Gaming addiction?

But the meter is all over the place, and some of those rhymes are real stretches.

There you go just picking on its flaws and ignoring the overall beauty.

To me it’s like most things, just a matter of striking a balance you’re comfortable with.

There’s a stigma associated to gaming by the general public that says this isn’t a justifiable use of ones time. That’s never bothered me, as others have said above there are a lot of ways to “waste time” that are no more productive than gaming. The unspoken assumption that underlies this view is that one must have a goal of being productive, I don’t, that’s why I’m playing a game.

One of the overarching themes in the US causing many to have a dismal view of gaming stems from a long running puritan work ethic streak that corporations and gov’t find useful exploiting as a means of instilling guilt that one must constantly be productive. Why? Because it aligns so well with keeping wage slaves tied to the wheel just as the consumer based economy keeps those same sheeples on the treadmill chasing the golden ticket.

The thing that’s empty isn’t gaming, it’s the warm embrace of the machine. Wake up Neo, wouldn’t you rather play a nice game of chess.

Oh Gawd, here they come out of the woodwork, one by one… lol, these little bloody wankers.

Scott, no offense or anything, but no one cares mate. And who the fuck expects a rhyme?

I think there is a bit of a blurred line to cross here, in that gaming is by it’s nature a fairly solitary pursuit.

People play to escape. That is it’s purpose.

If there’s a bit of discomfort for you with that, so be it.

It’s just the elephant in the room, and if it wasn’t, no one would be getting their knickers in a knot over what I said.

Yep.

If I binge-play a game, it’s considered a waste of time, yet binge-watching the latest Netflix series isn’t. I couuld spend some of the time I might goof off and play a game writing, but my blog gets 10s of visitors when I post. So, it’s a hobby in the same way gaming is.

As I said earlier, though, MMOs are something that bring out a lot of addictive personalities, especially people who really want to escape the real world. I think people who may feel not needed in the real world, like being a good healer or a tank in an MMO where they are needed. I will say, that spending the day playing WoW as opposed to playing Uncharted feels different. WoW I really feel scattered: do I level an alt; do this quest; get this thing? I feel happier if I focus and say “I’m going to spend a couple hours leveling this alt. No. Not the other one, this one.”

Yeah, pretty much this. I completely agree that people can get addicted to gaming just like anything else, but the reason we see articles is because of this stigma. You could just as easily write an article about being addicted to reading, but as reading is considered to have cultural value no one sees people as addicted to it.

it’s interesting you mention reading because that, too, is usually a solitary activity. I think the lack of stigma there is that it is considered an essential skill, it takes time to learn, and it (along with writing) are considered the founding tenets of civilization.

In other words, it’s been around for a few centuries, so societies have had time to adapt.

Modern gaming, on the other hand, has changed massively within our own recent memories. I remember gaming in 1999 (pcgamer magazine had free demos, one of those cds had age of wonders and battlezone demos…rest is history).

So society is still in witchunt mode because so much of it is new and impenetrable to an outsider.*

I’m a gamer, but I don’t play mmo games (played tibia once upon a time) or mobas, or use twitch, or watch many let’s plays.

Anyway, I’m sure we had similar outrage with comic books once upon a time…

In a nutshell, yeah i think gaming can be an addiction. It’s a stimulation, so by definition quite stimulating.

What you do with it now…that’s what counts.

I use my gaming time as a reward for getting my admin and chores done. If my flat is clean, I’m allowed to kick back and smash stuff in TWH2.

It gives structure to my playing time and makes it so much more enjoyable. I’m deliberately manipulating myself, and I don’t see why this can’t be applied to people “addicted” to games.

  • at grave risk of stirring up unneeded controversy, I’m not sure what counts as a “gamer” these days. It’s become a trope, but I have seen grannies playing candy crush…and quite intently too.

Posers.

Yeah, Comics Code Authority says hi.

I have read books for thousands of hours. Am I addicted? Or are games the only art form we are going to hang this slur on?

Agreed. It’s like saying “I’m addicted to having fun.” Isn’t that the … goal? Of like, life?

I feel like I’m addicted (or at least making a bad choice) because I will practically use all of my free time doing it, and I have a lot of free time. I mean, I still do chores (laundry, mow the lawn, grocery shopping, some cleaning, some yardwork, etc), but not as much as I should do. I do things with the family, but if they’re doing something I’m not interested in, it isn’t unusual for me to slink off. I love playing tennis and will usually choose that over playing PC games. When I can get motivated, I’ll go running at some part of the day for some exercise.

But, that still leaves a lot of hours per day at the PC. If you include forum time, I easily spend 5 to 10 hours per day during the week. Sure, there are some days I have appointments, or do some extra chores but almost every weekday I’m spending that amount of time and I do feel bad for it.

I feel like I should be able to come up with something else - learn a new skill (guitar, a language, try to make a game, etc) to try and challenge and better myself in some way. I should read up on some history or something I find interesting. I need to lose about 30 pounds. I should make more of an effort to exercise and do strength training.

But, I almost always just go to the PC and fire it up even if I feel guilty for it.

Edit: I think Scott’s statement sums it up for me. I think I’m addicted to fun and I’m pretty lazy.

You guys might as well face it, you’re addicted to love.

Indeed.

@JMR very good :)

Were they about panzers???

Only the majority! :)

But there’s a line isn’t there? Games, you can try and make them more addictive. Fiddle with the reward structure, do whatever it is that the specialists do, and I’m going to assume it works, since people get payed to do it.

Short of sprinkling some addictive substance on books, what can books do to become more addictive in the same way?

WoW is great at the reward structure.

For me. a good book series that I find out late to the game, I can binge read the series in no time flat.

My brother who has graduated from medical school and is on track to becoming a psychiatrist mentioned a concept to me in passing a few weeks ago which I found fascinating: “downward drift”.

It’s probably somewhat controversial, or at least counter to my own social sensibilities, but if you look at addiction as a form of mental illness (which should be easy), then one way of looking at it is by not addressing the addiction what sorts of opportunities is one passing up in life? You just named a few, and I can relate:

I have an MBA and feel at least like I could be doing more with my career, but after working 9 to 6 in retail and then an hour long commute home I am usually pretty exhausted; I could be applying to new jobs and sending out my resume in that hour between dinner and bed, but it’s much easier just to turn to my favorite game during that time. Sometimes I will do the “good thing” and finish an application, but frequently the most I can muster is a bit of reading or playing guitar. Weekends and all my other free time is spent with my son.

So… what is my gaming habit preventing me from doing? Wouldn’t it be a little bit easier if gaming weren’t even a part of the picture? The thing is, I almost always feel better about myself the next day if I do complete an application or spend an hour practicing guitar (well, the payoff there is when I actually finish learning a song). Reading is sort of karma-neutral. Other times I feel like… damn, I’ve really spent quite a lot of hours playing Elder Scrolls Legends the last few weeks.

…downward drift.

But binge reading a series over a weekend isn’t being addicted. It’s “I’m getting too old for this shit but I just had to finish this series, it’s too good, back to normal life plus boatloads of coffee on Monday”. It’s “I should’ve tidied up the house but didn’t LOL, next weekend”. It’s not “I stayed up until 4AM to do an Eve Online OP, I know it’s the 20th time this month, but there’s a war going on, this shit matters, fuckin’ Goonswarm / BoB / insert entity here”.