I definitely lost many months playing my SNES. MMOs have the social aspect, which for people like me, is the main draw, any skinner box effect rapidly wears of

I definitely lost many months playing my SNES. MMOs have the social aspect, which for people like me, is the main draw, any skinner box effect rapidly wears off, but many people spent months hanging about in Orgrimmar chatting with guildies not doing anything. MMOs tend to (in my experience only) be more of a distraction too. Single players never got me through an anxiety or depression episode, whilst MMOs saved me there more than once or twice. Dont forget, in the old days of single player, the media was not as it is now, and there is a focus generally on "Are people behaving differently because of online things", and MMOs are an easy target for this.