Galway's Senator Healy Eames wants time limits on consoles

irishdude11

I never read such sh*te in my life

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0808/1224302023687.html

A CALL has been made to install time limits on gaming consoles such as Xbox and PlayStation in an effort to curtail the number of hours people spend on them.
Fine Gael Senator Fidelma Healy Eames wants manufacturers to incorporate a maximum usage time following the death of a 20-year-old in England from deep vein thrombosis after spending 12-hour sessions playing Xbox.
Chris Staniforth from Sheffield, who his family say was addicted to Xbox and who was otherwise in good health, died in May.
Senator Healy Eames, Fine Gael Seanad spokeswoman on social protection, said she will be contacting the National Consumer Agency and manufacturers in a bid to have the time limits installed. She said teenagers had become addicted to games and controls needed to be installed.
“It is only now that research on the addictive nature of these gaming consoles is beginning to emerge. What we need is quick action and I believe it is not unreasonable to demand some class of a microchip to be installed that shuts the game down after two hours, and that it cannot be restarted for another period of time,” she said.
“We are soon to be putting images on cigarette boxes to prevent smoking because of the impact on health and its addictive quality. This is not far behind in respect of lasting damage.
“Thousands of our children, teens and even young married men are spending endless hours on these machines and it is impacting on their emotional and mental health also.”

I dont even play games but this is the nanny state taken to a ridiculous level. Might as remove free choice from doing anything. Might as well start with banning all sports as far far more people have died or been seriously injured from playing sport. And there are lots of people who are as addicted to sport as others are to games. Why dont we also impose a 2 hour time limit on pubs, far more damage is caused by people coming out locked after drinking for several hours in a pub. She picks games as her cause because its an easy target and will grab some headlines. Why doesnt she try and get alcohol banned if she is really interested in 'social protection'?

What a joke the seaned is and Healy Eames is a disgrace coming out with this nonsense, would she not just feck off as the people of galway have already shown that they dont want her representing them and its no wonder when she is coming out with complete nonsense like this.

fergiesfav

She probably has a point. kids spend way too much time sitting in front of computer screens.

Comparing playing a sport, an activity that keeps kids healthy and promotes the development of friendships, with playing computer game, an activity that does nothing for kids is ridiculous!

fergiesfav

fergiesfav wrote: »

She probably has a point. kids spend way too much time sitting in front of computer screens.

Comparing playing a sport, an activity that keeps kids healthy and promotes the development of friendships, with playing computer game, an activity that does nothing for kids is ridiculous!

Misinformed rubbish.

For starters the majority of gamers are adults, if kids are spending too much time playing that's a parenting issue.
So I as an adult should have my system controlled against my wishes because of bad parenting?.

Also playing games is far more beneficial for a child then watching TV(as it engages the brain), which no one seems to have a problem with(you certainly didn't even cite it).

Games mainly played by adults>limits imposed>Nanny state.... and it would be no different to limiting the amount of TV one could watch, books you could read etc.....

An issue to do with children's activities can only be sorted by the parents.

Diabhal Beag

Irish politician in being horribly uninformed auld wan shocker.

irishdude11

fergiesfav wrote: »

She probably has a point. kids spend way too much time sitting in front of computer screens.

Comparing playing a sport, an activity that keeps kids healthy and promotes the development of friendships, with playing computer game, an activity that does nothing for kids is ridiculous!

So you are saying sports are safer for kids? Way way more young people have died or suffered various degrees injury playing sport, up to and including paralysis. Whereas with games every few years there is a news report about some one in a million statistic who died after a marathon gaming session.

This shows how out of touch Healy Eames is, she is 20 years too late to jump on the 'games are dangerous' bandwagon, games went mainstream years ago. Who the hell does this auld biddy think she speaks for anyway, she has been rejected by the Galway voters for the last 3 elections. That must be some kind of record.

kayos

I was a gamer when I was a kid and it never did me any harm. Well granted loading a game on a C64 gave you time for one half of a game of footie, back in flip and tape out to finish the footie and then back in to play .

Overuse of a games console by kids is a parenting issue. Forcing controls like this on people is just becoming more of a nanny state. And does she really think the big players are gonna do it? Also her poor kids will have a big target painted on them come school time if this gets any where. Bad enough that she drops them off in her PJ's but now this?

The Orb

Can a limit also be placed on the amount of drivel spewing forth from some no mark Senator?

Robbo

Quite often in a game, you'll need to put in a good long session to get past one particular difficult obstacle.

Quite often in politics, a candidate will try and try to get elected to the Dail, and fail to get past that particular obstacle time and time again.

My modest proposal is that if gamers are limited to 2 hours, unsuccessful Dail candidates are limited to 2 runs.

Das Kitty

Robbo wrote: »

Quite often in a game, you'll need to put in a good long session to get past one particular difficult obstacle.

Quite often in politics, a candidate will try and try to get elected to the Dail, and fail to get past that particular obstacle time and time again.

My modest proposal is that if gamers are limited to 2 hours, unsuccessful Dail candidates are limited to 2 runs.

Dare you to write a letter to the Advertiser.

biko

Here or here