Gaming addiction

[Retinend]

I posted about this guy before, Dr. Kanojia, who has huge popularity with his youtube channel and streams therapy sessions with internet-famous gamers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ail2JTYQBvg

What surprised me, as a non-gamer, is that gamers are embracing the notion of video gaming addiction to explain the problems in their life. He gets very little pushback and he goes from success to success with gamers as his entire audience, yet all the while pushing the message of moderation in videogaming.

So what? Well it seems to me that, 10 years ago, this topic was a little taboo. People might not have denied that video gaming addiction exists, but they would probably have denied that it is there anything unhealthy about, say, playing videogames every day.

Since I have no experiences to share I'd like to hand over to the community and hear what you think about this medical/psychological sort of discourse about games: what have you experienced re "addictive" behaviours and what sort of people are at risk? Are you someone who can compare it with a "real" addiction? Is "addiction" a concept that we need to expand like this, or should it be restricted to substance abuse? Or can many things, even a message board(!), be addictive in the sense of "harmful-habit-forming"?

previous threads on the topic:
https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=26418.0 "Panorama: Addicted to Games" The Wild International 2010
https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,27923.0.html "Being a Computer Addict", Smallworld 2011
https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=69999.0 "Stop Gaming" Noonling 2018

[evilcommiedictator]

I'm not addicted, I'm just an undiagnosed high-functioning adult with a personality disorder who chooses to interact with computer games in my spare time rather than real people because they're tiring idiots

[evilcommiedictator]

OK cool, I'm addicted, but who am I harming other than myself? And I'm not harming others by inflicting my personality onto them, either, except for this one message board where...

[Phil_A]

I would say it didn't use to be as serious an issue when all videogames could take from you was your time, but now you have big games publishers using the same techniques as the gambling industry to prey on addictive personalities through micro-transactions, lootboxes etc. (and that's not getting into the plethora of online casinos that allow you to rack up massive debts from the privacy of your own home, but those don't exactly count as games)

I feel like the idea of games in of themselves being addictive to play has become a secondary issue to the greed and duplicity of the game industry itself.

A couple of helpful videos on the subject courtesy of a fat man in a silly hat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Rta_XMZYLs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Hg-6-6JXCs

[imitationleather]

I'm not addicted, I'm just an undiagnosed high-functioning adult with a personality disorder who chooses to interact with computer games in my spare time rather than real people because they're tiring idiots

I saw this on a t-shirt advertised in the back of Viz.

[Alberon]

This is all nothing new. One summer my ZX Spectrum had to be sent to be repaired and it was about four weeks until I got it back.

I almost died.

[Bazooka]

Online games in particular MMO games have so many elements that can really get a grip on a player largely due to the factor of "I need to catch up with the other players". I need to sleep it's 5am, and I have work in three hours, but my fellow guild members are going to reach level 100 without me, and I'm gonna be stuck, fuck it let's not sleep.

[Spiteface]

This is all nothing new. One summer my ZX Spectrum had to be sent to be repaired and it was about four weeks until I got it back.

I almost died.

I never got mine back. Beat THAT.

[C_Larence]

I never got mine back. Beat THAT.

I never had one

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

I find turn based strategy the hardest type of game to put down and switch off from. Preparation for every turn is composed with various strategies and outcomes in mind, progress is often incremental, the scale of everything so huge that it feels even more important - then as the turn is playing the AI will just rock up and lay one of your cities to ruins or so on which you then must fix before going to bed, etc, etc.

[Famous Mortimer]

I had a bit of a thing for World Of Warcraft, losing most of...2007?... to it. But that was because I'd just finished a shitty relationship and was living in a crappy flat on my own and a lot of my friends were playing it. I maintained friendships and sold my account for 80 quid in the end; but I know people whose actual time-spent-in-front-of-a-PC-playing-WOW totals over 2 years, and that seems like a lot.

I watch speedrunning videos and some of the records come near a player's 40,000th attempt at a certain thing. I don't think I've played the same game more than 10 times in my life. I guess it's a good thing that I don't understand that mindset.

[Marner and Me]

On isolation I was gaming that much I gave myself a mini stroke I think. Left side of face went numb and smelt burnt toast. I laid off it for a few days after that.