April 22 2018 | Julia Becerra

Kids and adults each on their own “mining” world.

A few years after Bitcoin came to “life”, and other digital currencies started to flourish, the number of people who got into “mining” has steadily grown.   The rapid rise in the value of Bitcoin inspired people not only to invest in virtual currencies but also “mine” them. Men and women have been teaching each other the how-to’s of this at-times high-revenue activity.  I have read stories of people buying cars, and even homes with the money “mined”.

“I stopped doing any house related activities.  I send the laundry out, I pay to get the lawn mowed, and the food cooked” a stay-at-home couple commented. “We use all our time in “mining”, and take turns tending the children”.

(What is #Mining : As per Investopedia, Bitcoin mining is the process by which transactions are verified and added to the public ledger, known as the block chain, and also the means through which new bitcoin are released.  Anyone with access to the internet and suitable hardware can participate in mining.  The mining process involves compiling recent transactions into blocks and trying to solve a computationally difficult puzzle.  The participant who first solves the puzzle gets to place the next block on the block chain and claim the rewards.  The rewards, which incentivize mining, are both the transaction fees associated with the transactions compiled in the block as well as newly released bitcoin.  click here for  More information in Mining )

Now  the children that the couple mentioned above referred to,   children worldwide and perhaps even more in China are growing in the millennial culture of video gaming.   Physical sports activities, physical puzzle solving,  Lego building activities and so forth have fallen far behind in the interest of kids and teenagers.  Video games have become the number one priority in a child’s life.  Kids of all ages, are willing to stay up late hours, and use any possible, and impossible available time to play video games.  An immediate consequence of this trend has been academic performance, lack of interest in collaborative family dynamics like chores, and family meals together.

The toll that video gaming  addictive behavior has taken in the life of children, teenagers and even adults is bigger than we realize.   So I was not surprised to find out that Tencent Holdings, the largest videogame publisher in the world by revenue,  is introducing digital contracts that allow parents and their children to negotiate reasonable play times.  The idea of the feature is for kids to exchange their playing time by doing housework or reach certain academic scores. 

Gone are times when mowing the lawn was paid with cash and you could convince your children that house chores was part of a family duty, and an added bonus of growing up.  Instead, the kids will be doing their own “mining” by doing what they were supposed to do in the first place (a long while ago) and for what they now will be paid in the currency of their choice : Video Currency.

The move by Tencent Holdings with the new “Digital contract” feature certainly may help to mitigate the damage and on the same token legitimate the quiet epidemy that has contaminated households across continents.  An illness that has not also affected family building, the chore of our civilization,  but has also affected planet earth, our home.  “Mining” either digital currency (or video currency) due to its high usage of electricity put a strain in hydroelectric power, just on time for the “Green” planet initiative!

What if anything could be done to while still allowing the world of video games in the life of children and teenagers bring back to life healthy family dynamics?

I would love to hear your thoughts on that.  In the meantime, I am compiling a list of video currency “Mining” activities I could get my nephew to work on.

 

Thank you for reading my blog.  I would love to hear your thoughts on the subject.

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