On Advice of Console

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm your summertime, fun-time guest bailiff, Monty Belmonte from WRSI in Northampton, Massachusetts, in for Jesse Thorne.

This week, on advice of console, Tara is bringing her husband Jason to court over their disagreement on video game consoles.

Tara would like to buy a console for their two kids, but Jason says, Nintend, no.

Who's right?

Whose princess is in another castle?

Only one man can decide.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom and issues the obscure cultural reference.

I haven't had luck with humans.

They can be so unkind.

But lend a hand to an ender-man.

Soon you'll find you have a friender man.

As long as you never look them in the eye, you'll never have to say Summertime, fun time, guest billet Monty swear them in.

It doesn't rhyme, but that's the end of the song.

Go.

Tara, Jason, please slip on your power gloves and raise your right hands.

Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and never tell anyone the code to fight Mike Tyson, which is 007-373-5963?

So help you, Pikachu, or whatever?

I do.

I do.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that he has read every single book in the Myst library?

I do.

I do.

Thank you.

Judge Hodgman, you may proceed.

Tara and Jason, you may be seated.

First of all, welcome once again, Summertime, Fun Time Guest Bailiff, Monty Belmonte, from WRSI the River.

Yet once again,

I am not with you there in my beloved home commonwealth of Massachusetts, nor am I with Joel up at WBRU in my beloved part-time home alternate state of Maine.

Because I,

well, for two reasons.

One, I've been brought back to New York for acting, and two, zero time has passed since we heard the last case.

We're just recording them back to back.

I did go to the bathroom, so there was a little time.

Yeah, don't worry.

I have not been held hostage here in bleeding hot New York City for a full week, but I am looking forward to seeing you and your lovely face in person soon in Massachusetts this summer and, of course, at our Turner's Fall show

as part of the Judge John Hodgman Live Justice Tour in the fall.

All tickets available at johnhodgman.com slash tour.

Saturday, September 17th.

Yeah, well, they could have found that by going to the link, but it's fine.

Not that I don't need to.

In any case,

end of that plugging.

And I think there's going to be, I don't mind buzz marketing in this one because we're going to have to name some name brands in this one to even talk about what we're talking about, which is video game consoles and other stuff.

So everyone's just going to have to deal with it.

And just promise you're not going to buy anything that we mentioned for a full year.

Now, Tara and Jason, with regard to the cultural reference for an immediate summary judgment in one of your favors, you are both going to have a chance to guess the origin of the piece of culture that I quoted as I entered the courtroom.

Tara, you bring Jason into this courtroom against his will.

So, Jason, you have the first choice as to whether to guess or make Tara guess and perhaps gain some insight from her guess.

What are you going to choose, Jason?

I will defer to Tara.

All right.

You will have to guess, though, Jason.

You understand?

I will.

Eventually.

Yes.

And I've been mispronouncing your name.

It is Tara.

Is that correct?

That is correct.

All right.

I do apologize for everything I've done wrong so far.

What is your guess as to the cultural reference?

Well,

it's in Reference to Minecraft.

I'm fairly confident about that.

And it's a song.

I'm going to guess that it's a song by a YouTuber.

based on the chatter that I hear when my children are on the computer.

And I'm going to go with Rhett and Link, a song about Minecraft by Rhett and Link.

All right, we'll put that on the on the board.

That is your guess.

Jason,

you must also guess and I ask that you guess now.

All right.

I also think that it's about Minecraft and I like Tara's YouTuber idea.

So I'm going to go with something about Minecraft by Dan TDM.

Dan TDM.

One of the more popular

YouTubers on the subject of Minecraft and games.

And we'll put that up on the board.

Is it up there, Monty?

It is.

All right, tear the board down and burn it because all guesses are wrong.

Let me tell you guys, those were good guesses.

I was so intent upon using a quote from Dan the Diamond Minecart

that I spent probably

30 minutes looking for one on the internet

when I could have spent five minutes just transcribing something he said.

But it was really important to me that I not have to listen to him because I have listened to him enough in my house.

He has been in the background for a long time.

Very charming guy, very popular.

Let's play video gamer.

And then I also realized for that reason that if I quoted him, you probably would guess it correctly, thus ending the podcast.

So that's not that.

I don't even know, Tara, who the YouTubers that you mentioned.

They do a lot of parody songs, and they're fairly entertaining, but like you, we have a lot of Dan TDM going on in the background of our home.

And for those of you who do not have boys between the age of 8 and 12

who are playing Minecraft constantly, or just any kind of video games, if you don't know who these YouTubers are, They are more famous than any celebrity.

They are more popular than any celebrity.

And

they are part of an emerging culture of international celebrities, which are basically dudes who put a camera on their own face, who play video games, and narrate what they are doing to the camera for millions and millions and millions and millions of people,

young dudes or boys typically around the world.

And it is an astonishing new kind of non-art that is sweeping our globe.

But I got to hand it to them.

It's not easy to narrate a game of Minecraft.

And Dan TDM and Stampy Longnose, they do it in a very clearly engaging way.

They are kind of expert, intuitive broadcasters, but it is,

when your child is into this, they become your child's best friend and they are visiting your home 24 hours a day, practically.

But I do not know those guys, and I am not going to introduce any humans who live with me to the guys you named, Tara.

In fact,

that was

a portion of a song that appeared in a Minecraft spin-off game that was released last year

by Telltale Games called Minecraft Story Mode.

And this is not merely buzz marketing for that game because A,

the person who sang that song in the the game was your judge, John Hodgman, in the role of Soren,

one of the expert Minecraft players of the Order of the Stone

and the lore keeper of the Minecraft world within that subset game, also starring Patton Oswalt

and

Paul Rubens, a.k.a.

Peewee Herman, as the villain.

Oh.

And it's still not buzz marketing, even though it's all about, even though the cultural reference is all about me, sort of, because I don't get any money from that thing.

I got paid for it.

It's done.

I don't get it.

You can buy it.

I don't get anything from it.

Go ahead and do it.

It's fun.

So you're both wrong.

So we're going to hear this case.

And a lot of the terms of the case have already been set forth in the context of this little discussion, which is that you guys are parents to how many kids, Tara?

Two children.

And what style of children are they?

We have a 12-year-old son and a nine-year-old daughter who is actually the Dan TDM fanatic.

I am sorry to have been so grossly gender normative in suggesting only boys like this stuff, because obviously it's not true.

And that's one of the wonderful things, honestly, about Minecraft, is that it's universally appealing.

When our daughter plays Minecraft now, she narrates the game along as though she is broadcasting a video of her own.

Well, do you know what?

There's something to that, that it has now been transformed as not a merely spectator experience or a mute receptor experience, but that she's actually making something out of it.

That's a good thing.

Minecraft is good.

You're obviously a family that does not shun technology.

You appreciate the good in games or certain games.

And yet,

I presume they are playing Minecraft exclusively on a computer, because the crux of this is that

Tara wants to get a console PlayStation, Xbox, or Wii U,

and you do not.

Is that correct, Jason?

That is correct, yes.

Well, why are you resisting this?

Do you not understand that Minecraft story mode starring John Hodgman is only available for console play?

This is not available for the Mac or the PC.

So you're basically insulting this court to its face.

I apologize, Your Honor.

I did not know.

Well, can you justify this insult in any way?

Can I begin my defense with an anecdote?

I

very hesitantly allow it.

All right.

We actually, my family has very briefly met you in person once before.

You were on tour with

your vacation land show, and you stopped in our town.

Which town?

Iowa City, Iowa.

Oh, that wasn't me.

That was the touring John Hodgman.

I send a guy out into the Midwest.

Well, the touring Judge Hodgman was kind enough to sign a tour poster for my son, but he also signed a poster for me.

He signed

an example of a 1999 mule variations tour poster for a Tom Waits tour.

Yeah.

And I mentioned that because My defense rests on the Tom Waits principle,

which is, I believe, the first principle of settled law, which is that people like what they like, and you can't force someone to like something, and you can't talk them out of it.

And I confess that my objection to a video game system is a completely visceral,

emotional, non-rational,

gut reaction that I cannot explain in any way better than to say it's like, you know, somebody doesn't like to eat fish or somebody doesn't like,

you know, the sound of particular words.

Like the word munch.

Yeah.

Moist.

Yes.

Well, look, I'm not going to try to talk you out of your preference because it is clearly deep-seated.

Out of curiosity, I may ask

some questions about your dislike for console video gaming versus other kinds of screens and technologies.

And maybe

by speaking more about it,

it will illuminate me and make you think differently or the same.

I'm not going to try to convince you otherwise.

But I will say that I don't see how

that was a nice story you told.

And it was me.

And I enjoyed meeting your son.

I enjoyed signing your poster.

And I like Iowa City.

And I like the Englert Theater.

And I liked that theater is the closest thing to the Muppet Show Theater I've ever been in.

It's gorgeous, and I would perform there any day of the week, whether or not there's a huge football game going on, which there was.

I barely got a hotel room because of sports.

But I will say that for all of the flattery of our shared history and connection together and our love of the great state of Iowa and its one city, call it Iowa City.

I know there's another one.

I know there's another.

I've been in another ones.

All of that means nothing because I don't see how my principle of settled law, you like what you like, applies in this case at all, sir.

Because it's not about whether or not you are going to buy yourself a video game console.

It's whether or not you're going to allow Tara, your wife, to buy them for your kids who presumably want such a thing and do like it, no?

Oh, yes, I'm sure they would.

Why does your like...

what you like overweigh their like what they like?

Because my dislike is that I don't want one in or around

our house or me.

And if we get one, then it sits down in our basement

and constantly needles at me that it's sitting down there.

Your dislike is so great that even you know one is even in the house, you will be dismayed.

I would be, yes.

All right.

That's a fair answer.

You know what a better answer would be to why does your like what you like principal outweigh your children's like what you like principle

just for next time the dad, yes, of course.

That was my that was going to be my second option, yes.

Yeah, well, I understand that you want it to seem principled instead of just tyrannical,

but it's true.

This, I think, is a much more compelling argument that it is

your money,

your house, your rules,

because you grew up and they're still trying to do that.

Tara.

Yes.

You've heard your husband's, I'm sure, and this is not the first time, you've heard all about your husband's dislike for console video games.

And you've heard this monster say that he should get his way because he's dad.

Unfortunately, for dad, mom also has a vote.

Why

in the history of all moms are you the first to say, I want one of those things in my house?

Well,

part of it is

there's a game I want to play.

Oh.

Yeah, the bigger issue is I'm hoping this will change a little bit of the way that

the kids interact with screens in a way that I think would be better.

I don't have

definitive evidence that it would be better, but can I explain that for just a minute?

Yeah, well, I really am interested to hear how adding screens is going to benefit their relationship with screens.

Okay, yes, I know, I know, but stick with me just for a moment.

Basically, I've just called the movers and I'm moving to Iowa.

Yeah.

If this is the way you guys think over there.

Well,

I'm sure every parent out there is trying to figure out, you know, how to,

you know,

sort of shepherd our children as they learn to interact with screens.

And

my

professional organization, the American Academy of Pediatrics, recommends that children get no more than two hours of screen time a day, which

is laughable for the most part in our family's case, particularly in the summer and on the weekends.

They tend to get more than that.

We don't have specific rules.

And

they get more screen time than I would like.

That is not something that

I really have control over, but I would prefer that they're actually doing something interactive.

And I'm not saying that it's learning.

I'm not saying that this is going to benefit them in the long run.

But the idea of them making new game levels, for instance, and then testing those levels and playing those levels feels better to me viscerally than watching Dan TDM all day

because it's interactive.

Because in the same vein, actually playing Minecraft, I find less concerning.

So let me interrupt you for a moment just to verify.

You are a member of the American Association of Pediatrics.

American Academy.

Okay, I apologize.

That's okay.

Are you also a member of the American Academy of Pedantry?

Oh, sorry.

No, not.

No, no, I am not.

Nor do I wish to be.

That's a different AAP.

No, I apologize.

The American Academy of Pediatrics, do I take it to mean that you are a pediatrician?

I'm a sub-specialist in neonatology, but at the foundation, yes, I'm a pediatrician.

But you are a doctor?

Absolutely.

So is Jason.

Oh, doctor?

Doctor?

Nice to have you both here.

What kind of doctoring do you do, Jason?

I'm the stay-at-home dad now, actually.

Oh, that's wonderful.

What kind of doctoring did you do when you were actively doing it?

I was a general surgeon.

General surgeon, now stay-at-home dad.

Are you in a body swap Disney movie from the 60s?

Because

I don't mean to be so...

I mean, I already apologize for being gender normative.

I think it's fantastic, but we're in a a situation here where

stereotypically,

a mom who is also a pediatrician is advocating for a console video game to add on to the screen level in their home, which is the exact reverse of what happens in my marriage.

And stereotypically, surgeons who are the most

monstrously narcissistic creatures on earth and think that their God

has given up his craft and skill to dedicate himself to the care of

others, not merely their disgusting bodies, but their entire emotional lives as well.

This is very unusual for a surgeon, is it not?

I suppose it is.

Yes.

If I see a stereotype, I try and smash it.

Well, I applaud both of you for making me look at the world and indeed Iowa in a different way.

Thank you.

But let me get back to this.

As a baseline, Dr.

Tara,

what's the screen portfolio right now?

Well, the kids do not have personal cell phones or mobile devices that use cell data in any way.

But in our home, we have

three Macintosh computers.

Oh, sorry about the buzz marketing.

We have three computers.

You can always say Macintosh on my podcast.

I bet.

So we have three Macintosh computers and we have an iPad mini.

Jason and I do have smartphone cell phones,

and the children also each have a Nintendo DS, which is a handheld

game system.

So

that's where we're at.

Anything I forgot, Jason?

We have one television.

Well, we have two televisions, but only one is hooked up to

programming.

Right.

What's the other one hooked up to?

It is hooked up to a small streaming device in an adjacent room.

This is the first time in either of our lives as adults or children that there have been more than one television in a house that either one of us has lived in.

Gotcha.

Okay.

And Dr.

Jason, you don't have a surgeon's aversion to all of this screenology that's happening right now?

I would say that

getting the little handheld units, the DSs,

was a bit of a struggle

that I eventually acquiesced to.

That took some discussion and convincing.

What is the distinction that you draw between

what kind of console are you interested in getting, Terra?

You might as well just say it.

It's the Nintendo Wii U.

Okay.

And Minecraft is on that one?

Yes, and also Pokemon games and Mario games, both of which are very popular in our household.

Sure.

And there's also a game you want to play, right?

Yes.

What is that game?

It is a Mario game called Yoshi's Wooly World, where everything is made of very photorealistic yarn, which I think looks like a lot of fun.

Dr.

Jason,

you are obviously in love with this woman, right?

I am deeply, sir.

Yeah, how could you not be?

Fantastic.

No.

Fantastic.

So

what is it about

this console?

What distinction that you draw between this console and playing games on this console versus playing, say, Minecraft on your Macintosh computers

that

so upsets you that you are willing to forbid happiness, your wife's happiness in the home?

When I play a game, and I myself will occasionally play a computer game on the computer, but when I play a game on the computer, I can somehow convince myself that I'm using a computer to play a game on.

The computer that does many other useful jobs,

that one of those is that occasionally a game can be played on it.

On the other hand, a game console, and I realize that you can do many things on a game console nowadays

to stream all sorts of content and everything, but it just for at some base emotional level, it feels different to have a dedicated game machine

that

that's what it's there for.

And by different, you mean, I'm just trying to get to the bottom of your feelings.

Again, I'm not trying to convince you.

But by different, you mean there's something different about having a dedicated game machine, and by different, you mean prurient and gross and

unseemly, yes, unseemly, but like indulgent of or what?

More like

a sense of

abdication of responsibility or

surrender or giving up or something along those lines.

Surrender to what?

Are you surrendering control over your own house and life to

an overwhelming force to bring more and more and more game content and screens and technology into your home?

I would say that is maybe a secondary concern, but

at a

the first level, it just seems as though to have that sort of a system in the house is saying,

I can't think of anything better to do with my time

or anything better to do with myself

than play video games.

It's as though I was saying, I'm just going to spend the rest of my days in a torn, strappy t-shirt and sweatpants.

That's what it feels like.

Right.

Gaming

has to it a whiff of torn, strappy t-shirt, laziness, indolence,

non-constructive,

time-wasty garbage think.

Fair?

Fair.

All right.

And when your wife sits down to play Yoshi's world of yarn craft or whatever it is,

she might as well be throwing herself into a garbage hole.

Fair assessment?

That's a a little more hyperbolic than I would put it, but I think you're on the right track.

You know, Dr.

Tara,

Dr.

Jason pointed out

that indeed these consoles do a lot of other things

asides from playing video games.

They stream content.

They have other stuff built into it.

You're saying you get a console, you might be able to get your daughter to start building Minecraft levels

rather than just watching other people explore Minecraft levels.

What defense do you have against your daughter doing exactly what my son does, which is use our console, PlayStation 3,

to not play Minecraft, but dial up YouTube to watch Dan the Diamond Minecart from there?

You know, I was not aware that that was a possibility.

However, I would say it's, I noticed this with the handheld

little handheld consoles that they have is that

once they get interested in those

they'll play them for a while and then you know go back to the PC.

I don't have a problem with her or him either or son either playing Minecraft on the PC.

I think having that immediate sorry what the PC or Macintosh computer does.

It's a Mac.

Yeah.

You can understand why that distinction might be meaningful to them.

It's a sensitive issue.

Exactly.

But I think that it's so easy, and as an adult, this happens as well.

So I can't imagine being in the mind of a nine-year-old

that you can just toggle over to the internet instantaneously.

And, you know, for instance, they can stream YouTube through another mechanism that we have available on the actual television, but they never do it.

And I...

Some of the games that they want to play are only available for the larger console, not for the small handheld ones that they have.

So I'm not trying to decrease their screen time.

I'm trying to offer them what I see as a slightly more constructive use than watching YouTube.

But I guess I cannot prove that they would not do that.

Minecraft is a

wonderful game that really defies all of the criticism that most people make about games, that they're mindlessly addictive dopamine stimulators that often, and certainly in more mature games, normalize

terrible behavior in a desensitizing way.

Minecraft is quiet, contemplative,

has a very beautiful, clunky aesthetic of its own, and encourages essentially Lego-style free building.

in a virtual environment that you can then share and travel through with your friends.

And its its success is, you know, really one of the more heartening things to come out of gaming culture, to my mind.

But it's not the case that

you're saddened by the replacement of the game with the videos of people playing the game.

It is rather there's something intrinsic to the videos of people playing the game that you find unseemly in the way your husband finds video games in general kind of unseemly.

So I guess I would ask you is if you searched your heart, what is it

about

your daughter receiving transmission from weird older single men via the internet

that you find upsetting in any way?

I think it's just quite a bit more passive.

I have similar feelings toward Netflix marathons

of

appropriate child shows that this specific kid

will often choose to do that as well.

More recently, it's been YouTube, but I would say both

watching many episodes of Adventure Time or My Little Pony for many hours,

that kind of creeps me out.

And now I'm going to ask you to search your feelings.

Can you be more articulate or can you find a way to articulate in a more specific way

than saying it creeps you out?

What about it creeps you out?

What is it?

What is it?

Well, I've asked the question once.

I don't know why I'm asking it five times.

Why?

And in fact,

I'm tripping myself up over words.

And I feel like we both, to get to the crux of this, we both got to go back to the old tool of Bizarro talk.

Bizarro talked like this.

Why say creep out?

What really mean?

Okay.

This may lead back a long way, but I've always felt that no, you not talk like Pizarro.

You still talk like doctor.

Dr.

Bizarro must talk like Pizarro.

Say, me think this, me think that.

Talk like Hulk.

Okay.

Me talk right now, Bizarro.

Me think

long

TV, YouTube,

make kid or human zombie.

Not good.

Active brain using, reading, drawing, playing game, perhaps better.

Doctor think play game better than watch game.

Yes.

Doctor hate watch sports.

Oh, yes.

Doctor hate watch sports.

All right.

I think we got to something there.

Other doctor also hate watch sports.

Okay.

I got you.

I still take issue with your dream that introducing another multimedia streaming device, which is what consoles are these days, is going going to actually restrict

your kids to playing games unless you make that restriction yourself.

Do you see my point?

Yes.

It would also upset your doctor husband because he doesn't like having them in the house.

Yeah, and I do not want to,

you know, we brought this for adjudication because, you know, this has been the impasse is based predominantly on

feelings of what happens when people play games on his

part, perhaps, and on my part, perhaps,

the fact that I don't want them to become

pale zombies that never go outside.

And I don't know that this would help, but

it just seems like a more active and engaging pastime.

Me understand.

Dr.

Jason,

in the document that was prepared for me,

you had spoken in your affidavit that the only way you would be willing to allow a console in the house is if it can be proved that not having one deprives kids of a modern childhood.

And that they would have to earn every dollar that goes into it.

That is to say, they would have to buy it themselves.

It's interesting.

We haven't gotten to the point yet where we've actually discussed what these children want.

Dr.

Jason, do they want a console?

Oh, yes.

We're here because they have convinced my wife that this is something that is worth going to internet court about to get this decided.

And is there reasoning that they are being deprived of a normal modern childhood?

I don't think they've thought it to that degree.

I think their reasoning is that

they see something shiny and

they want to peck at it.

Right.

Oh, I forgot your children are magpies.

They're not humans.

Are they capable of earning money in order to buy a console?

They are capable of gradually earning money to buy a console, yes.

They have a set of chores that they do, and they receive an allowance for it.

Okay.

And do they do those chores responsibly and regularly?

They do those chores when reminded directly to do them.

What are the chores?

Things like feeding the dogs, taking the dogs out for walks, How many have dishwashers?

We have two dogs.

What kind of dogs?

They are both Boston Terriers.

How many dishwashers?

One dishwasher.

Okay.

Dr.

Tara, do you think that your kids are being deprived of a modern normal childhood by not having a console?

I think that given the rest of our lifestyle, that it is a nonsensical thing to restrict.

Jason was raised in an anti-technology environment, and I think some of him wants to be that.

He wants to be his dad on some level, but he can't.

And so that's where I feel like this is coming from.

So I think given the other things they have access to and the fact that this is not an economic hardship and we agree on appropriate content, gaming content for that console, which would include none of the

you know, horribly graphic games, we're more talking about, you know, Italian plumbers and little

Japanese monsters.

So

since we agree on all of those things and they have access to so many of these other things, I find it that they are being deprived of what

most other children being raised similarly do have access to.

Yeah, but they have a lot of stuff.

Oh, yeah.

Well, it's not theirs, but they have access to a lot of stuff.

Dr.

Jason, Dr.

Tara says that you resist this because you didn't have technology in your own childhood and that you're afraid daddy is going to yell at you on some level if you allow this into your house.

And the fact that you've already left it, allowed so much of it into your house is somehow fueling

a conflict within you

between regret and self-contempt.

That is an awfully big cruxusation for her to make.

Did she get to a crux there?

There's a degree of truth to that yes I suppose did you have a console when you were a child sir I did not console when I was a child when I was a child our television which we did have was in

a

linoleum floor room with one wooden chair and if you wanted to watch television you had to go in there and sit on the uncomfortable wooden chair and really want to watch that television and the channels you know and it and it was like

three bad channels yeah

one single wooden chair?

There were eventually two chairs in the room, but yes, to begin with, there was one chair.

Right.

You might as well be saying, in order to watch, you could only, in my house, my daddy only let me watch television as long as I was being waterboarded while it was on.

Well,

my parents never said not to.

They just said, well, this is the room that the TV is in.

And if you want to watch TV, then that's what you do.

Do you wish that you had that in your life now?

No, I don't.

Okay.

Dr.

Tara, do you use any technology to prohibit or monitor your children's computer usage,

you know, content blocking?

Or do they have separate logins for the computer so they don't have access to the full internet or you're using anything like that?

No, we the only thing that we've done is

they have to use

computers in the rooms where other humans are.

So there are no computers in bedrooms.

Right.

But other than that, we've tried at times to institute time limits, which has been unsuccessful

at this point.

And I'm not saying that all those things couldn't be used, but to date, we have not used that technology.

Okay.

Any last arguments you want to make?

If I make this ruling in your favor, Dr.

Tara, you're going to go out and get yourself a we

today.

What time is it there in Iowa City?

It's 2.25, but I don't know.

2.25 in the afternoon?

Oh, well, no, all the stores are closed.

Sorry.

If I find in your favor, I'm ordering you to go out and buy one today.

I think our son's probably jumping up and down in the sound booth.

Yeah.

Dr.

Jason,

if I find in your favor, I'm going to order that these children may never have

this pleasure.

And they will think to these, they'll think to themselves this.

Thought one, they will think, Judge John Hodgman is very wise.

Even though this didn't go my way, he's the best.

That's what all children think.

The right call.

Yes.

Yep.

Thought two,

they will say,

even though Judge John Hodgman is correct in all ways and I should never question him,

it still is hard for me to understand why we should have, each have our own personal Nintendo DSs, access to a number of Macintoshes and an iPad mini, as well as streaming through television and broadcast television.

But this one form of now ultimately indistinguishable form of media is being denied to us by my dad.

It seems inconsistent, and thus I can trust nothing.

And thought three:

I think that it's my only conclusion is

that

my dad is mean

and is somehow punishing mom for being out in the workforce when he has given up his work as a surgeon, and maybe is trying to peddle to us

the message

that mom wants us to have this only because she feels so guilty that she doesn't give as much time to us as dad and that he's the better one.

In which case, I, a child of either nine or twelve, can only conclude that my father is a master manipulator

and thus actually a surgeon.

So,

I mean, I might find in your favor, but you have to understand that that's what your children are going to think, verbatim, one, two, three.

You have any response to that?

I understand that, yes.

You still don't want that thing in your house?

I, no, I don't want the thing in the house.

It's like a, you know, a painting of a llama.

or a taxidermied family pet or something like that.

I don't want it in the house, no.

Monty.

Yes.

Those are some sweet callbacks to some earlier cases.

Since you're a guest bailiff, you may not be hearing the deep cuts this guy is pulling trying to sway the court in his favor.

He is a fan.

True fandom has nothing to do with justice, sir.

I've heard everything I need to in order to make my decision.

I am going to go into my gaming pod.

And

actually, you know what I'm going to do?

I'm going to go walk around and try to catch some of these Pokemons on private property for several hours.

And

when I get that squirtle, I'll come back and give you my decision.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Dr.

Jason, it sounds to me like, have you struggled with gaming addiction at any point in your life?

Because it seems like the looming threat of this console in the house while you are at home most of the time is what your real problem might be with this gaming console.

You can't see my wife gesturing vigorously, waving her arms.

There have been occasions in the past where I myself indulged in computer online gaming more than I, in retrospect, wish that I had.

Dr.

Tara, this is where it becomes very exciting.

Your kids already go above the two hours a day recommended by the American Academy of Pedantic Pediatrics.

What kind of information can I bring back to my SCOBY kombucha mother fermenting hippie wife to let her know how much screen time my children should be allowed to have on a daily basis as a doctor?

Well, I think that that is, you know, ultimately up to the individual family.

But the studies that seem to suggest harm also

don't necessarily represent the demographic of everyone's children.

You know, if there are other high-risk issues in the home with, you know, food insecurity or job insecurity or chaotic social situations, children in those environments don't do as well long-term in school or in other things as those kids who, like ours, are more fortunate and have a little more stable life.

And actually, there have been studies in

young, like military recruit aged guys that actually show that video gaming can improve some hand-eye coordination things.

I'm not making an argument that that's why we should have this thing,

but that's what I'd have to say for that question.

So I shouldn't be fighting my wife and my almost 12-year-old son who wants to get a Kindle so desperately so that he can make animated versions of Martina Spada poems in the way that I have been.

Sort of hearkening back to Dr.

Jason's mentality, which is that's just they just use too much screens, and I don't understand why.

And maybe I've been addicted to this in the past.

Yeah, Dr.

Jason is: see, if I had my way, which I don't, you know, this is not, we are a partnership,

I would institute a

screen time limit that is fixed.

The kids are very good.

They know that if somebody tells them, get off the screen and do something else, they know to pretty rapidly do that.

Otherwise, they'll be told, yeah, so now you can't do it for a longer time.

So they will take what we call screen breaks for a few hours at a time with grudgingly, but with no

real resistance.

But I, for instance, tried to institute no screens before 5 p.m.

in the school when the summer summer came because they don't have summer activities every day.

And it lasted one day.

And I feel that since I am not the parent that is at home with them during the day, that

making Jason enforce a rule that was mostly important to me is not really fair because I am not there with them.

We'll be back in just a moment with Judge Hodgman's decision.

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Please rise as Judge John Hodgman re-enters the courtroom.

Doctor, Doctor, you may be seated.

Both of you are ridiculous.

And I'll start with Dr.

Tara.

No offense to either of you.

I enjoy you very much, but all of your premises are

false, and all of your guesses are wrong

regarding this very thorny issue.

And it makes it hard for me to adjudicate, knowing that you're both wrong.

It's very unusual that that's the case.

Because obviously, Dr.

Tara, you appreciate the contradiction in that you are searching to limit zombifying screen time by adding more screen.

That makes no sense and that will not help you in that particular cause.

And furthermore,

you have to appreciate that all screens are the same at this point.

They're all internet.

All screens are internet.

All screens are game.

There is no restriction to a particular screen as to what it can do specifically with regard to blocking one sort of use or encouraging a different sort of use.

Blocking watching YouTubes of YouTubers playing games as opposed to actually encouraging the playing of the game.

The only way to block or encourage that stuff is to install

technical blocks or, as you already do, enforce,

and it's challenging to do, but to enforce behavioral blocks by saying you can't do that or stop doing that now, right?

That's what's going to control your screen time, not adding an additional screen time.

And Dr.

Jason, you're ridiculous

and wrong

because you are visiting past trauma upon your children.

You are ashamed of your own video gaming in the past that you associate in an almost PTSD way with the idea of a console, such that you are irrationally averse to a console, whereas you are more or less accepting or at least surrendering to the intrusion of all these other screens into your life.

And you're working out something that went on between you and your dad in a hard chair in a linoleum room that...

is not part of your children's life in any way.

And this is the hard thing about this very issue because it's emotionally very charged uh

screens uh are new at this con like they're so they're so new and so rapidly uh

revolutionizing themselves that dr terra didn't even stop to think that adding a nintendo wii u is just another roku box or another you know

another Apple TV or another whatever.

It's just the same thing now.

It's all the same.

And there is something

disturbing about seeing kids zone

into a game for hours and hours at a time or binge-watch stuff for hours and hours at a time.

There is something on a baseline, it's unseemly

seeing your kids do it.

And I think part of what's going on is you're realizing that it's unseemly when anyone does it.

There is something gross about it.

I'm not going to say it's not how culture...

is meant to be consumed in life, but it is a new way we are consuming culture that is either good or bad, but certainly unnerving in that it is different.

There is a strong instinct that I think all parents have to recreate the traumatic linoleum room of Dr.

Jason's childhood.

And, you know, that in many ways, and I don't think that he would mind that I mention him by name, but occasional guest bailiff John Roderick, who is a parent of a human child, I think his tendency is to go to the linoleum room.

Whereas

a friend of the show, musician and cruisemonger Jonathan Colton,

is

in the opposite part of the spectrum.

He's much more inclined to throw as many iPads into that linoleum room as possible and let the kids have at it.

And a discussion was reported to me by Roderick about a conversation they had about this.

It was, it's hearsay in this courtroom, I appreciate.

And I don't know Jonathan's side of the story, but Roderick expressed some

not concern, but curiosity about why Jonathan is so freewheeling with his letting his kids watch movies and TV, you know, age-appropriate, but, you know, watch and play

so much.

And Jonathan said, well, we're not Amish.

This is what life is now.

Like,

this is what my wife and I do.

This is what everyone around them does.

Like, this is the way life is experienced.

This is Roderick quoting Jonathan to me, who knows what he actually said.

But

even if he said nothing like that, that was a very compelling thing that I felt that Jonathan said.

Maybe it's just surrender because it's so hard to control intake of screen culture.

But I think there's also something to it that's like, it will work itself out in the same way that

Your dad, obviously, whether he consciously made his TV room a torture chamber or not, had ambivalence about the seemliness of television itself.

Now it's the thing that seems most old-fashioned in old time.

Like, you might as well be Burns and Allen on the old radio.

You know,

it's so antiquated and charming, you know, to actually watch broadcast television.

And in the same way, all of this panic about new means of consuming culture has worked itself out over time.

And indeed, Jonathan's kids are

really smart and clever, just as John Roderick's child is, and they seem to have worked out a relationship with all this stuff that seems healthy and normal and not obsessive or addictive.

And when we talk about the dangers

of

game time or screen time or what have you,

and how it affects future performance, you know, as I think you were trying to say, Dr.

Terra, I think there's often a confusion between correlation and causation.

And the kids who are left to explore screens without any any guidance or regulation at all are also those kids who are most likely to not be getting guidance in different areas and have challenges as a result after that.

Ultimately, it is part of their everyday life in modern Western culture

to have the same kind of access

that you guys as adults use and enjoy.

And it is a new parental responsibility to really, at times, force them to add texture to their lives so they don't just get caught up in that one dopamine stream.

What you're experiencing, right, is not only

a sort of generational anxiety about screens and what they mean in children's lives, but also a very specific developmental change in your own children's relationship with screens because they are moving into the pre-teen years and they are developing their own tastes.

They are no longer able to consume only that which you put in front of them and then take away.

They are exploring and using this

internet and everything attached to it to explore their own interests and find the things that they like.

They are developing their own likes, what they like.

And Dr.

Tara, it may be upsetting to you that

your daughter spends as much time watching other people play games rather than building things in Minecraft herself.

And as it was upsetting to me when my son went into that mode for a long time.

And I felt the constant need to remind him that

watching people absorb culture is worse than absorbing culture, and which itself is worse than making culture.

Do you know what I mean?

Exactly.

And making videos of people reacting to telephones or, you know, all those React videos or whatever.

That's not

culture.

That's just a scam.

But we all eat junk food.

Do you know what I mean?

And sometimes they go through, they have to go through that period to get around to the conclusion, like there's something more substantive out here.

And sometimes, do you know what?

They just like their friends.

And their friends are Dan the Diamond Minecart.

And their friends are, you know, Stampy Longnose.

Ha ha!

You know, it's like those,

there's no question that those dudes are speaking to kids of that age at a certain way, and they're getting something out of it, and they need the ability to explore it.

Obviously, parents set the limits and the guidelines.

And you are great parents, I think, in the amount of thought that you're giving to this and I'm sure the direction that you're trying to give your kids.

But kids,

unless you are going to go into a hard linoleum room mode,

there is an element of having to surrender to this junk and give as much guidance as you can and keep them out of danger as much as possible and get over your own weird aversions.

This is in no way an argument that you have to bring a we

into your world, of course.

This is all just

general talk about this whole issue.

But as far as bringing a Wii U into your world of screens that you already have,

that's a separate issue.

There is no justification for bringing a Wii U into your world of screens in order to make your children better and more active gamers.

There is no reason to prohibit a Wii U from coming into your home because Dr.

Jason is scared of it.

All of that is noise.

The only decision-making factor here is that people like what they like.

Your children are developing their likes.

They do not get to demand a Wii U in their home just because they are developing their likes.

They're still minors and they don't have any money.

There's only one like what you like that actually

matters in this case, and that is that Dr.

Tara wants to play Yoshi's Yarn World or whatever the heck it is.

And that is an act of like

that overrides any weird aversion.

And thus, for that reason and that reason alone, I am ordering Dr.

Tara to go and buy a Wii U and that only game this very day before sunset.

She is the only one who is allowed to use it.

There will be no complaining

from any children.

There will be no complaining from any husbands.

No, sir.

Dr.

Tara deserves to play.

She's a grown-up who deserves to play the game she wants to play.

And those kids can play whatever games they want to play on that thing if Dr.

Tara buys it for them.

Or if they, between the two of them,

raise through chore doing and dog walking

the cost of half of that we you that's when they can use it

that's when when they've raised half of the cost that you're going to spend today dr tara then

then they can use it but otherwise it's yours yours and yours alone simple common sense restrictions shall rule the day only mommy gets this this is the sound of a gavel

Judge John Hodgman rules that is all.

Dr.

Jason, are you willing to let Dr.

Tara spin some photorealistic Yoshi yarn into the hard-cold linoleum room of your heart?

Yes, I am.

Seems like a reasonable decision.

Dr.

Tara?

Yes.

How excited are you to spin, to crochet with Yoshi or whatever you do in that game?

Well, I knit in real life, too.

I'm excited, although I think

we're going on vacation in about 12 hours, so I may...

It may not get opened and set up until after that.

Only have until sundown.

Okay.

Don't forget.

Okay, I can do it.

Thank you both for being on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

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The Wizards answer eight by eight.

The Cornclave's call to demonstrate their arcane gift, their single spell.

They number 64,

until a conflagration

63

and 62 they soon shall be, as one by one the wizards die,

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Hey, summertime, fun time, guest bailiff, Monte Belmonte.

How are things there at WRSI the River in Northampton, Massachusetts?

They're tons of fun, as usual.

That's right.

And we're going to have fun at Turner's Falls.

What's the date again?

It is September 17th.

Saturday, September 17th, Shea Theater.

For tickets, go to johnhodgman.com/slash tour.

Who named this case, Monty Belmonte?

Sebastian Luis Chavez naming this case on advice of console.

Thanks to him.

And what else?

Who else do we have to thank?

People, right?

We have to thank

this episode engineered by Catherine Perkins at Iowa Public Radio and our producer is Jennifer Marmer.

If you have a case for the judge, submit it at www.maximumfund.org slash JJ Ho.

We'll see you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

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