Last week, a couple of my kids’ friends and their mom came over to play. The mom needed to send an urgent e-mail, so she used my computer. While she was sitting there pressing "send," her daughter asked to show Ruby her horse on the computer. So Friend and her mom gave Ruby a look at her "horse" and this lovely web site, which is sort of like a cross between Webkins and Pokemon, I guess.
Which was bad enough. But then friend asked her mom to set Ruby up with a virtual pony of her own, and the three of them were deep in the site registration process before I could come up with a polite way to say, “no, no, no, I beseech you, please, please please don’t.” I hemmed and hawed about how Ruby really doesn’t spend time on the computer yet, and doesn’t have an e-mail address, but they were all looking at me with cheery little hopeful faces, including Ruby….so I crumbled. I let her use one of my junk e-mail accounts and helped her figure out a user name and password.
Now Ruby wants to check on her high-maintenance “horse” every day, plus all of its horsey friends. That part of the site is free, but naturally there is a money making component to this deal: one can spend “horseshoes” on fancy virtual gear to “decorate” one’s virtual cottage/stable. There are a few free (if time-consuming) ways to get horseshoes, but to really have enough horseshoes to buy stuff, you have to spend real-life money on trading cards at the store and enter the codes found on them online. This also gets you more horse friends! And sparkly ribbons for your stable!
I have several big issues with all of this.
First, Ruby needs to spend less time sitting around staring at a screen, not more. She barely has time for homework, piano, and goofing around with Carl as it is.
Second, I hate sharing a computer; just an unattractive aspect of my personality. I will let you check your e-mail when you visit me, and Rod can touch it, but that’s about it. The $300 sacrifice-it-to-the-kids PC is suddenly looking attractive.
Third, it’s the slippery slope argument: today, it’s a virtual pony on a web site that runs slow and crashes often. Tomorrow, she’ll be hacking my iTunes account, IM-ing some guy she met at the park, and playing Second Life. Seriously, if this keeps up, Ruby is going need an e-mail account of her own. Yes, I know, many six year olds have them and it’s inevitable at some point; it just wasn’t on the schedule for my child yet.
Fourth, I have a big problem with spending real money on things that only exist as pretend toys. I have explained this to Ruby and she gets it, but she still wants to play. Rod and I have reluctantly concluded that her allowance is hers to waste if she wants. So far, she hasn’t done it, but I imagine she’ll be looking over the pony cards the next time we’re at a store that carries them.
And finally, Carl is also enamored of the virtual horses. He likes to sit by Ruby and “help” her while she does two-dimensional pony maintenance. So he’ll be wanting his own before long, too.
And yet I have to confess that I understand. My games never involved spending money, but I’ve spent way too much time playing Tetris, Web Boggle, the Sims, Web Sudoku, virtual crosswords, mah jong…..I can’t really come down hard on the kid for doing exactly what I and most of the people I know have done at one point or another. In fact, I even logged onto the pony site last night to earn Ruby some free horseshoes (I’m much better at the stupid games than she is so far). And while I was there, I had to brush and pat Ruby's horse for a while, so that she wouldn't be "sad." Pathetic, both of us are.