Game Timers Such As The GameDr Can Help Curb Console Gaming For Too Long
Do You Play Too Long?
When it comes to console games, anyone can easily play too long. I’ve done it, my kids have done it, heck, I’ve done it with my kids. You get into a console game, and boom - it’s several hours later. There are several different things that people have tried over the years to help curb play time so that you don’t over play, such as using egg timers to help time your overall play time, but these are not always reliable. Well, there is now a product that will be hitting the market soon that will actually work with your console game time so that you won’t find yourself playing too long.
The GameDr
John Morrisey is a 79-year old man from Minnesota who has created the GameDr to help parents and kids know when they have played too long. This console game timer works with your console game system so that you can enter in a specific time for you, or your kids, to play your console and the GameDr will automatically shut off the console when the time is up.
The GameDr hooks up to your console game system, and is password protected so that you can enter in a specific time for play. After that time is up, the GameDr automatically shuts down the system. The GameDr hooks up to your console game system’s power cord, so it easily works with any game system out there on the market today. The problem is that kids can easily find a way around this by getting another power cord and continuing to play.
My Opinion
I first read about this device this morning, and did some research on it. In my opinion, I think that this is a great device. Now, I see that there are some people out there who say “just monitor your kids better”, well, that’s fine and good - but what about times when you have a baby sitter over - or better yet, what about those people who have a problem playing video games themselves? Egg timers can go off and you can just keep playing - no real threat there to try to curb an addiction. Where as the GameDr actually shuts the system down, which puts a complete stop to the play time.
Some systems, such as the Xbox 360, already have parental controls built into them as well which many parents use to help curb their kid’s over play. But, again, what about those adults that have problems stopping? They can easily override the system’s controls as they already know the codes or they can just not turn on the console’s timing control.
And, I am all for one other way of curbing your kids play time - join in with them. There are so many different types of video games out there that even the most picky parent can easily find a great video game to play with their kids. Take some time out of your schedule to sit down and play a game or two with your kids, make a family video game night, pop some popcorn and grab a juice and go for it. I do this with my kids all the time, and we have a great time playing all types of different games. And, you never know what your kids will teach you while you’re playing and the great bonding time that you’ll get with them.
Not to mention… you’ll earn some major “cool points” by playing some video games with the kids.
