<p>“Children are often happier with their online lives than they are with reality, a survey has revealed.They say they can be exactly who they want to be and as soon as something is no longer fun they can simply hit the quit button.”</p>
<p>Parents, do your children prefer the virtual world?</p>
<p>I would hope my dd prefers the “real world” over virtual. She has told us she does love the fact that she disconnects when we cruise and says it feels like less stress.</p>
<p>Me, on the otherhand, I think I would like a virtual world sometimes, especially dealing with a 17 year old HS junior that is ready to drive!!!</p>
<p>I have an example of virtual life interfering with real life. My D stays up late on her laptop and then can’t get up for class in the morning. Her first class today is at 10am. It’s 10am and she’s sound asleep. At age 18, she shouldn’t be having this problem.</p>
<p>right now I don’t think my 17 yr old daughter is happy with either virtual or real life actually; maybe when this miserable winter is over she’ll change her mind…hopefully…</p>
<p>D: “I thought senior year was supposed to be fun?”…“especially after I know where I’m going?”</p>
<p>as to the OP’s question: I think that she is definitely more pleasant when her “real” life is active and productive…I don’t think she can get the same kind of satisfaction online…</p>
<p>My “virtual life” certainly used to be more important to me. But come Junior year, I went cold turkey on all video games and haven’t started against since.</p>
<p>I think kids use those FB status summaries to put a happy, popular, and successful spin on their lives. As I result, I would think many of them like to lose themselves in imagining that their activities are being admired or envied by others. This is nicer than the everyday tedium of an average life. Being out to a party with friends, or out to an awesome concert with the BFor GF, is so much cooler a life than “doing laundry” or “studying for the chemistry midterm.” So sometimes I think the prospect of online publicizing of their activities drives those real life activities. That’s scary to me.</p>
<p>This article is garbage. It’s very vague, quotes a bunch of randoms, jumps around from happiness to safety, and to …
how the hell does that last section about the 1k euro kid relate to the topic of the article?</p>
<p>Some of this stuff is true, but it’s so common sense it’s intuition. In any situation where you’re anonymous, even in the real world, confidence rises. </p>
<p>“We can’t allow cyberworlds to be happier places than our real communities, otherwise we are creating a generation of young people not functioning adequately in our society.”</p>
<p>Too bad. In many kids’ situations, their real communities are horrible or miserable, and the internet provides much needed escape.
Then it gets to some very general statements about risks, safety guidelines …</p>
<p>Yes, yes, yes, did I say yes???
My S, now 18, has been addicted to the virtual world since about age 16. It was so bad for a while he was 7 assignments behind in AP Physics. We have had to intervene numerous times to help him “balance,” but the nightly “go to sleep!” at 2am just doesn’t cut it.</p>
<p>Now a senior, his school has gone completely paperless. Assignments are due on “turnitin.com” or other sites the teachers use, by a certain time - usually midnight. Unfortunately, this just perpetuates his problem. We go to sleep, he multitasks (badly), and ends up consistently exhausted.</p>
<p>Nope mine don’t spend much time at all on line. My youngest more than my oldest but in general I’ve been fortunate that I never needed to “enforce/monitor/plead” with the kids to get off the computer/handheld devices etc.</p>
<p>My hs senior barely has a virtual life. She has a facebook account, but goes weeks without looking at it. I have to remind her to check her email for college stuff. She does play a few xBox games, but not much. </p>
<p>Tween daughter is about the same, no interest in even having a facebook account.</p>
<p>My 11 yo son is the one I might have to keep an eye on. Right now he’s pretty firmly rooted in the real world, but he does have a virtual life in “Roblox” and he gets pretty involved in it. I think it’s mostly good for him, especially as he’s become very interested in programming, but I could see him going down that virtual road to avoid real life if he has a lot of real life stress eventually.</p>
<p>I think it’s more of an escape from boredom when they are inside the house.
I think many kids would prefer going out and doing some fun activity over surfing the web.</p>
<p>I’m 23 and only on the internet when I’m stuck at home and have nothing else to do. No FB or twitter for me…mostly like to hang out on message boards. I wouldn’t say I’d prefer it over the real world though.</p>
<p>Some of this problem is related to brain chemistry and the fact that we get a small dopamine hit (research has shown) every time we have email, or a PM, or experience success in an online game, or even Google something. These are all very satisfying events.</p>
<p>Add to that a teenage boy who is shy, somewhat insecure, and would rather interact with machines that real people. He gets less and less practice in conversation, and the problem compounds.</p>
<p>I can see this happening. OTOH, perhaps the virtual world is a temporary habitat for the insecure teen, until he grows a little bit and is more comfortable IRL. I hope.</p>
<p>Umm…aren’t we spending a lot of time in a virtual world on CC? Perhaps you should rephrase the question and ask “Teens - do your parents prefer the virtual world?”</p>
<p>I prefer the virtual world. Why? I move frequently. It really helps when I am new to a place and don’t know anyone to still have friends. My youngest will definitely be doing that more this year. She really kept in touch with kids form her last place a lot until this year when she has now made more real friends here. BUt this summer, the same thing happens= she will move and want to keep in touch with the friends she has made. I assume my middle who is a senior will want to do the same, though at a much lesser pace.</p>
<p>The virtual world is great because you can find so many communities where people are interested in the same things you are. Same can’t always be said for the real world.</p>