I have an 8 year old and I just curate the hell out of things he's allowed to play, and limit time consistently and ruthlessly. Right now he gets 10 minutes/day for video games, and his options are Slay the Spire, Into the Breach, and Braid. He's happy to play the games provided, and I'm happy that he's basically choosing between a math test, chess, and logic puzzles.
I give him another 20 minutes a day of creative time that he can use for things like TinkerCad or drawing apps. He only takes me up on it about half the time.
I do a similar thing with video content. He can choose from a very limited list of educational-ish shows (1 per day). Total screen time is under an hour/day, and I don't feel like any of it is brain rot. It does take more work up front for me on the curation end, but we don't need to revisit options all that often.
Those are all great slow-paced single-player games with a lot of depth. There are no dailies, loot boxes, battle passes, or activity feeds. They're entirely self-contained with practically no link to the Internet dopamine sludge machine.
They’ll surely enjoy playing fewer games rather than an avalanche of content that will leave them disoriented, bored and anxious. It happens with adults too.
I give him another 20 minutes a day of creative time that he can use for things like TinkerCad or drawing apps. He only takes me up on it about half the time.
I do a similar thing with video content. He can choose from a very limited list of educational-ish shows (1 per day). Total screen time is under an hour/day, and I don't feel like any of it is brain rot. It does take more work up front for me on the curation end, but we don't need to revisit options all that often.