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Video games become the sole source of agency in many people's lives. This isn't just for the unemployed, but also for folks stuck in a job where they feel like

Video games become the sole source of agency in many people's lives. This isn't just for the unemployed, but also for folks stuck in a job where they feel like they lack control. I couldn't understand at first why my fellow Googlers found so much time to play video games, but after a couple of months I understood. Afternoon Halo matches became the highlight of my day, I felt like I had more choice and responsibility in a 20 minute match than I did the rest of my programming work.

kemiller2002 9y ago
A friend of mine felt the same way. He was undergoing a tragedy in his family, and he would play video games after returning from the hospital at night. It's funny, looking at him and talking to him, you'd never think he'd be a huge video game player, but it really was a source of stress relief. He could focus his unspent frustrations and hurt into competing online, and the way he explained it, I think it kept him sane during those times. It's funny, I can tell how in control of my life by gauging how much I play games. When I start obsessing about playing games (I like playing them, but when I feel I have to play them to escape), I know something needs to change in my life. I'm saying it's that way for everyone, but it really is a great tool for stress relief for some.
- J-dawg 9y ago
  I haven't been able to find it, but I remember a comment here on HN by a guy who basically said that gaming saved his life by helping him to zone out during a period of severe depression. I guess it's a form of mindfulness, in a way.
  - sametmax 9y ago
    That's the exact opposite actually. Nit saying it's a bad thing though. But it's important to understand that screens are taking your attention away. You are not in the moment at all.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - jfoutz 9y ago
      Would you be willing to elaborate on that a bit? Once upon a time, i played a few competitive games. I'd have to be very aware of my emotional state. Being aware of a sort of sick feeling when i'm falling behind, recognizing that that exists and not letting it affect my play seems like what people mean when they speak of mindfulness. And the converse, not getting cocky when pulling ahead. I also dealt with the random chemical changes of adrenaline. My hands get very cold and a little sweaty, heart races a bit. But that's just a thing that happens. being aware of it, acknowledging it and moving on with what i choose to do next seems like a mindful practice. But maybe you mean something more sophisticated?
      - posterboy 9y ago
        Maybe OP means the eu-stress from gaming is neglectable compared to the emotional trauma described. Getting used to and thinking that's normal stress might numb rather than build mindfulness, because just doing it frequently doesn't promise improvement. EG repetitive strain might hinder that. And it might be distractive in general.
        jfoutz 9y ago
        That's a really good point. the gaming i talked about was in a pretty stable time in my life, more or less every other aspect of my life was working smoothly. Thanks!
      - sametmax 9y ago
        I'm just a beginner since I've been meditating for only 8 years but from my experience, most video games involve at least one of the following: - ego - loosing track of time - loosing track of physical reality, such as bodily sensations - reacting - desiring an outcome - judging Not all of them, and not for all video games. But any of those characteristic seems to be something quite antagonist with mindfulness. Now somebody that is very focused, very selfless and equanimous in a competitive game will have something close to meditation. But first they are rare, and secondly the very existence of the game, being virtual and... a game, seems to be orthogonal the mindful state state. I'm not a competitive player though, and: - when I play dota I react A LOT. - when I'm coding or watching a movie, I completely forget reality. It contrast a lot with my meditation practice. Maybe some people are better at dealing with screens that I am.
  - fsloth 9y ago
    I'm pretty sure Kerbal Space Program was the lynchpin upon which my sanity hung during a pretty dark period some time ago induced by a serious medical condition of a close family member and sudden passing away of few others during a period of two years.
    - jacquesm 9y ago
      That's the dangerous pattern. A single event in isolation you can cope with but if things hit hard in succession it can really strip you of resilience, a mental form of being punch drunk.
- mickronome 9y ago
  Same here, my amount of (somewhat compulsive) gaming is directly related to generic emotional and psychological well-being. Less well being -> more gaming, with gaming clearly being the effect and not the primary cause.
startupempl0ye 9y ago
Don't worry. Your job will be automated away pretty soon, and you'll be able to enjoy your Halo whole day.
- jboggan 9y ago
  I'm the one who is trying to automate programmers away . . .
gdulli 9y ago
That's a good way to articulate why I couldn't work at a large company. And I never thought about them being related before, but maybe part of why I don't play games so much anymore.
orthoganol 9y ago
You're also at an organization that selects for personalities susceptible to that. So many people want to work at companies like Google because they care more about the recognition for working at a company like Google than the actual work they do or impact they make. And that's a recipe for its own type of acedia.
- jboggan 9y ago
  Great word. It's interesting how my desire to game has almost entirely disappeared since I left there and started a new company. I'm sitting here building deep learning rigs with fat GPUs, I could just add another partition running Windows and have a killer system for Overwatch . . . but nah, I'm having too much fun with Tensorflow to care.
  - orthoganol 9y ago
    I too am sitting here waiting for a TensorFlow language model to finish training :)
    - jboggan 9y ago
      Shoot me an email!
    - jacquesm 9y ago
      I wonder how many people here are currently browsing HN waiting for their models to train. 526/1816 [=======>......................] - ETA: 1123s - loss: 0.2013 - acc: 0.9386 - val_loss: 0.3690 - val_acc: 0.9122
      - jboggan 9y ago
        It's the new compiling.
nickpsecurity 9y ago
Happened to me too much with FPS's. I am proud that I managed to stay off games like WoW that are basically the same stuff all the time. I fight smart players with different kits and play strategies. Keeps me thinking quick on my feet with improved hand-eye coordination and reflexes vs what I have with a brain injury. That said, it still was too much time invested into stuff that isn't improving my life. Even the stuff improving thinking fast is training the intuition for wrong situations. I'd be better off doing part-time or contract work involving similar skills. Probably...
kough 9y ago
My friends and I blow off school pressure by playing smash. It is, no joke, the biggest addiction in my life. But it's exactly what you say – a way to regain some control in a world that otherwise is lacking in it.
klenwell 9y ago
Insightful observation. Makes sense. As a variation on this idea... I have a job now where I do have control over some stuff that matters to me (and it definitely helps!) But I still like to take a video game break once or twice a day. My game of choice is a Risk-clone on my phone. It's nice because it moderately cognitively challengeing, offers some variety with different maps, and the AI is quite mediocre -- which means I usually win. Games generally take 5-10 minutes and winning I notice gives me a little lift (even though I know my opponents are at an inherent disadvantage). So I've concluded overall it's a plus for my mental health. Of course, every once in a while I do lose, which makes me a little grumpy. In that case, I'll usually just play another game straight away and win.
- suby 9y ago
  Out of curiosity, could you give the name or a link to the game?
  - klenwell 9y ago
    It's called Border Siege. I believe it was originally called Drisk and Android-only. Not sure if it ever made it to the iPhone.
- RugnirViking 9y ago
  I'm interested in this style of > the AI is quite mediocre -- which means I usually win I find the same with a certain chess program on my phone where I find running the lowest AI quite nice for 5 minutes and I have a couple thousand games versus it. I know I could do something more challenging, but there's something to be said for simple puzzles to be solved almost in a ritual way for comfort and stability
Camillo 9y ago
What were you working on at Google?
edem 9y ago
At my workplace I have a rather good control over the stuff I do (I'm an architect at an IT company) but I still play games online. I mainly do it because it is a kind of therapy for me because the game I play rewards careful strategic thinking, cool headed decision making, patience and punishes recklessness and hotheadedness. When I manage to remain cool and win a game I always feel a sense of achievement. I'm not representative though because I play games for 27 years and I never had this kind of a problem.

kemiller2002 9y ago

A friend of mine felt the same way. He was undergoing a tragedy in his family, and he would play video games after returning from the hospital at night. It's funny, looking at him and talking to him, you'd never think he'd be a huge video game player, but it really was a source of stress relief. He could focus his unspent frustrations and hurt into competing online, and the way he explained it, I think it kept him sane during those times. It's funny, I can tell how in control of my life by gauging how much I play games. When I start obsessing about playing games (I like playing them, but when I feel I have to play them to escape), I know something needs to change in my life. I'm saying it's that way for everyone, but it really is a great tool for stress relief for some.

J-dawg 9y ago
I haven't been able to find it, but I remember a comment here on HN by a guy who basically said that gaming saved his life by helping him to zone out during a period of severe depression. I guess it's a form of mindfulness, in a way.
- sametmax 9y ago
  That's the exact opposite actually. Nit saying it's a bad thing though. But it's important to understand that screens are taking your attention away. You are not in the moment at all.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - jfoutz 9y ago
    Would you be willing to elaborate on that a bit? Once upon a time, i played a few competitive games. I'd have to be very aware of my emotional state. Being aware of a sort of sick feeling when i'm falling behind, recognizing that that exists and not letting it affect my play seems like what people mean when they speak of mindfulness. And the converse, not getting cocky when pulling ahead. I also dealt with the random chemical changes of adrenaline. My hands get very cold and a little sweaty, heart races a bit. But that's just a thing that happens. being aware of it, acknowledging it and moving on with what i choose to do next seems like a mindful practice. But maybe you mean something more sophisticated?
    - posterboy 9y ago
      Maybe OP means the eu-stress from gaming is neglectable compared to the emotional trauma described. Getting used to and thinking that's normal stress might numb rather than build mindfulness, because just doing it frequently doesn't promise improvement. EG repetitive strain might hinder that. And it might be distractive in general.
      - jfoutz 9y ago
        That's a really good point. the gaming i talked about was in a pretty stable time in my life, more or less every other aspect of my life was working smoothly. Thanks!
    - sametmax 9y ago
      I'm just a beginner since I've been meditating for only 8 years but from my experience, most video games involve at least one of the following: - ego - loosing track of time - loosing track of physical reality, such as bodily sensations - reacting - desiring an outcome - judging Not all of them, and not for all video games. But any of those characteristic seems to be something quite antagonist with mindfulness. Now somebody that is very focused, very selfless and equanimous in a competitive game will have something close to meditation. But first they are rare, and secondly the very existence of the game, being virtual and... a game, seems to be orthogonal the mindful state state. I'm not a competitive player though, and: - when I play dota I react A LOT. - when I'm coding or watching a movie, I completely forget reality. It contrast a lot with my meditation practice. Maybe some people are better at dealing with screens that I am.
- fsloth 9y ago
  I'm pretty sure Kerbal Space Program was the lynchpin upon which my sanity hung during a pretty dark period some time ago induced by a serious medical condition of a close family member and sudden passing away of few others during a period of two years.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    That's the dangerous pattern. A single event in isolation you can cope with but if things hit hard in succession it can really strip you of resilience, a mental form of being punch drunk.
mickronome 9y ago
Same here, my amount of (somewhat compulsive) gaming is directly related to generic emotional and psychological well-being. Less well being -> more gaming, with gaming clearly being the effect and not the primary cause.

startupempl0ye 9y ago

Don't worry. Your job will be automated away pretty soon, and you'll be able to enjoy your Halo whole day.

jboggan 9y ago
I'm the one who is trying to automate programmers away . . .

gdulli 9y ago

That's a good way to articulate why I couldn't work at a large company. And I never thought about them being related before, but maybe part of why I don't play games so much anymore.

orthoganol 9y ago

You're also at an organization that selects for personalities susceptible to that. So many people want to work at companies like Google because they care more about the recognition for working at a company like Google than the actual work they do or impact they make. And that's a recipe for its own type of acedia.

jboggan 9y ago
Great word. It's interesting how my desire to game has almost entirely disappeared since I left there and started a new company. I'm sitting here building deep learning rigs with fat GPUs, I could just add another partition running Windows and have a killer system for Overwatch . . . but nah, I'm having too much fun with Tensorflow to care.
- orthoganol 9y ago
  I too am sitting here waiting for a TensorFlow language model to finish training :)
  - jboggan 9y ago
    Shoot me an email!
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    I wonder how many people here are currently browsing HN waiting for their models to train. 526/1816 [=======>......................] - ETA: 1123s - loss: 0.2013 - acc: 0.9386 - val_loss: 0.3690 - val_acc: 0.9122
    - jboggan 9y ago
      It's the new compiling.

nickpsecurity 9y ago

Happened to me too much with FPS's. I am proud that I managed to stay off games like WoW that are basically the same stuff all the time. I fight smart players with different kits and play strategies. Keeps me thinking quick on my feet with improved hand-eye coordination and reflexes vs what I have with a brain injury. That said, it still was too much time invested into stuff that isn't improving my life. Even the stuff improving thinking fast is training the intuition for wrong situations. I'd be better off doing part-time or contract work involving similar skills. Probably...

kough 9y ago

My friends and I blow off school pressure by playing smash. It is, no joke, the biggest addiction in my life. But it's exactly what you say – a way to regain some control in a world that otherwise is lacking in it.

klenwell 9y ago

Insightful observation. Makes sense. As a variation on this idea... I have a job now where I do have control over some stuff that matters to me (and it definitely helps!) But I still like to take a video game break once or twice a day. My game of choice is a Risk-clone on my phone. It's nice because it moderately cognitively challengeing, offers some variety with different maps, and the AI is quite mediocre -- which means I usually win. Games generally take 5-10 minutes and winning I notice gives me a little lift (even though I know my opponents are at an inherent disadvantage). So I've concluded overall it's a plus for my mental health. Of course, every once in a while I do lose, which makes me a little grumpy. In that case, I'll usually just play another game straight away and win.

suby 9y ago
Out of curiosity, could you give the name or a link to the game?
- klenwell 9y ago
  It's called Border Siege. I believe it was originally called Drisk and Android-only. Not sure if it ever made it to the iPhone.
RugnirViking 9y ago
I'm interested in this style of > the AI is quite mediocre -- which means I usually win I find the same with a certain chess program on my phone where I find running the lowest AI quite nice for 5 minutes and I have a couple thousand games versus it. I know I could do something more challenging, but there's something to be said for simple puzzles to be solved almost in a ritual way for comfort and stability

Camillo 9y ago

What were you working on at Google?

edem 9y ago

At my workplace I have a rather good control over the stuff I do (I'm an architect at an IT company) but I still play games online. I mainly do it because it is a kind of therapy for me because the game I play rewards careful strategic thinking, cool headed decision making, patience and punishes recklessness and hotheadedness. When I manage to remain cool and win a game I always feel a sense of achievement. I'm not representative though because I play games for 27 years and I never had this kind of a problem.