Dr. Michael Kilgard

And the same thing of finger movements, again, whether they're going to be a violin player or a soccer player, all the dexterous movements that have to go with that, we as coaches and parents try to train that, but really the kid is training themselves.

They're figuring out how to do all that by practicing, seeing what works and what doesn't work.

We can just set an environment where that's possible and where they can succeed and not quit.

that's really one of the big challenges.

Like I said, a kid gets exposed to food, then gets sick, and now their brain has figured out that food might be poison.

But it might be wrong, and they might end up with a plastic event in their brain that turns off a pathway for a long period of time, and it can really be hard to undo that kind of work.

My kids know that it would depend upon whether I viewed in my judgmental nature the experience as a real experience, an adventure, something that's happening, or an artificial or a fake one.

My concerns about video games and other things like that are these can be really detrimental because they don't have the statistics of the natural world.

If you're engaged, as my daughter was, with people and you just want to hear people talking, she was infinitely fascinated by what are they talking about?

What are they thinking about?

And there was no end to her interest in people.

People are interesting.

People are complicated.

On the flip side, if you're talking about a video game, I won't name any particular one, where it's an artificial currency where you're sort of constrained to be interested in it, similar to what would happen in Vegas where you'd say, I'm going to let you win it first so that you can get hooked on it, and then I'm going to adjust it where you're being manipulated actively.

Most experiences kids are interested in, they're not being manipulated.

It's a game.

50% of the time you win, 50% of the time you lose if you're playing football or soccer.

But there are some experiences where someone is actively messing with you

in a way that can be negative.

So we would always distinguish between that.