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It comes not from arrogance but from an apparent difference in how you perceive addictive video games: harmless entertainment, or harmful addictive substances?
by gfodor 14y ago
It comes not from arrogance but from an apparent difference in how you perceive addictive video games: harmless entertainment, or harmful addictive substances? I'm not going to put my chips down here, but the point is the original poster sees WoW on par with cigarettes and I think even many smokers themselves would wish they didn't get "enjoyment" out of smoking, but are trapped in an addiction.
- rhizome 14y agoI think it derives more from a too-expansive definition of addiction that serves only to provide a self-justifying platform for prejudice.
- adgar2 14y agoI'm 24. I've been addicted to cigarettes, alcohol, cocaine, and WoW. It's the same fucking thing. They use the same mechanics to tickle your dopamine receptors so you'll come back instead of looking out in the outside world for that same feeling of reward - family, friends, relationships all get fucked up because you spend your time seeking reward from {cigs, booze, drugs, WoW}.
- rhizome 14y agoI'm sorry for your troubles, but not everything that touches dopamine is an addiction.
- adgar2 14y agoYou just wrote off everything I said except the word "dopamine." Given your outright advocacy ("anti-gamer") throughout this thread, it seems you aren't interested in a real discussion.
- npsimons 14y agoAnd you like to cherry pick what you deem relevant to the discussion and demonize a harmless diversion that millions of people dally in daily with no repercussions to the rest of their life. Look, I'm sorry you've had a bad time and got addicted to WoW. That doesn't make it an inherently addictive thing. Some people can play it in their spare time without issue; others can't. Not everybody is the same.
- kellishaver 14y agoI think there are (intentionally) qualities to the game that can be addicting to some people, but that's common of a lot of video games and not unique to WoW - though they do seem to have the formula down to a T. It comes down to the person playing, though. Me, I can play a video game for 20 minutes and stop and go on to something else and not care. My husband used to play WoW for hours and hours at a time at the expense of work and family, to the point that it was having a negative impact on his health, his relationship with our child, and putting a huge strain on our marriage. But I think WoW was just feeding the problem, not causing it. I think it was a reaction to a deeper depression and WoW was just something to get sucked into and escape reality. He stopped playing WoW, switched jobs, and is going back to school, has friends over on a regular basis for some real interaction and is happier than he's been in a long time. Now he sits down some nights and games for an hour or two after the kid's in bed and that's that, unless we have something else planned, and then he doesn't. The tendency to get sucked in for hours at the expense of all else has disappeared. I think, in the wrong circumstances, that escape that WoW offers can be addicting, dangerous and damaging, but I think it's less often the game that's the actual root cause of the problem.
- rhizome 14y agoI think, in the wrong circumstances, that escape that WoW offers can be addicting, dangerous and damaging Like anything, which is why it's not helpful in this context to cast the net so wide as to include cigarettes and all the other stuff that the above poster tried to shovel into his point.
- gfodor 14y ago