My parents took me to sports events and I despised it. When I was able to persuade them to leave me home to play on the computer I was much happier. As an adult, I don't attend sports events either.

I have nothing against people who enjoy watching sports, but it seems strange to me to consider sports viewing as inherently virtuous. You could be doing anything with a computer and a network connection. Even watching sports.

> I remember being at an NHL game where a kid was immersed in his device the entire night, despite being in a $148 seat to (IMHO) the most attention-maintaining of all sports. Having never been taken to a major league sporting event for my entire childhood, seeing this saddened me.

Having been taken to professional and high-level college sports many times in my childhood, starting with an NFL game as a toddler, I'm not saddened by it: until I was a teenager, most of the games were either overwhelmingly far out tediously slow, and in either case only weakly engaging. But my being there meant my parents could be there and I could be with them; I invariably had something else to engage me; I never regretted it and I don't think my parents did either.

You fool, you mentioned sports! The one example guaranteed to make the Hacker News crowd rush in and defend the child watching Youtube!

Try this simple modification to get them on your side of the argument:

> I remember being at a TED Talk where a kid was immersed in his device the entire night, despite being in a $148 seat to (IMHO) the most attention-maintaining of all events. Having never been taken to a major thought leader event for my entire childhood, seeing this saddened me.

In my view there is no qualitative difference between those two activities. Both are just different modes of consumption. Actually playing the sport would be something different, though.

It could be a stress reaction. He might be so overstimulated he needs something close to focus on.

Some people, like me, just don't like to watch sports, even I do a lot of sport by myself. I almost never ever watch on TV, I almost never went to watch a live event. The only reason to watch was if I knew somebody in a amateur event.

NHL is horribly boring for small children, as are most professional sports. The rules don’t make much sense, the games last way too long, the seats are not child friendly, etc.

And many adults too!