Why You’re Trapped Playing Video Games

Sean Pianka
Sep 5, 2018 · 2 min read
Seem familiar?

Preface: I have struggled with video game addiction from twelve years old and onwards. Thousands of hours playing games like EVE Online, Rainbow Six Siege, among others.

It’s not that you can’t quit, it’s that you don’t want to.

Video games are a fun, low barrier-to-entry activity which, when not given proper restraint, often become dangerously addicting. They’re a thrilling, intriguing, and often social way to spend time. A well-written story, stunning graphics, intense battles, and/or fun team-play. Video games can have it all.

However, here’s where problems lie. The time spent and progress within this crafted world is no longer relevant as soon as you step away from the computer. What does remain after you’ve stepped away? Perhaps your thoughts and feelings about the game, your progress, or a fleeting rush of endorphins released from playing.

And yet this escapism has no positive effect on your actual, real life. When you step away from the monitor, many hours later, you’re at the exact same place you were in life before, and not one step further. And how many hours later? For someone with a healthy relationship to video games, it’s “until I’ve had my fill”. But in many of our minds, it’s not quite so simple.

How long do you play for?!

There are two many types of obligations I keep in my mind constantly:

  1. When I must wake-up and go to sleep, ensuring I can wake up at the required time for class, work, or some other obligation.
  2. What time I need to leave my house in order to meet someone and arrive on-time.
  3. And what do I do with the time in-between obligations? You guessed it: video games.

Video games are the perfect filler content, because, once I know the time when I need to stop playing, I now know how many hours I have to safely spend playing video games.

I liken this relationship with gaming to Fallout’s system for fast-forwarding time (see below):

If you’re unfamiliar with the mechanic, it’s used to fast-forward the in-game time until a user-specified time. The world advances in the background, but the player does nothing during the time being waited.

This mechanic has surprising similarities to the role video games play in my own life! I will often play video games, no doubt enjoying myself, to simply pass the time until the next event happens to me and forces me to quit playing.

Sean Pianka

Written by

Life is about improving yourself to do more good for others. Software, stoicism, and space are what I love.

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