President Barack Obama recently spoke to the NAACP during a meeting celebrating 100 years since that organization's founding. It was a historic event to be sure, but one comment in particular caught the ear of the press and gamers.
"To parents, we can’t tell our kids to do well in school and fail to support them when they get home," said President Obama. "For our kids to excel, we must accept our own responsibilities. That means putting away the Xbox and putting our kids to bed at a reasonable hour. It means attending those parent-teacher conferences, reading to our kids, and helping them with their homework."
For its part, Microsoft issued a response. “We agree with President Obama that it’s a time for families to work together so that kids use media in ways that are safe, healthy and balanced,” a Microsoft spokesman said to the AP [thanks GamePolitics]. “Xbox 360 is the only console gaming system that has a timer feature allowing parents to set time limits for their kids, as well as parent controls to enable parents to set limits on what their kids are playing and watching.”
Honestly, we agree with the President- parents do need to do more to help control what and how much content their children consume. Games are fun, but it shouldn't come at the expense of our obligations.
2 Comments
July 20, 2009
Same old same old. It used to be TV and before that it was radio. And before there was electronic media it was books. Immediately after books went mainstream (after invention of the printing press), there was a fear people were reading too much. True story. I'm a parent and there's no reason to single out video gaming. I'd say focusing on a balanced diet and good exercise (neither of which Obama mentions) are more important than worrying about the X-Box (or PC, or PS3, or Wii, or DS, or PSP).
July 20, 2009
Considering that the Obama family has a Wii in the White House, I'm surprised he didn't mention limiting the time on that.