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18 year old in University, quitting for good


zazie97

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I am an 18 year old who was addicted to games from a young age and let LoL ruin years 1-3 of high school. I quit for year 4, but now in my first year of University with the new stress of applying to a competitive major (CS) it came back stronger than ever with Dota 2 and has already ruined my chances of getting into CS by destroying my GPA in the pre-req classes and leaving no time for extracurricular projects. I know its not the end of the world because there are less stringent CS-related majors available and there are always internships to go directly into the workforce but its still really bad and a sign of how fucked up my gaming addiction is. 

When I quit video games before even at my most productive, I would have some different escape like watching shows, reading fiction books, and browsing internet sites. After doing that for a while, it was easy to justify going back to games. Well now I'm quitting for good--both games and the escapist attitude behind them. I wish I had done it sooner but I know I won't regret doing it now. The only things I need to be doing are computer coding, math exercises, and English essays. I will update my daily journal on this forum to keep myself accountable.

Edited by zazie97
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Hi Zazie

From my own experience in university, I can relate to the fact that it's a vulnerable period for game addiction. You have a lot of free time, there's stress with the different assignements you have to do, ... It's good that you already made this decision at 18 years old, there's a lot of time left for change ;) . 

The best of luck with it!!

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I am an 18 year old who was addicted to games from a young age and let LoL ruin years 1-3 of high school. I quit for year 4, but now in my first year of University with the new stress of applying to a competitive major (CS) it came back stronger than ever with Dota 2 and has already ruined my chances of getting into CS by destroying my GPA in the pre-req classes and leaving no time for extracurricular projects. I know its not the end of the world because there are less stringent CS-related majors available and there are always internships to go directly into the workforce but its still really bad and a sign of how fucked up my gaming addiction is. 

When I quit video games before even at my most productive, I would have some different escape like watching shows, reading fiction books, and browsing internet sites. After doing that for a while, it was easy to justify going back to games. Well now I'm quitting for good--both games and the escapist attitude behind them. I wish I had done it sooner but I know I won't regret doing it now. The only things I need to be doing are computer coding, math exercises, and English essays. I will update my daily journal on this forum to keep myself accountable.

I'm going to be a devil's advocate here, but I'm speaking from experience. I think that it's important to create time to rest and recuperate. This shouldn't be games, but stuff like social events, reading less demanding books, hell, even TV from time to time. 

I'm saying this mostly because whenever I raised my expectations too much, I couldn't sustain the level of performance and got burned out. I'm not saying don't raise your expectations, the opposite actually, but on the other hand, expectations can be realistic or unrealistic. 

Just something to think about. :) Maybe your experience will be the opposite and if it is, great! If less so, then there's this post :D 

Good luck!

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I am an 18 year old who was addicted to games from a young age and let LoL ruin years 1-3 of high school. I quit for year 4, but now in my first year of University with the new stress of applying to a competitive major (CS) it came back stronger than ever with Dota 2 and has already ruined my chances of getting into CS by destroying my GPA in the pre-req classes and leaving no time for extracurricular projects. I know its not the end of the world because there are less stringent CS-related majors available and there are always internships to go directly into the workforce but its still really bad and a sign of how fucked up my gaming addiction is. 

When I quit video games before even at my most productive, I would have some different escape like watching shows, reading fiction books, and browsing internet sites. After doing that for a while, it was easy to justify going back to games. Well now I'm quitting for good--both games and the escapist attitude behind them. I wish I had done it sooner but I know I won't regret doing it now. The only things I need to be doing are computer coding, math exercises, and English essays. I will update my daily journal on this forum to keep myself accountable.

I'm going to be a devil's advocate here, but I'm speaking from experience. I think that it's important to create time to rest and recuperate. This shouldn't be games, but stuff like social events, reading less demanding books, hell, even TV from time to time. 

I'm saying this mostly because whenever I raised my expectations too much, I couldn't sustain the level of performance and got burned out. I'm not saying don't raise your expectations, the opposite actually, but on the other hand, expectations can be realistic or unrealistic. 

Just something to think about. :) Maybe your experience will be the opposite and if it is, great! If less so, then there's this post :D 

Good luck!

I agree with @Suritus, you should not expect from yourself to be perfect and productive all the time, since it is impossible and in this way, you are setting yourself up for failure, because no human being can be perfect. If you aim at  being constantly productive, it would not happen either, there is always stuff e.g. you may feel tired or be sick and then your productivity would be very low ;) Your self-worth does not depend on your productivity, each human being is priceless because they are humans, and not because they are productive or not. And we human beings do rest and recuperation. If you want to perform well, you have to take a rest and relax, or otherwise you would be tired and not able to work as well as you would if you are well-rested. So, eliminating rest from your life is in fact counter-productive, and it would make you less productive, no more. You should avoid this trap, just like @Suritus says.

The website Blinkist was recommended here on the forum, and in one of the book summaries on how to make your brain work better and how to unleash your creativity, there was an important piece of advice that we have to spend at least one day a week doing totally unproductive things we enjoy in order to let our brain recuperate. Often, when we are not thinking about a problem, e.g. how to write another chapter in a dissertation, and do other unrelated things, the answer comes to us naturally when we return to work after the break. It is because our brain was analysing the problem in the background, when we were relaxing. By not having rest, we prevent the brain from doing this.

I would also like to tell you all on this forum not to underestimate fiction books nor outright "curse" them as escapist activity. It is important to read fiction, particularly if you want to make a career connected to writing, reading self-help books alone won't help you much, if you are not well-read in literature. Of course, there are a lot of worthless books on the market, but what I can definitely recommend is reading classics - these books are not timeless without reason, they are artistically valuable and deal with important matters of human condition, their message is also often universal. If you neglected e.g. Shakespeare at school, you can make up for it now. It is a very pleasant way of spending one's time, and at the same time, helps you grow intellectually, so it is a win-win. Fiction books are also indispensable if you are learning foreign languages, as reading books in the language you are learning really aids you in mastering it. If we condemn all fiction as escapist activity, we have to throw the entire history of literature into the garbage, and that is not the wisest thing to do ;)  

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Just to add onto what @Suritus and @Primmulla have already said, I think it's all about the balance between productive activities and relaxing/recuperating activities, and the vast majority of us on here sign up to this site because we can't get the balance right, particularly where gaming is concerned. It's great that you've already identified computer coding, maths exercises and English essays as important priorities that you need to start working on in order to improve, just try to make sure any schedule you create for this is a manageable one. Give yourself some time in the day to chill out, be it through reading or exercising, whatever appeals to you. ;)

Edited by Mark
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Just to add onto what @Suritus and @Primmulla have already said, I think it's all about the balance between productive activities and relaxing/recuperating activities, and the vast majority of us on here sign up to this site because we can't get the balance right, particularly where gaming is concerned. It's great that you've already identified computer coding, maths exercises and English essays as important priorities that you need to start working on in order to improve, just try to make sure any schedule you create for this is a manageable one. Give yourself some time in the day to chill out, be it through reading or exercising, whatever appeals to you. ;)

Great post!

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