Gaming

I have wildly diverse hobbies, so I usually manage to mention something that people around me find weird. Gaming is one of them, and since I am not just your age but also female, I have received tons of strange comments over the years. At least my being somewhat fluid in English isn't making me stand out anymore!

I think computer-related activities are seen different by our age group since we didn't exactly grow up with it, or at least most of us didn't. I know I was already a teenager when my parents bought us kids a computer, and that one needed inputs in BASIC and was textbased only. And while several of my classmates had similar experiences plus parents who insisted this was useful to know for our futures (and boy, where they right!), most of us still preferred to spent our time elsewhere. I see the difference in my kids, who grew up with not only computers and related technology, but also the internet. My son occasionally played board games via an internet platform by the time he was five (under supervision, of course), and as such, video games are much more part of daily life for that generation.

In my eyes, the decades-long discussion on when to give your child his/her first mobile phone has similar roots: We were used to a slower pace of life, that as a child you carry a few coins so that you can call your parents from a pay phone in an emergency, and otherwise you had to be at home at a specified time. Play dates with school mates were discussed in person at school, and so forth. Our children are dealing with far faster pace, discussion with class mates only occasionally take place eye-to-eye, and their schedules have become much more complex and fluid. Also, they grow up knowing everybody and anybody carries a phone in their pocket, and of course they want the same. Technology is integrated into their lifes from the start, and that means gaming is far more acceptable as a pastime.