The beginning of the gaming era, parental controls and technical acumen

Abstract

The 1990s was a time of discovery of digital technology by mass audiences. Russian schoolchildren of the 1990s had their first experience with electronic games on personal devices, which for many turned out to be a meaningful childhood memory. The article analyzes stories about first gaming experiences, interactions with technology, and parental control of this period, supplemented by interviews with some of the authors of the posts. Although the impact of technology had not been studied yet, parents were concerned about their children’s excessive fascination with playing games on consoles and early computers and tried to limit their children’s use of technology. In the parent-child-technology triangle, parents sought to weaken the child-technology relationship primarily by influencing the technology - by compromising hardware integrity or setting software limits so that children could not play in the absence of their elders. Such actions, judging from memories, only served to encourage the pupils, who showed marvels of ingenuity and cunning in their desire to play. Parental control had a specific effect, usually not by interrupting the child-technology relationship, but by stimulating a deeper understanding of its structure.