Is this the new thing for teenage boys?

[Shine]

ShineBoy has taken to playing an interactive online computer game called "Fortress" in the Half-Life series with his friends..all the while talking with them on his cell phone in speaker mode.

Jeez.... :eyes: Is that normal?? Should I be worried?

We never had any of that shit growing up. Cell phones, computers....

I never had a brother, either, so it's sometimes weird for me having a son that is quickly becoming a young man.

He's 14, btw.

[Deja Q]

1. Why not a land line? Seems cheaper, FWIW.

When I was a kid, dialing BBSes, I had to get my own line and pay for it each month.

[Shine]

3. Oh, don't worry...I made absolutely sure his friend was on Verizon too

that way, the calls are free. :thumbsup:

what's "dialing BBSes"? I'm soo lame. :eyes:

ps. I found a yummy looking Indian turkey cutlets recipe for dinner that involves yogurt, lime, ginger, garlic, cumin and coriander

I better stop posting and go make the damn thing! :)

[hippywife]

7. Would you mind very much

sharing that link, sweetie?

Oh, and thank yo so much for one of my hearts. You are the only one I know of the eight I received. :loveya: I'm still in total amazement at the other seven! LOL

[Shine]

18. Hi hippywife!!!

:loveya: Hey, I thought those hearts were supposed to be ANONYMOUS. :D How'd you know?? :hug:

Here is the link for the game he plays. It's called Team Fortress 2 and it's one of the games in the Half-Life Orange Box series. I guess you have to buy the game first, then you can join up with other players, online.
http://orange.half-life2.com/tf2.html

:hi: Happy Valentine's Day, sweetie!!

[hippywife]

32. LOL!

Sometimes there things you just don't need to be told. You just know. :loveya:

I meant the recipe link. Guess I should have been more specific. :rofl:

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. My 37 yo hubby does it too. LOL (Only it's guildwars, not Fortress, and skype not a cell)

[Ptah]

PErhaps you could spark his interest in that thing, I forget what it's called.

It involves finding items with GPS and maps.

Whatever it is, that might get him outside more.

:hi:

[hippywife]

6. Geocaching? n/t

[Ptah]

9. Yes, I think that's it, my friend.

:hi:

My nephews are into that.

Fun stuff.

[Shine]

15. Yeah, I've heard of that before, too.

I have a friend of mine who uses something with a brand name of Garmin.....I'm a bit sketchy on the details, though.

:hi:

[blondie58]

4. I wouldn't say that its really normal. Its typical, though!

kids these days just are different than we were. What disturbs me, though is the massive texting on their cell phones. It just seems to me that it would be easier to just speak the words- and get an immediate answer. I think that I'm just too old to understand.

[Shine]

5. Oh, I agree. The texting thing is out of control.

he's at the point now where he can text w/out even looking at the letters and he's incredibly fast, too.

He has a whole private texting world I know nothing about. He's texting GIRLS now and they text him back....

It's practically a "relationship" :rofl:

[blondie58]

8. oh. yeah! there are contests held by radio stations to see who can text the fastest.

We had a death last year in CO, though, due to a teen texting WHILE driving. http://bluecollarmtb.com/2006/02/10/texting-teen-who-killed-cyclist-is-sentenced-to-jail-probation/

[Shine]

14. Oh, that's so sad and a double whammy for me cuz I'm a cyclist

:( shit.

[Cabcere]

12. Oh man, my little brother is an INSANE texter.

:eyes: It's completely ridiculous. He's dating this girl (she's 15, he just turned 17 a few days ago), and they talk on the phone for about three or four hours a day, and text nonstop the rest of the time. My dad and brother actually got in a huge fight once, because my brother wouldn't listen to anything my dad was saying, but stopped in mid-swear-word to text his girlfriend back. :eyes: It's insane, IMO. :hi:

[Shine]

19. Oh gawd...you mean that's what I have to look forward to??

right now, I know he's texting girls, but he hasn't gone so far as to actually HAVE A CONVERSATION WITH ONE on the phone, that is. Waaaaay too :scared:



:rofl:

[Cabcere]

23. Well..."conversation" might be a bit of an exaggeration.

:eyes: Honestly, he put her on speakerphone once when I was home, and they talked about NOTHING. Seriously, for like 45 minutes, they went back and forth with inane crap like this:

"What's up?"

"Not much. You?"

"Not too much."

*awkward silence, lasting approximately 1 1/2 minutes*

"So, what're you doing?"

"Oh, nothing...just watching some TV. What are you doing?"

"Making a sandwich."

*more awkward silence, this time probably stretching well past the two-minute mark*

"Baby?"

"Yeah?"

"You know (so-and-so) in color guard?"

"Yeah..."

*conversation devolves into petty gossip, most of which involves g/f whining about other girls in color guard and/or how much her parents hate her, what her injury du jour is, etc. (she's kind of a hypochondriac, IMO)*


And, seriously, that's like the conversation they have every day - they talk for hours on end about NOTHING. :banghead:

[Shine]

25. Wow, I feel like I was there

:rofl: great description, thanks for the laugh.

[Cabcere]

28. You're lucky you weren't

:rofl: That level of inanity tends to hurt one's brain. :crazy: Glad it made you laugh, though! :hug:

[tigereye]

39. a guy came to fix a flat tire for me - he was in his early 20s

he was telling me that his gf texts him all the time, and that he can't understand why she just doesn't call him. Also he was worried that she was going to wreck her car!

[Unvanguard]

30. You can text while doing other things.

Phone conversations require more focus.

(For what it's worth, I have never sent a text message in my life.)

[Random_Australian]

31. Apparently, they've actually had to change what is an acceptable hand-cast

because the musculature is different now. (Thumb is used like a finger for texting)

Interesting, no?

[Steven_S]

10. Good thing he's not racking up the phone bill...

but if it gets to be too much have the kids download Teamspeak.

http://www.goteamspeak.com/

This is a little program gamers use to talk to their buddies.

Ventrillo is another good program.

http://www.ventrilo.com/

[Shine]

20. Hey thanks for the links!!

I'll check 'em out.

I just had a minor upset with him b/c he told me the friend he'd just spent the last 90 min with on his cell phone was actually calling from his land line....meaning it DID cut into our family alloted minutes plan, after all.

I'd been under the impression, based on what he told me, that his friend was calling from HIS cell phone and was on the same plan as ours (Verizon), meaning it was free and wouldn't cut into our minutes. :grr:

We're gonna have to set some rules about this stuff....

in the meantime, I'll check out those links you sent. Good timing, thanks again.

:hi: :pals:

[Kutjara]

11. Voice chat during team-based games has become common.

You've been able to get headsets for the XBox and Playstation for years that allow people to coordinate their attack and defense strategies by talking instead of typing (which is very useful since neither machine comes with a keyboard). Using cellphones instead of dedicated headsets is just a different means to the same end. Just about any modern multiplayer online game is full of people chatting to each other as they play.

It's much better than trying to type "Hey guys! Stop looting that chest and come help me!" while simultaneously fighting fifty orcs, which was how it used to be.

Team Fortress rocks, by the way.

[Shine]

16. Wow, I had no idea about the headset things. Amazing.

yeah, that's what his game is called: Team Fortress. He's completely obsessed.

:hi:

[pokerfan]

13. Tell him I was doing that when he was still dragging on

the whatever.

Doom was released in 1993 and soon everyone in the office was playing it. We'd stay after hours and play on the LAN using our phones on conference call to coordinate our attacks.

I just don't have much time for hard core gaming these days.

[Book Lover]

17. They should skype instead of using up cell minutes (nm)

[Shine]

21. Yeah, I gotta figure out how that shit works.

:hi:

[Book Lover]

22. skype is a very easy setup

over IP, it is free and I have not had any problems with dropout or the like - I use it twice weekly to call across the continent! :hi:

[DS1]

24. no

I know fortress, It's not a teen thing. Don't worry. Let him play, it builds up teamwork.

[Shine]

26. Technically, he's playing "Team Fortress 2", FWIW

what do you mean, "it's not a teen thing"? do you mean adults play it too?

He seems to be having fun with it, I guess I'm a bit unnerved by how sucked into he gets.

[DS1]

27. I used to play all sorts of games online, mostly Quake2, Quake3

and so on. I used to play Quake2 until the Sun came up, and I secretly ran my own server on my company's systems and held 1v1 battleservers on it. Q2 fans will know what that means.

Adults play those games, too.

[Unvanguard]

29. Normal among certain social groups, yes.

You probably shouldn't be worried.

[skater314159]

33. It's not that new, and it's not just for boys

When I was at University, around 2 or 3 AM we'd go take over some of the computer labs on campus and play games - ours were WWII or fantasy games - but we'd have it so that all the groups were in different labs, and allied labs would communicate with each other via phone. It was fun because we would divide up by languages, and ONLY the language of your group could be spoken - except when you would make a cell call to your allies - for example when the Russians would call the English to talk tactics.

Yeah, I'm a geek... my husband and I still sit here in the same room at our computers working and IM each other ;)

Sounds like your son is doing fine...

:hippie:
skater pi

[madinmaryland]

34. My daughter will spend three hours on the phone playing

Webkins on the computer with her friend.

:shrug:

[Shine]

40. yup, my 11 yr old daughter is obsessed with webkins, too

it used to be planet penguin or something like that, now it's the webkins site. :hi:

[madinmaryland]

42. Yeah. She did the Club Penguin thing last year.

:shrug:

I don't get it.

:hi:

[Midlodemocrat]

35. BoyMidlo does the same thing. Half the time I think he's

talking to me, but he's on the speaker phone with his friends. :rofl:

Seems harmless to me.

[yellowdogintexas]

36. similar setup to the World of Warcraft gaming, sounds like. when my daughter's

boyfriend moved to Arizona for school, they rang up a lot of minutes on the cell the first month, then started making WOW appointments instead. So they get on line, play WOW, talk on the headsets while playing and have a lot of fun. No charge other than the normal WOW dues which they were already paying anyway.


we all play WOW in this house. I have not done the headset thing but when my daughter finally goes to AZ to be with the BF will probably learn because no matter how the cellphones integrate minutewise, we can talk on the internet line and play WOW

(and she has a very strong character who can help me level up)

It is fun to watch a group get together on the game to attack a strong enemy. you can hear them all talking to each other, planning the strategy etc. They play a lot of WOW at the tattoo shop during off hours, sometimes my daughter will help me level up my character that way, without the headsets. We play and text and she keeps me alive! It is fun.

Definitely go for the headset/mike handsfree deal via the links provided by others.

[Phillycat]

37. Download Skype for him.

You'll be happy you did.

[tigereye]

38. have you ever seen that Zits cartoon where the kids at the movies

are texting each other about the film while they watch it?

:hi:

I don't think it's that unusual.

I just put a time limit on mine for Youtube - there were too many questions coming up that I didn't want to answer....

[Shine]

41. no, i haven't seen that cartoon, but it sounds about right

these kids and their texting.... :eyes:

:hi:

[CreekDog]

43. it seems like nobody can enjoy something unless they are doing something else

:shrug: