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Blazing Man

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Let's say you are playing 1 hour every day of pinball, for 1 year. Now compare it to something like.. learning a skill (Programming for example). What did you get after 1 year of playing pinball vs. learning?

A highscore vs. a paid job (maybe)?
A highscore vs. knowledge?
 

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I don't think the problem is that playing one or another kind of games is harmful by itself. The point in quitting games is that we don't want to replace other things in life with gaming, so we put that aside. Of course we can say it's addictive for many reasons, but our context and sometimes our biology is what make us prisoners, because games offer this things that we lack. Anything can become your new addiction as long as it prevents you from reaching your real goals and proves to be hard to quit.

So we shouldn't really separate games by their topics or kind. We have to be aware of what is hurting us and making us fail. Trying to find legal vacuums to feed your cravings won't make you reach the life you want to live. The same goes for overthinking and serching for the "easy and flawless solution with no effort 100% assured results" - it doesn't exist. Work hard toward the life you want. Quitting games is the first step but not the only one.

Arcade games by themselves: they are highly competitive, so they can be very addictive. It's like playing a competitive game but your opponent can be yourself or other people's scores online. For example, I am very competitive, so I would try to be the best and get the maximum score. I could spend hours, days, weeks trying to improve my score, even if I'm playing offline I would try to be better than myself again and again. And this is the same effect as any other game: lots of hours in front of the screen, mindlessly playing, ignoring real life responsibilities and social connection.

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41 minutes ago, stablish said:

Let's say you are playing 1 hour every day of pinball, for 1 year. Now compare it to something like.. learning a skill (Programming for example). What did you get after 1 year of playing pinball vs. learning?

A highscore vs. a paid job (maybe)?
A highscore vs. knowledge?
 

Well you can say the same thing for pretty much everything in life that is not considered "work" or "serious" or about personal developement. "Let's say are watching a movie for about 1hour every day for 1 year"  yadi-yadi-yada...Does it mean that watching movies is bad ? Don't think so.Of course if you spend more time working instead of watching films you'll get better at  your craft, but show me one human being who's always working 24/7.Michael Jackson was (and still is) the greatest entertainer in the world which is a pretty BIG fucking achievement and yet he played video games/arcade games.

Edited by Blazing Man
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3 hours ago, Blazing Man said:

Well you can say the same thing for pretty much everything in life that is not considered "work" or "serious" or about personal developement. "Let's say are watching a movie for about 1hour every day for 1 year"  yadi-yadi-yada...Does it mean that watching movies is bad ? Don't think so.Of course if you spend more time working instead of watching films you'll get better at  your craft, but show me one human being who's always working 24/7.Michael Jackson was (and still is) the greatest entertainer in the world which is a pretty BIG fucking achievement and yet he played video games/arcade games.

Never had a movie or series which gave me the same amount of dopamine. Everytime I tried to moderate gaming I was in the same hole after like 3-4 days of moderating, I started to spent more and more time, first it was 2 hours to 'chill' after work, then it was 3, then 4, then back to fulltime gaming for nothing.

I'd say, every activity which stops you from archiving something in your life is bad (obviously..).

Your goal is Y, but X stops you from archiving it = bad.

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1 hour ago, stablish said:

Never had a movie or series which gave me the same amount of dopamine. Everytime I tried to moderate gaming I was in the same hole after like 3-4 days of moderating, I started to spent more and more time, first it was 2 hours to 'chill' after work, then it was 3, then 4, then back to fulltime gaming for nothing.

I'd say, every activity which stops you from archiving something in your life is bad (obviously..).

Your goal is Y, but X stops you from archiving it = bad.

Damn, I forgot about that fucking dopamine.But how can you explain that some successful people play video games ? 

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1 hour ago, stablish said:

Some or most of them are still having a life, streamers for example. But then, what will they do if their game servers shut down? Also, why compare your life with other 'gamers' life? ?

I'm not necessarily talking about online games and when I say successful people I talk more about real successful people like actors, musicians etc than YouTube personalities.I mentionned Michael Jackson previously but I can also mention Robin Williams who was a huge fan of The Legend Of Zelda.I "compare" my life because I'm a human being too and I work like one, I'm running the same software as theirs.I want to truely understand what video games are and the effects they have on us and why they are bad (or maybe neither good ot bad).

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11 minutes ago, Blazing Man said:

I "compare" my life because I'm a human being too and I work like one, I'm running the same software as theirs.

Yeah, well... I disagree.

But don't get me wrong. There are a lot of things that interfere in how we develop our minds: family, genetics, environment, culture, friends, etc. These things interfere in our behavior and the way we respond to stimuli. No two people are exactly alike. Therefore, in my honest opinion, you should never compare this kind of topics between persons.

20 minutes ago, Blazing Man said:

I want to truely understand what video games are and the effects they have on us and why they are bad (or maybe neither good ot bad).

Like I said before:

8 hours ago, Peluconus said:

[...] our context and sometimes our biology is what make us prisoners [...]

This means that there aren't good or bad videogames, in the sense of being bad because they are harmful. They have bad impacts in some peoples lives but that can't imply that they are evil. From my point of view, it's a mixture between what the games offer us (that can be addictive), and the way we react to the stimuli we receive from games. Two dudes playing the same game won't react the same to it, and exposing them to the same number of hours can result in one becoming addicted and the other not.

Quitting games is something that has to be done willingly. You have to be the one that notices the problem and the one that wants to fix it. Hearing from someone that gaming is inherently bad or being forced to quit without being aware of the bad impact that it's having on you, will result in relapses. So don't care about the others - identify the goals you want to achieve and the way you want to reach them, and how is gaming or other habits hindering you.

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1 hour ago, Peluconus said:

Yeah, well... I disagree.

 

You can.But I have some shocking news for you: you're not the first human being who has been born and has matured through life.In fact, there's a well known predictable pattern in which humans evolve through in life that has been discovered by a researcher called Clare Graves called Spiral Dynamics.

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@Blazing Man

Dude, are you even reading the whole posts before answering? You seem to be cherry picking some lines and putting them out of context, maybe trying to justify your belief that games are not bad. If you just wanted to know if they are bad or not, you could have started asking that in the first place.

So you go by the fact that some people play videogames and are still productive. But that is not the point. We are here because we detected a problem with our lives, not theirs. And that problem is videogames. They have taken control over our lives in one or another way and we decided to quit. I didn't quit because games were bad in general, I quitted because they were bad for ME. I would even dare to say that everyone or almost everyone here that quitted did it for the same reason.

You say we all mature through life. Well, again, I disagree, because we all know that there are evident exceptions. But leaving exceptions aside, this stages of maturity are still different from one person to another. In general terms well, yes, we go through a number of phases with some characteristics, but not all of them or this characteristics will be present in everyone. So it's not true that we are all the same and react equally to a given stimulus like videogames.

Besides that, it's not only the maturity level what influence the gaming addiction. Like I said, there are other factors that feed the fire.

I hope I have set my point clearly enough this time. I love debating btw, sorry if I'm sometimes too rude!

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14 minutes ago, Peluconus said:

@Blazing Man

Dude, are you even reading the whole posts before answering? You seem to be cherry picking some lines and putting them out of context, maybe trying to justify your belief that games are not bad. If you just wanted to know if they are bad or not, you could have started asking that in the first place.

So you go by the fact that some people play videogames and are still productive. But that is not the point. We are here because we detected a problem with our lives, not theirs. And that problem is videogames. They have taken control over our lives in one or another way and we decided to quit. I didn't quit because games were bad in general, I quitted because they were bad for ME. I would even dare to say that everyone or almost everyone here that quitted did it for the same reason.

You say we all mature through life. Well, again, I disagree, because we all know that there are evident exceptions. But leaving exceptions aside, this stages of maturity are still different from one person to another. In general terms well, yes, we go through a number of phases with some characteristics, but not all of them or this characteristics will be present in everyone. So it's not true that we are all the same and react equally to a given stimulus like videogames.

Besides that, it's not only the maturity level what influence the gaming addiction. Like I said, there are other factors that feed the fire.

I hope I have set my point clearly enough this time. I love debating btw, sorry if I'm sometimes too rude!

I did read your full post and I don't believe that video games are not bad, you misunderstood me.What I want to know is, since we're all humans/working in the same way, how can some people be successful while playing video games if video games have negative effects on people.

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That is such a broad and open ended question.

Why can people drink 1-2 beers and be fine, yet alcoholics exist?

Why can people enjoy sex, yet sex addicts exist?

People's control measures and receptors are different. Same as peoples immune systems are different or how their resilience copes with stress or anxiety.

If we were all the same, we would all be NBA All-Stars and CEOs in our spare time.

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There are tons of things that are massively destructive that people do and still achieve great (financial) success. Drugs, cheating, disrespect for other people, various fears, mental barriers, physical health, mental health, you name it. Happiness has very little to do with money. Now, if your problem is SO bad that you play video games 10 hours per day(like I sometimes used to), you aren't gonna be successful of course, but that's not what successful people do. Elon Musk has played overwatch and some other shooters. But he also puts in 60-80 hours of work each week into his companies and is incredibly intelligent. He can manage to only play games occasionally, we can't. You could argue that Elon is a workaholic, but that's a whole different issue. 

The difference comes from the way people are raised; from the environment they were in; and from the amount of effort they put into improving themselves. You will notice that most successful people were born either into fairly rich, well-developed families that instilled very strong mentality geared towards career success OR they have a rags-to-riches story. In the former case, the mental concepts necessary to achieve success and avoid shit like games are usually internalized in the kids fairly early. In the latter case, when people are in shitty social and financial situations, they usually give up and stay there, but sometimes they don't give up and the shitty situation gives them an incredible drive to change. If this happens, not only do they have the drive to create a better life that is stronger than anyone else's, but they also have the work ethic and the ability to cope with the struggle that comes from just living in poor conditions. You know the phrase "Good is the greatest enemy of great"? Yeah. People in the middle class that have kind of a cushy life often have all the tools and knowledge to upgrade their life, but struggle to find the motivation to do so because their life is just kinda "okay". They haven't had the taste of the great life so they don't know how much better they could live, but it's also not bad enough to motivate them to make it better.

There are many more factors, of course, just kinda rambling and procrastinating from going to bed. Good night!^^

Edited by JustTom
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