I played a lot of video games when younger. I regret the amount of time I spent. It deeply harmed my health, harmed my social relationships, harmed my school,

I played a lot of video games when younger. I regret the amount of time I spent. It deeply harmed my health, harmed my social relationships, harmed my school, and limited my world. It was empty success. My total `/played` in WoW wound up well over 2 years at this point over a 5 year period, I believe. And WoW was not the only game I've played. I've not logged on in years, and I don't care to reactivate and do the math. On the other hand... they were inexpensive entertainment that worked out well for my living situations. Some of them provided great relationships and wonderful bonding experiences with other humans from all over the world. Games motivated me to get into software development. Yet, had I limited myself in time and taken the time saved from games to doing more programming, more art, and more reading (all perfectly doable and feasible for the life situations I was in when I was spending time gaming that much), I'd be a better human today. Period. Video games are fine in responsible amounts, and I consumed in vast and irresponsible amounts. These days I pull out Dwarf Fortress every couple months and spend the evenings on a weekend Striking the Earth, and that's appropriate and responsible in my life at present. I encourage my colleagues who have freshly graduated from college to limit their gaming and to use that time to improve themselves in other ways more engaged in the totality and diversity of human life.