Ask HN: How do you avoid video game addiction?

Just sell your PC and buy a Mac.

I don't think its healthy because he changed his lifestyle around it. He said he would wake up early, go to sleep late and put off work.

Americans watch a lot of TV, but no one is setting an alarm to binge watch Jeopardy.

no, never been evaluated for ADHD. But let's assume I knew I had it, what would change?

> Part joke part truth: become a game developer. Since I started to make games I spend much less time playing them. Also sometimes I just have to play more diverse set of games to use them reference for my game design job.

I played an unhealthy amount of video games through college, to the point where it affected my grades, and for a few years after graduation. My first job was not in game development, but was extremely gaming-adjacent (3D graphics drivers), where end-of-day QA-testing our latest software improvements would often turn into office-wide Quake deathmatches. I tried the "queue of interesting things" you mentioned, but sadly realized the other things on the list were also problematic: films, tv series, anime, etc. are just another form of "media consumption" which was the root addiction. At some point, I staged a self-intervention and admitted that media consumption, including video games, would not improve me and would not make me an interesting person. Coming to this realization helped me to set all that aside and start doing more meaningful things like dating a girlfriend (later marrying), going back to school for a graduate degree, switching to less passive hobbies, and so on. It also enabled me 20 years later to not get involved with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and all those other pointless media-consumption time-sucks that we have today. These days, I have so many worthwhile things going on that I literally have no time for a gaming or media addiction.

I don't know why you are being downvoted, as I find your reasoning valid.

My SO was never keen on the idea of having children. I thought I wanted to have children 5 years ago, but it was really just a default society behavior, not something I had stopped to think.

When I had no more excuses to delay having kids (healthy, married, stable job, two real estate properties) I really gave it a thought and concluded I didn't want to. I seriously touched the topic with my SO and told her I'd understand if she would leave me, but she said she was relieved by my decision because she also didn't want to have children.

What you said was one of the reasons "in favor" of having children, because you are right, life with children gets complicated in many senses but also gets simpler at least in life purpose. You don't need to "kill" time anymore for decades. But I concluded at least for me, it was not a strong enough reason to have children.