Son spends too much time on the computer?

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16 Jan 2011, 4:32 am

I don't think you should switch to dial up or ban him from using the computer after a certain time.
Instead plan other activities that he can do. I suppose doing a variety of things is important for a young boy's development.
If he is barely eating or exercising then I can see how it is a problem.

He sounds like a little genius. You should encourage him but not for the hacking part. You need to calmly tell him that it's not good.

But if you just try to limit his time on the internet without telling him it will cause problems.


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16 Jan 2011, 4:40 am

I think saying a child spends too much time on the computer can be put side to side with my parent's friends saying i spent too much time in books and not enough socializing when i was a child. The only difference being that on the computer , if an idea or interesting question suddently pops in your head, you can have your answer in seconds, thus learn what you want to learn much faster.
My son is a bit like yours. If he wants a proper answer, he googles it. Generally to prove me wrong. If he wants to learn kung fu, he goes to youtube and types in "kung fu lessons beginners". He tried to apply for an online graphic design course in a US college. He learns english through "super mario walkthroughs" which are generally done in english and full of bad bad language ... (we're french).Then i correct the bad words when he speaks english to me. I know everything he does on the computer, and that's enough for me. Even the incidents like the " i just wanted to know what "saw" was about" one led us to look into special effects for movies. I dfon't think the " computers are bad" myth was really thought through.



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16 Jan 2011, 4:51 am

Puppygnu wrote:
My seven year old son with autism spends too much time on the computer. Sometimes he uses art applications, presentation software, and other applications that requires creativity. I have no objections to this use. He especially enjoys using Ubuntu Linux and experimenting with the operating system. Back in kindergarten, he had a problem with hacking school computers. The teacher even reported that he changed the BIOS and protected the BIOS with his own password. Thus, only he could boot the computer. He also changed the desktop settings such that no one but him could use it.

Now that he is in second grade, he will spend long periods of time at http://www.closinglogos.com/. He also likes to make his own logo animations based in part on what he sees at this website. He does not play video games or online games. For the most part he does not visit youtube.com. I really can not bring myself to force him to do something else because he enjoys himself so much on the computer. What techniques would you use to limit his time on the internet? Would you limit his time on the Internet? I considered going back to dial up to prevent him from visiting the least educational websites. Is this a good idea?


He sounds very smart. Let him get on with it, though you should teach him to only experiment with his own machine (and to only hack the machines of his enemies ;)).



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16 Jan 2011, 12:28 pm

First LOL @ him hacking the computers in kindgergarden (thumbs up too)

Second, I will take a stance a bit different from many on here. I wonder how many of the folks telling you to leave him alone have truly productive careers and happy life/lifestyle.

One thing I have learned (albiet very late in life) is that I need balance in my life. (This was before I knew I had ASD) WhenI I hit my 40s I made myself turn off my big obsession (computers) and picked up the classical guitar to force a right brained activity. I also forced myself to find a sport that I could do to get physical exercise and I learned about nutrition to learn about being healthy from the inside out.

And with these decisions, in that decade of my life, my life turned around. I became less rigid in my thinking, less black/white and became a "softer" person. My anxiety went down tremendously and my happiness levels went up. Belive it or not, even though I spent less time obsessing about my job, I became a thousand times more productive at my job.

Temple Grandin says it and I back her 100%. We need to find balance and limit our obsessions. 1-2 hours per day for any obsession will promote growth in a healthy way. The rest of our time should be spent living and experiencing the world. There are a million other things to do on this planet than that one thing you are obsessing over. Find balance and unlock true hapiness.



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16 Jan 2011, 12:32 pm

kfisherx wrote:
First LOL @ him hacking the computers in kindgergarden (thumbs up too)

Second, I will take a stance a bit different from many on here. I wonder how many of the folks telling you to leave him alone have truly productive careers and happy life/lifestyle.

One thing I have learned (albiet very late in life) is that I need balance in my life. (This was before I knew I had ASD) WhenI I hit my 40s I made myself turn off my big obsession (computers) and picked up the classical guitar to force a right brained activity. I also forced myself to find a sport that I could do to get physical exercise and I learned about nutrition to learn about being healthy from the inside out.

And with these decisions, in that decade of my life, my life turned around. I became less rigid in my thinking, less black/white and became a "softer" person. My anxiety went down tremendously and my happiness levels went up. Belive it or not, even though I spent less time obsessing about my job, I became a thousand times more productive at my job.

Temple Grandin says it and I back her 100%. We need to find balance and limit our obsessions. 1-2 hours per day for any obsession will promote growth in a healthy way. The rest of our time should be spent living and experiencing the world. There are a million other things to do on this planet than that one thing you are obsessing over. Find balance and unlock true hapiness.


You sound like my mum, but I ask you, did Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg get to where they are today by forcing themselves away from their computers? I don't think so. In fact, they spent pretty much all their time working on their projects, and before they did that, they spent all their time experimenting on computers so they could gain the knowledge needed for such projects.

So I say let him be. He sounds very smart, like I said, and he may very well become the next .com billionaire if he keeps at it.



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16 Jan 2011, 12:57 pm

Asp-Z wrote:
kfisherx wrote:
You sound like my mum, but I ask you, did Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg get to where they are today by forcing themselves away from their computers? I don't think so. In fact, they spent pretty much all their time working on their projects, and before they did that, they spent all their time experimenting on computers so they could gain the knowledge needed for such projects.

So I say let him be. He sounds very smart, like I said, and he may very well become the next .com billionaire if he keeps at it.


Oh... bad example for you to try to use on me young grasshopper.

I am a senior engineer/manager at Intel Corp and have made a fortune in high tech over the past 20 years. I love my job and work every day with people like Bill Gates, Paul Otellini, etc.... I know personally what they (and what all highly succesful people) say RE this subject and work/life balance.

Wanna tell me where you get your information RE how to be a success in the high techn industry since you seem to have some inner knowledge that I am unaware of?



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16 Jan 2011, 1:17 pm

kfisherx wrote:
Oh... bad example for you to try to use on me young grasshopper.

I am a senior engineer/manager at Intel Corp and have made a fortune in high tech over the past 20 years. I love my job and work every day with people like Bill Gates, Paul Otellini, etc.... I know personally what they (and what all highly succesful people) say RE this subject and work/life balance.

Wanna tell me where you get your information RE how to be a success in the high techn industry since you seem to have some inner knowledge that I am unaware of?


You know Bill Gates? Tell him I say hi then! :P

...And after you do that, ask what he did in the early days of developing Microsoft. I'm quite sure that, in the early days, when he was building the first versions of Windows, he spent most of his time on it. He obviously has no need to do that now that Microsoft is massive and he has developers by the ton, but I'm quite certain he did beforehand.

Oh, and I don't appreciate the term "young grasshopper" either.



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16 Jan 2011, 1:26 pm

kfisherx wrote:
Second, I will take a stance a bit different from many on here. I wonder how many of the folks telling you to leave him alone have truly productive careers and happy life/lifestyle.


I'm not sure if he should leave it be or not. This is a very one dimensional description of what is going on. That's why I asked about expectations. What is the outcome being sought?

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One thing I have learned (albiet very late in life) is that I need balance in my life.


The hard thing is even knowing when you are in balance


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16 Jan 2011, 1:29 pm

Asp-Z wrote:
Oh, and I don't appreciate the term "young grasshopper" either.

:lol: Sorry, but I did. I thought it was funny and very apt.
What kfisherx said makes a whole lot of sense too.


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16 Jan 2011, 1:32 pm

Cornflake wrote:
Asp-Z wrote:
Oh, and I don't appreciate the term "young grasshopper" either.

:lol: Sorry, but I did. I thought it was funny and very apt.
What kfisherx said makes a whole lot of sense too.


:|



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16 Jan 2011, 1:38 pm

Asp-Z wrote:
You know Bill Gates? Tell him I say hi then! :P

...And after you do that, ask what he did in the early days of developing Microsoft. I'm quite sure that, in the early days, when he was building the first versions of Windows, he spent most of his time on it. He obviously has no need to do that now that Microsoft is massive and he has developers by the ton, but I'm quite certain he did beforehand.

Oh, and I don't appreciate the term "young grasshopper" either.


Did I say that I know Bill Gates?

I have given you my sources/experience. Please cite yours in this matter/topic since you seem to know so much about how it all works.



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16 Jan 2011, 1:46 pm

kfisherx wrote:
Asp-Z wrote:
You know Bill Gates? Tell him I say hi then! :P

...And after you do that, ask what he did in the early days of developing Microsoft. I'm quite sure that, in the early days, when he was building the first versions of Windows, he spent most of his time on it. He obviously has no need to do that now that Microsoft is massive and he has developers by the ton, but I'm quite certain he did beforehand.

Oh, and I don't appreciate the term "young grasshopper" either.


Did I say that I know Bill Gates?

I have given you my sources/experience. Please cite yours in this matter/topic since you seem to know so much about how it all works.


Yes...

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I love my job and work every day with people like Bill Gates


:roll:

You've not given me anything. Great thing about the forum posts, see, is how you can type anything into them. Check this out: Steve Jobs reads my blog. Get that! :roll:

It's public knowledge that most of the big guys in computing are people who spent all their time on computers from a young age. Bram Cohan learnt to program in BASIC at 8 years old, Mark Zuckerberg spent a lot of his teenage years blogging and coming up with different computer related projects, while studying computers, before and after he created Facebook, and so on.

You can look those things up if you so wish, whereas I, on the other hand, only have the word of a random person from a forum who says they know Bill Gates. Hmm... :roll:



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16 Jan 2011, 1:50 pm

Asp-Z wrote:

Oh, and I don't appreciate the term "young grasshopper" either.


You really need to let go of this age animosity thing. It will severely limit your potential.


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16 Jan 2011, 1:51 pm

wavefreak58 wrote:
Asp-Z wrote:

Oh, and I don't appreciate the term "young grasshopper" either.


You really need to let go of this age animosity thing. It will severely limit your potential.


I'm not even the one who brought age up, perhaps others need to stop discriminating against young people?



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16 Jan 2011, 1:52 pm

Asp-Z wrote:
kfisherx wrote:
Asp-Z wrote:
You know Bill Gates? Tell him I say hi then! :P

...And after you do that, ask what he did in the early days of developing Microsoft. I'm quite sure that, in the early days, when he was building the first versions of Windows, he spent most of his time on it. He obviously has no need to do that now that Microsoft is massive and he has developers by the ton, but I'm quite certain he did beforehand.

Oh, and I don't appreciate the term "young grasshopper" either.


Did I say that I know Bill Gates?

I have given you my sources/experience. Please cite yours in this matter/topic since you seem to know so much about how it all works.


Yes...

Quote:
I love my job and work every day with people like Bill Gates


:roll:

You've not given me anything. Great thing about the forum posts, see, is how you can type anything into them. Check this out: Steve Jobs reads my blog. Get that! :roll:

It's public knowledge that most of the big guys in computing are people who spent all their time on computers from a young age. Bram Cohan learnt to program in BASIC at 8 years old, Mark Zuckerberg spent a lot of his teenage years blogging and coming up with different computer related projects, while studying computers, before and after he created Facebook, and so on.

You can look those things up if you so wish, whereas I, on the other hand, only have the word of a random person from a forum who says they know Bill Gates. Hmm... :roll:


You got it all figured out.

Go forth.

Conquer the world.


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16 Jan 2011, 2:02 pm

wavefreak58 wrote:
You got it all figured out.

Go forth.

Conquer the world.


This all I have to say of your sarcasm...

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