4 and this 3 and add them." and you hand them back a 43, you're not actively deciding not to add, you're doing it wrong.

Personally, I think ratings are irrelevant. Kids are smarter than people give them credit for, and scientific studies still haven't found the substitute for parenting and quality time with your children.

wildhalcyon

Weak parenting will one day be at fault for the emmergence of Government censorshit and regulation of games. Meaning tighter leash on video game content and more tax payer dollars wasted on government jobs that shouldnt exist.

Yes: censorshit.

NumberONE

jaredgood1

Grumpz®

*gasp* How dare you? Do you know how much time and money those people spend trying to decide what letter to put on a box?

fyre

 
If I remember correctly, you're describing the process by which literally billions of other children were raised. I think they call it parenting.

 
Mybe we can get this concept to catch on! Share with your friends!!

dv8godd

kingclip

Ahh but that's the problem, Mike. Parental Controls need to be dumbed down to the point at which a drunken monkey can operate them.

kamra

I agree that the parents you're talking about are out there, but the results of this study indicate something more concrete and less damning -- namely, that these devices aren't fool-proof. Fools are ingenious.

MisterSleep

... then videogames are the least of your problems.

 
In such an event, please don't breed.

dv8godd

Monte2

I think this is a lot like parents who give their kids wine with dinner: more of them do it than you think, but they're very unlikely to volunteer this information because they don't want to look like bad parents.

What's the gap between 'clueless parent unable to program parental controls' and 'parent who doesn't believe that GTA really has an effect on their 13 year old'. I think the answer would surprise a lot of people, but hard data isn't easy to find.

DrFresh

MisterSleep