Ernest Cline Quotes

To me there is no more depressing sight than a five-year-old staring at a screen, unsmiling, mouse in hand. Besides whatever dreadful things this prolonged exposure to screens is doing to their brains, computer games tend to be solitary affairs, and produce little laughter.

I'm not against watching myself, but I miss a lot of it. I've got two little kids who we don't let watch TV.

The average family spends 30 hours in front of a television, and they say they don't have the time to have a balanced, integrated life.

I used to play video games all the time, but now I don't because I don't have an attention span.

I don't spend most of my life in front of the media.

I don't play video games because I know that if I ever started, I'd never be able to maintain a career again.

I'm obsessed with TV. How wrong our parents were when they said we should only watch an hour a day. Stop wasting your time reading books.

With my child, I hardly watch TV now.

Computer games don’t affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we’d all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive music.

I feel like covering my children's eyes when they watch television. It's better that they spend their time doing something constructive.

My daughter thinks that only her mum is on the television. Every time she sees the screen anywhere she's like mummy! Because we don't let her watch the TV.

...as absurd and dishonest as claiming that the trouble with computer games is that they stop people watching television.

I teach that people should watch less TV. I don't care what else they're doing! The average American's watching anywhere from three to six hours a day. If you watch six hours of TV a day, that's 15 years of your life!

My daughter wants to throw a stone at a bad man. I stop her from throwing, shaking my head and giving her a little slap. My disapproval is complete. You think: 'That's right, she shouldn't throw a stone even at a villain.' Then I hand her a brick to throw.

I'd like to say that I'm a binge-watcher, but I don't really have time. I think the most I've done in a sit-down is three episodes, maybe. It depends.

Time Warner has called and they want us all back on the couch, just consuming - not producing, not sharing - and we should say, 'No.'

I killed my Facebook page years ago because time clicking around is just dead time. Your brain isn't resting and it isn't doing. I think people have to get their heads around this thing. All this unmitigated input is hurting folks.

We fail our children if we say, 'Don't do as I do, but do as I say'.

We're in a digital age where it's cool to be on your iPhone all the time. All of out-of-school activities my daughter has such as piano one day and acting another day and dance another day are about getting her away from that. People are on video games and their phones, and it's taking up all their mental space.

Television is a very different thing from video games. It's kind of hard for me to compare.

However little television you watch, watch less.

I don't get up and look at e-mail. I don't even know my e-mail address. I needed one just to have a computer put on. But I never, ever even thought of going to it. It's just not what I'm about. I just don't want to waste my life with it. It's just too much; I think people are just a little too absorbed in all of that.

I'm no prophet and I'm no genius, but I can only tell you what I seem to know. As a fan of television and the movies, I think it's all for the better.

I've got my kids brainwashed: You don't use Google, and you don't use an iPod.