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I know many scoff at this (because I have this same opinion and get scoffed at) but this is so true. Video game addiction is very real. Very, very real. Just as

I know many scoff at this (because I have this same opinion and get scoffed at) but this is so true. Video game addiction is very real. Very, very real. Just as debilitating as any other addiction. The only "advantage" I would say is you don't get as much physiological damage as you do with substance abuse, but even that can be debated: bad posture, bad blood circulation, carpel tunnel, eye strain and migraines, sleep deprivation, etc. Obligatory Don't be afraid to ask for help! Many counselors are now specifically trained for dealing with video game addiction now! Especially if you are college it's probably free!

derefr 9y ago
I don’t know about video game addiction; I interpreted the parent as simply talking about how—if you have the right kind of brain—it can be relatively easy to end up as a professional {e-sport, poker, chess} player and devote your entire life to high-level competitive play, making money from tournaments, studying or practicing whenever you’re not playing, etc. This is a fine life for some people, but if you want to do something else with your life, the knowledge that you’d do well in these competitive-play pursuits can feel like a black hole always pulling at you. It’s easy to lose passion for “real work”—doing good in the world, creating stuff, entertaining people; these are all pursuits that have their high points, but aren’t fundamentally structured to match the human reward system. They have moments where you have to struggle through to regain your desire to do them. Competitive gameplay—probably a lot like competitive athletics—is very “natural” to the human brain. If you’re good at it, it’s hard to resist letting that be your life—and people encourage you to let it! Imagine being 7’1” and enjoying basketball, but having other passions that are stronger (academic economics, let’s say.) If there’s ever a lull in your love of academia, you’d be tempted to just quit and play basketball, right? That’s not an addiction, per se. But you have to repress it like one all the same.
iopq 9y ago
You forgot DVT
jeffshek 9y ago
Video game addiction is a hard thing to admit. Society also mocks you. For this reason, I've never touched World of Warcraft (WoW). I knew that once I started ... I could easily see myself playing for stretches of eighteen hours a day. YouTube showed a clip about someone who had played about 14,000 hours. Granted, it's his life and he can spend it however he wants ... but jesus, 14k hours?! I'm not sure what it is - certain personalities are just so easily addicted to video games. I'm one of them, so I try to avoid them as much as possible. I find myself so easily addicted that I'm sometimes worried that I'll fall back into a video gaming binge. Every now and then, I'll mentally trick myself into thinking I have enough willpower to play just "one" game and I'll get the craving out. Nope. It's always six hours later and I'm late for whatever I had planned for the rest of the day. More frequently than not, the next day I'll trick myself again into one "last" game. I'll blow through another six-eight hours that'll feel like minutes. Day 2 is normally when I have enough angst to uninstall and purge the game. I'm older now (29) so I'm better at realizing the mental tricks of the "one" game fallacy, but even this weekend I played six-seven hours straight of Starcraft 2. (The mental justification was I was "thinking" about AI/ML strategies to play SC2, sigh.) I'm averaging about six-seven months between each relapse, so it's not like I have some absurd problem - but back in college, I could easily spend a week of non-stop playing some forgettable RTS, sleep, drink and then repeat. There's some pang of sadness as I wish I had done something a little more useful, but in hindsight a lot of those failures made me realize how bad video games were to my personality.
- darethas 9y ago
  > I'm not sure what it is Video games are perfect, especially for people who like to tinker and are curious, which to me has been every hacker ever. That's what it is. They literally are just really damn good at what they do. What online video games (and here I am making sure to distinguish between online, competitive type video games, versus offline because in my experience offline video games hardly ever come up in counseling, it's always your CODs, CSes, LoL and WoW's of the world) do psychologically is they provide a structure, a way to advance and progress -- with a tight feedback loop of your progress and a way to socialize with other people. Ultimately these 3 things lead to a huge sense of accomplishment and dopamine rush. Your attention is kept because you have these short spurts of quests, or "you just gotta kill 3 more mobs to get that next level and unlock your new spell tree" or you got to check your auction to get that gold to buy the new gear to do the new raid with your clan next week because you really don't want to let those guys down, etc. The problem is, outside that virtual reality, you see depression, lack of ability to focus at work, not getting work done on time, lack of interest in tasks considered "boring". The way to success is to create these same structures in your life, but for the goals you want to accomplish. Much easier said than done, but at a high level, that's what it is all about. We escape to our virtual reality to get our virtual high and virtual feeling of belonging and virtual progress because we lack any or all of these areas in our real lives and it pains us too much to be able to face that disappointment. And for some of us, that mountain of unfinished tasks, or incomplete projects because of our thousands of hours racked up on Steam seems insurmountable, so that even when we do have free time and no games, we procrastinate -- "it's too much, I'll never get it done anyways" (Procrastination -- especially habitual procrastination is almost always a defense mechanism, and not a moral/character flaw such as "I am just lazy") Now why we escape to the video games? Any number of factors, be it depression, ADHD, or simply never having a good role model or someone to teach you structure and discipline in your life (the latter is usually the case), but that's besides the point. The point is to recognize it, realize you will never be happy unless you achieve what you want from your life. (Why every time I have a couple hours free, I can't work on my side project as intently as I play 3 ranked matches in League of Legends?) I could probably fill up a book with information I learned about it, but everyone is unique. I want to help, if this resonates true in your life -- reach out to me. If you just want someone to email back and forth or talk to, it's my user name at google's mail service.

derefr 9y ago

I don’t know about video game addiction; I interpreted the parent as simply talking about how—if you have the right kind of brain—it can be relatively easy to end up as a professional {e-sport, poker, chess} player and devote your entire life to high-level competitive play, making money from tournaments, studying or practicing whenever you’re not playing, etc. This is a fine life for some people, but if you want to do something else with your life, the knowledge that you’d do well in these competitive-play pursuits can feel like a black hole always pulling at you. It’s easy to lose passion for “real work”—doing good in the world, creating stuff, entertaining people; these are all pursuits that have their high points, but aren’t fundamentally structured to match the human reward system. They have moments where you have to struggle through to regain your desire to do them. Competitive gameplay—probably a lot like competitive athletics—is very “natural” to the human brain. If you’re good at it, it’s hard to resist letting that be your life—and people encourage you to let it! Imagine being 7’1” and enjoying basketball, but having other passions that are stronger (academic economics, let’s say.) If there’s ever a lull in your love of academia, you’d be tempted to just quit and play basketball, right? That’s not an addiction, per se. But you have to repress it like one all the same.

iopq 9y ago

You forgot DVT

jeffshek 9y ago

Video game addiction is a hard thing to admit. Society also mocks you. For this reason, I've never touched World of Warcraft (WoW). I knew that once I started ... I could easily see myself playing for stretches of eighteen hours a day. YouTube showed a clip about someone who had played about 14,000 hours. Granted, it's his life and he can spend it however he wants ... but jesus, 14k hours?! I'm not sure what it is - certain personalities are just so easily addicted to video games. I'm one of them, so I try to avoid them as much as possible. I find myself so easily addicted that I'm sometimes worried that I'll fall back into a video gaming binge. Every now and then, I'll mentally trick myself into thinking I have enough willpower to play just "one" game and I'll get the craving out. Nope. It's always six hours later and I'm late for whatever I had planned for the rest of the day. More frequently than not, the next day I'll trick myself again into one "last" game. I'll blow through another six-eight hours that'll feel like minutes. Day 2 is normally when I have enough angst to uninstall and purge the game. I'm older now (29) so I'm better at realizing the mental tricks of the "one" game fallacy, but even this weekend I played six-seven hours straight of Starcraft 2. (The mental justification was I was "thinking" about AI/ML strategies to play SC2, sigh.) I'm averaging about six-seven months between each relapse, so it's not like I have some absurd problem - but back in college, I could easily spend a week of non-stop playing some forgettable RTS, sleep, drink and then repeat. There's some pang of sadness as I wish I had done something a little more useful, but in hindsight a lot of those failures made me realize how bad video games were to my personality.

darethas 9y ago
> I'm not sure what it is Video games are perfect, especially for people who like to tinker and are curious, which to me has been every hacker ever. That's what it is. They literally are just really damn good at what they do. What online video games (and here I am making sure to distinguish between online, competitive type video games, versus offline because in my experience offline video games hardly ever come up in counseling, it's always your CODs, CSes, LoL and WoW's of the world) do psychologically is they provide a structure, a way to advance and progress -- with a tight feedback loop of your progress and a way to socialize with other people. Ultimately these 3 things lead to a huge sense of accomplishment and dopamine rush. Your attention is kept because you have these short spurts of quests, or "you just gotta kill 3 more mobs to get that next level and unlock your new spell tree" or you got to check your auction to get that gold to buy the new gear to do the new raid with your clan next week because you really don't want to let those guys down, etc. The problem is, outside that virtual reality, you see depression, lack of ability to focus at work, not getting work done on time, lack of interest in tasks considered "boring". The way to success is to create these same structures in your life, but for the goals you want to accomplish. Much easier said than done, but at a high level, that's what it is all about. We escape to our virtual reality to get our virtual high and virtual feeling of belonging and virtual progress because we lack any or all of these areas in our real lives and it pains us too much to be able to face that disappointment. And for some of us, that mountain of unfinished tasks, or incomplete projects because of our thousands of hours racked up on Steam seems insurmountable, so that even when we do have free time and no games, we procrastinate -- "it's too much, I'll never get it done anyways" (Procrastination -- especially habitual procrastination is almost always a defense mechanism, and not a moral/character flaw such as "I am just lazy") Now why we escape to the video games? Any number of factors, be it depression, ADHD, or simply never having a good role model or someone to teach you structure and discipline in your life (the latter is usually the case), but that's besides the point. The point is to recognize it, realize you will never be happy unless you achieve what you want from your life. (Why every time I have a couple hours free, I can't work on my side project as intently as I play 3 ranked matches in League of Legends?) I could probably fill up a book with information I learned about it, but everyone is unique. I want to help, if this resonates true in your life -- reach out to me. If you just want someone to email back and forth or talk to, it's my user name at google's mail service.