Photo Essays: Free Time Activities -- Electronic Games
Figure 1.-- Boys in the 1980s began playing with simple electronic games. They would seem too simple for us now, but they intrigued the boys at the time. They of course are now much more simplistic. Besides the electronic nature of the games, they were different than other games played at the schools. The basic difference was that they were individual games. You played with yourself in isolation. Here boys had a few free minutes for games.
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Boys in the 1980s began playing with simple electronic games. They would seem too simple for us now, but they intrigued the boys at the time. They of course are now much more simplistic. Besides the electronic nature of the games, they were different than other games played at the schools. The basic difference was that they were individual games. You played with yourself in isolation. Small hand-held computer games are of course perfect for free-tiecat school in that they were adaptable for short time intervals and could be begun and resumed as time allowed. Other games be they board games or indoor action/skill games (ping-pong and pool) were social activities involving two or more children. A part of the value of games is of course developing socil skills. Electronic games on the other hand did not do this and allowed boys to in effect withdraw from the group. We notice a few schools that had bb-ball and hole games for the children, but they were not very common. The electronic games, however, were a smash hit with the boys. The girls didn't seem interested, but the boys definitely did. The schools adopted various attitudes toward the games. A reader in 2007 tells us, "Another programme on TV this evening was Panorama on BBC1. They experimented by removing TVs and elctronic toys, computers etc from an entire class of Year 3s ie 8 year olds and thir families for a fortnight (two weeks). They were looking to see if there was a noticable change within the classroom. In a couple of cases there was an improvement in attainment as well as a wider increase in good behaviour but they were surprised to note that the biggest difference was in the homes where parents started to realise just how much they used TV etc to act as a babysitter rather than spending time with their children and the children qickly
discovered that they actually preferred and enjoyed playing games with their siblings and friends. After the experiment most of the families opted to limit TV and computer game useage. The BBC is about to start a National experiment based upon this."
