Computer Game addiction

[Aleksey_aka_al]

Obsessive and compulsive are not newfangled terms.

I meant OSD, since when you said "compulsively obsessive" I already thought you're talking about it. I can't think of such a situation when using a common language you would use those two together without referring to OSD.

 

[Hygro]

Can they become addictive? This is getting close to the non-medical policy, but I realize that in some cases there is a need to restore the lack of a chemical.

If one is able to rationalize on their own, what the symptoms are, then anything else is drastic and in need of intervention. And to address it further is beyond the scope of posting here.

Anything can be addictive. "Trying hard" to fix your problems can be addictive--a lot of people are more comfortable always trying than they are succeeding and resting on their success.

It's a matter of, what's important in life? Struggling against your own body and mind or using a functioning body and mind to go further out into the world to make a difference?

Or in Lay Lay's case, having a blast playing games he's happy to play

 

[timtofly]

I am just trying to help understand the situation. Like I said I cannot help if society labels everything under the same term. There are differences and if calling them something else which is closer to what they are, then it may lead to a better understanding.

Spoiler :

However, most addictive behavior is not related to either physical tolerance or exposure to cues. People compulsively use drugs, gamble, or shop nearly always in reaction to being emotionally stressed, whether or not they have a physical addiction. Since these psychologically based addictions are not based on drug or brain effects, they can account for why people frequently switch addictive actions from one drug to a completely different kind of drug, or even to a non-drug behavior. The focus of the addiction isn't what matters; it's the need to take action under certain kinds of stress. To treat this kind of addiction requires an understanding of how it works psychologically.

And hopefully I did not cross the border.

 

[The_J]

Where's the "not anymore" option?

Looking back on my life of playing games I've pretty much concluded that when we play games a lot it's more to our benefit. If you want to stop playing you gotta replace them with something. Otherwise what's the point? When you have something to do instead, you'll do it.

That's me, anyway.

Sort of...the problem is that the addiction will/might prevent you from doing something else. Something, which might be way more beneficial.
I haven't been social for years.
I was forced in a situation where I had to. Wouldn't have done it on my own, because games ruled. Now not anymore doing games, due to that.
Don't think I could have done that myself.

I lost everything (my life) when I got a job. I bought a PC with my first paycheck, then promptly burned a copy of Quake 2 CTF and booted that mother up. Never looked back. That girlfriend of 5 years is now long gone. We would have kids in high school now, but instead I did this...
And I still continue it. I don't want to stop.

o_O

 

[Disgustipated]

It means you cannot control your obsessive behavior. Playing games without stopping is an obsession. Severe cases of OCD are clearly recognized by washing one hands, or super neatness. That is caused by irrational fears. Humans can still allow activities to become obsessive and if it cannot be controlled - compulsively obsessive.

Oh I don't play games without stopping. I can easily stop. but I play games "a lot". Probably more than what is healthy. Sitting for long periods is not healthy to begin with. But I'm probably no worse than some guy who watches tv many hours a day.

 

[Luckymoose]

Why does it matter? You have HOURS AND HOURS of time in a day where you do literally nothing. Americans don't have jack squat to do. We don't farm or pump water or anything else like that. We have nothing to do but sit around enjoying media in one form or another. I'm addicted to media (gaming, books, film, music). It is how I learn. It is how I play. It is how I relax. Nothing wrong with it. Stop pretending something is wrong with you. The end goal of civilization is having all the time in the world to do exactly this.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

The end goal of civilization is to only live inside our heads?
It is a very one-dimensional view in another respect as well. To reduce activities we actually want to do to consumption. What about creation?
I have no gaming problem. When I was in school gaming could be reaally fun, but nowadays gaming often seems so ... pointless. I mean I can still appreciate some gaming, just as I appreciate movies, novels etc... But they offer no meaning.

 

[Dralix]

But most important of all, talk to your wife and not random strangers on the internet.

Good advice, this ...

 

[Perfection]

Plenty of time? Please. The day is ridiculously short with far too much to do. The fundamental issue here is games preventing one from engaging life at a higher level.

Gaming is tricky, and I've struggled with problems stemming from it. Games can be an unmitigated time suck or an amazing and precious experience. There are some games that have damaged my life, and there are some games that have vastly improved mine.

Before you start a game. Perhaps ask yourself what you want out of it? Is the game going to deliver? What else could you do with your time? Is there something you should do before gaming?

 

[Disgustipated]

Of course on days like today I think I'm not addicted. I haven't been in the mood to play any games today (or yesterday). I watched a couple older movies earlier.

I was playing Star Wars: The Old Republic again. And I do think it's a pretty decent game, and better than World of Warcraft in some ways (at least in the single player game). I don't think it deserves all the hate it got. But it suffers from the problem all MMO's have. Too much of a time sink. They artificially lengthen the game with tedious stuff. Not as bad as World of Warcraft with their thousands of quests (they like to brag about) of doing minor fetch stuff. I'd rather have a few epic quests and side quests instead of hundreds of smaller quests. I don't think a game should require hundreds of hours to reach max level. Who has this kind of time? 50 hours to complete a game sounds about right to me.

But I think I'm burned out on that game. It's fun (Jedi guardian combat is pretty fun), but after a while I do get bored of computer games. There is only so much of them I can play. My main problem is I have flashbacks of computer games when I'm doing other things in my life, and I get the urge to play them again. So I do play my older games quite a few times.

 

[Phrossack]

Addicted? No. But I play a hell of a lot more than I should.

That said, what else am I to do? The things I want to do the most are not real options for me - camping, fishing, riding, horse archery, maybe a spot of woodworking, and kayaking, but mostly camping and horse archery. I prefer being on my own, so most social things outside my inner circle aren't interesting. I should exercise and read more, but it's very hard to get myself to do these things, especially when I have the option of playing games.

 

[Aleksey_aka_al]

The end goal of civilization is having all the time in the world to do exactly this.

Watch Black Mirror, second episode of the first season "Fifteen Million Merits".

All other episodes are worth a watch too, and this one is really great and... sad. The series deal with modern media (black mirror == screen) and how it affects society.

 

[Disgustipated]

Why does it matter? You have HOURS AND HOURS of time in a day where you do literally nothing. Americans don't have jack squat to do. We don't farm or pump water or anything else like that. We have nothing to do but sit around enjoying media in one form or another. I'm addicted to media (gaming, books, film, music). It is how I learn. It is how I play. It is how I relax. Nothing wrong with it. Stop pretending something is wrong with you. The end goal of civilization is having all the time in the world to do exactly this.

I do work 40 hours a week, and I do lose more time in showering (I take long showers ), and travel time to work. And if you are married (although I'm pretty much not anymore), you have other obligations. Finding time for games is not easy.

I admit I'm not the best at time management. I simply cannot find enough time for MMO's except the one time in my life I was unemployed for 11 months. I got a lot accomplished in MMO's in that time.

I disagree with the end goal of civilization. Each person's goals will be a little bit different. I think humans were happier and better adjusted when there was more struggle in life. Everything comes so easy now days, we get depressed with the lack of challenge in our lives. We slog on doing the same old boring job, just to come home and do the same things with our lives day after day. Humans have more mental problems today than at any point in history. So I doubt this is the end goal of civilization.

 

[Dralix]

I suspect that Luckmoose's point is something along the lines of the parable of the Mexican fisherman and the American businessman.

 

[downtown]

I don't think I've played 10 hours of computer games for the entire last year. I probably play around 6-8 hours of XBOX a week, but that ebbs and flows with other obligations (I may easily go a week without touching it at all). I probably played too many video games in high school, but I've never been addicted.

You're right, once you get older, and have relationships, and more demanding jobs, and other adult responsibilities, it gets very hard to spend that much time on games, unless you decide the other stuff just isn't important.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Plenty of time? Please. The day is ridiculously short with far too much to do. The fundamental issue here is games preventing one from engaging life at a higher level.

There's a serious disconnect here between people and sometimes even society though. What constitutes "engaging life at a higher level"? It's unlikely everyone would define that the same way, and in some cases it's even more context sensitive. Let me give some examples:

- Person plays games instead of finding a significant other and getting married when he otherwise would have. Most of society would agree that games were a detriment to this person's life.

- Now, take a different person...the kind of person who would never marry regardless and knows it. Just to make it less debateable, let's say this person picked up gaming at 40 years old and never looked back, and hadn't seriously dated anybody for 10 years prior. This probably isn't the games influencing his decision, but society might see it that way.

- This one is more personal: Games, or going out drinking at a club with friends? Man, have I caught flak for choosing the former. But I'll tell you what; the latter is an *actively unpleasant* experience for me. It's not really logical to blame game addiction for an aversion to being unable to hear the person next to you, breathing in smoky air, and worrying about who's actually going to transport people home alive safely. On the flip side, given the option between video games and flag football in college for example, I always chose the latter. I still heard clamoring that I was somehow video game addicted (more so by parents or the clubbing friends, and not anybody else haha), but never flag football addicted, work out addicted, or just going to bed rather than deliberately suffering addicted .

This brings me to an interesting point: what is your next best alternative to playing games from an enjoyment perspective? To me, the big indicator here is if that alternative is something that one could logically frame as more desirable, or something that should be, with a healthy dose of skepticism in terms of opinions and whatnot. There is a big difference for example when one's family wants to do something nice (dinner, family night, going somewhere everyone wants to go) vs "you're ignoring us and playing games but if you were watching tv with us instead or doing nothing we'd have no problem whatsoever". The former can be a legit gripe depending on context, the latter isn't. At all.

It comes down to whether the hobby is dominating time that the person himself would otherwise wish to allocate more evenly, but can't do so due to addiction without realizing it. As I've picked up other things in life I do play considerably less as a result, but it's still easily my highest preferred down-time choice.

 

[really]

You are binge gaming.

Playing 1 hour or 2 a day isn't realistic. It'd take forever to finish a game that way.

Yes it is. I got GTAV in September and I am barely a third of the way through.
Hobbies are important but they shouldn't be put ahead of family life.

 

[Hygro]

Sort of...the problem is that the addiction will/might prevent you from doing something else. Something, which might be way more beneficial.
I haven't been social for years.
I was forced in a situation where I had to. Wouldn't have done it on my own, because games ruled. Now not anymore doing games, due to that.
Don't think I could have done that myself.

Kind of depends on the game, too.

Diablo II for me was a problem. But before it was a problem it was a solution.

Most "addictions" are solutions to other problems and as much as culturally we say "it's bad it's bad", often it was, at least for a while, less bad and possibly even good. I can't really say I even regret virtually any of the gaming I've done, and I've had some bad relationships with games before.

I do however, sort of regret quitting out of a specific civ 4 multiplayer game to spend time with my girlfriend back in 2007. Of course, I feel like if I hadn't, it could have doomed what was a cherished relationship. Plus it helped me remember how awesome that round was

 

[Luckymoose]

The end goal of civilization is to only live inside our heads?
It is a very one-dimensional view in another respect as well. To reduce activities we actually want to do to consumption. What about creation?
I have no gaming problem. When I was in school gaming could be reaally fun, but nowadays gaming often seems so ... pointless. I mean I can still appreciate some gaming, just as I appreciate movies, novels etc... But they offer no meaning.

Games have plenty of meaning. The end goal of civilization is not having to do anything but what you want. Creation is a hobby, much like gaming. Some people are capable of it and others are not. I spend huge amounts of my free time (read: hobby time) writing. I spend huge amounts of my "real life time" writing, because that is what my field demands. Does writing in my free time or playing video games or watching movies make me less of a human being? Just because I don't go out drinking or doing drugs or socializing with people I have no intention of socializing with? What defines a useful life? Is it getting married, having debt up to my eyeballs trying to live the American dream?

If you honestly believe books, movies, games, music, etc. offer no meaning... well, you just don't get what being a human being is about at all. And I feel sorry for you.

 

[Aleksey_aka_al]

The end goal of civilization is not having to do anything but what you want.

This is what the humanity probably was just before sinking into civilization. Being most fit animal, at the top of food chain, and all.

what being a human being is about

And yes, the civilized part of a human being is tiny and dull compared to the animal part.