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Please don't let gaming consume your life

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Re: Please don't let gaming consume your life

#81

Post by mquander »

humbledrone wrote: post #68
dromidas wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very life stylist point of view. Who's to say that exercising, producing useful things to society, or social interaction is in ANY way "better" than spending your days playing video games? I for one am an avid gamer and I would rather game than quite a large number of other activities that people find rewarding or fulfilling, but I don't go write on some blog saying that they're wasting their life away joggi…

As a gamer myself, please understand that I don't have anything against gaming in general. However, I can think of an objective way in which producing "useful things to society" is better than gaming, which is that if everyone chose to spend all their time gaming, we would die from lack of basic necessities such as food, water, sanitation, etc. This would, of course, cut short the amount of gaming we could all do. So…

So, obviously, we have no choice but for some people contribute to society. Is there a fair way to decide who has to contribute, and who is allowed to opt out and play video games all day?

Not really, but we have a way anyway, and it's called money. It's the same way we use to determine who is allowed to opt out and read all day, who is allowed to opt out and go on lots of vacations, and who is allowed to opt out and study something abstruse in college for four years.

Re: Please don't let gaming consume your life

#82

Post by Dylanlacey »

vm wrote: post #57

At what point is it wrong to engineer a product to be addictive? Tobacco companies are evil for doing this. But when it comes to things like fast food, gambling and games , I hear things like "everyone knows those are bad for you" so you should "be responsible" Like all things, not everyone submits to urges. But I bet most gamers don't know there are sophisticated teams fine-tuning the gaming experience to maximize t…

Evil comes when the user is expected to lose significant amounts of something for no return.

Tobacco companies expect you to lose years of your life, tens of thousands of dollars and return you yellowing teeth and nails, smelling bad and lessened taste and smell. Evil.

WoW expects your monthly subscription fee and you'll probably put some time into it as well. They don't actually care how MUCH time you put into it, just that you're engaged enough to keep playing. In return they give you fun, a sense of achievement, a vibrant community and new content. Not Evil

Zynga games are boring. In fact they're worse, they're work. They guilt you into playing, they try to manipulate you into harassing your friends, they're designed to nickle-and-dime and get you playing as much as possible. In return you might get a sense of achievement, but you irritate your friends and waste a bunch of time on a game that isn't any fun. Evil.

I think it's always evil to engineer a product to be addictive. Compelling yes, addictive no. If you don't return a positive benefit to the user then even compelling is evil.

Re: Please don't let gaming consume your life

#83

Post by scrub »

cletus wrote: post #71

I've had conversations on similar aspects to this many times. There are many psychological issues involved but the highlights are: 1. People eat for many reasons, sustenance being only one. People eat for enjoyment, because they're happy, because they're sad, to deal with stress, as a substitute for something else arguably more destructive and so on. The sooner you can adjust your mental view to treating food as noth…

Concerning 1, I personally believe that on the flip side, having an intimate knowledge about food is beneficial to health. Being able to have at least some awareness of what you put into your body allow you to be aware of what constitutes a sensible portion, and being able to appreciate various nuances of food beyond fat, salt, and sugar will generally result in healthier eating.

Extended destructive binges are usually a symptom of some other emotional stress, and I presume that regular eating habits aren't going to be followed, anyway.

Re: Please don't let gaming consume your life

#84

Post by Dylanlacey »

potatolicious wrote: post #63
vectorpush wrote: post #29

I'm not really sure what this has to do with gaming. Spending days at a time hunched in front of a computer with little sleep is like the quintessential image of working the start-up life. He could have spent those three days working in vim rather than playing Diablo and he'd probably still be gone. More importantly, don't blame yourself for letting him take that time off, a heart attack at thirty isn't something tha…

I dunno, I've had some pretty epic hack sessions in my life, but none of them even compare to when I get sucked into a video game. Diablo 3 came out last week, and I literally had stretches where I didn't even go to the bathroom for 12+ hours. I got severely dehydrated when Mass Effect 3 came out to the point that the effects lingered for a couple of days. That sort of complete absorption has never come to me while h…

Out of curiosity, have you been to a gambling environment? Did you find it hard to eat and drink there?

Do you play board games with a similar intensity? What about marathon TV shows, do you wait until the end of an episode (or story arc) before ablutions?

Re: Please don't let gaming consume your life

#85

Post by humbledrone »

shasta wrote: post #79
humbledrone wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, if you look at the numbers, the risk of death from climbing is very, very low. Really, it's extremely low. You'd have to go on two outings a week for 3,200 years for the probability of your death to have an expected value of 1.0. Or, if you stick to top ropes, a lot longer than that. Compared to how much you can benefit from the exercise, the risk of falling and dying is really insignificant, to the point that I…

Probability of 1.0? Are you sure you're doing the right math? What's the probability after 6,400 years? 2.0?

I meant expected value, but I wrote "expected probably".

Re: Please don't let gaming consume your life

#86

Post by omgsean »

I think it's really interesting to see so many people here jumping up to defend gaming. Nobody is blaming games or gaming, the original post simply states that like everything else, you should make sure that you moderate the amount of gaming you do and also try to do things that are good for your body. I think it's a good message for Hacker News given the number of gamers we have here (I can easily log 20-30 hours a week when I have a new game and some free time).

If you game a lot but you don't let it get in the way of your health then this message wasn't intended for you (except perhaps as a cautionary tale).

Re: Please don't let gaming consume your life

#87

Post by mvarner »

wisty wrote: post #75
dekz wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does this compare with what can be considered a 'gym' addiction. Is it ok when it is exercise? What is too much? What about work, startups? I rock climb at least 6 hours a week, it's not bizarre to hear someone dying from rock climbing though.

A 'gym' addiction is less likely to destroy your life. It's rare for people to go on 36 hour gym binges. I'm sure a few people die rock climbing, but it's mostly going to be people who get confident, and put themselves in positions where a mistake (or even bad luck) is fatal.

Over-exercising addiction actually has serious consequences on people's health, as it causes stress fractures that are often exacerbated by them trying to "power through it". That being said, few people actually have this sort of problem, and one shouldn't avoid the gym simply out of fear of becoming addicted.

Re: Please don't let gaming consume your life

#89

Post by dhughes »

Sorry to hear about your friend Ben.

I actually had to kick the video game habit I have to get my electronics cert by August (or I am jobless, will be the first time in 30 years) and I haven't played any game at all since early December last year. Console (an apt word) or PC games certainly are addicting, some people say it can't be since it isn't an opioid drug (some say the same thing about weed) but it's your world when you're alone.

It will be nice if, maybe, someday technology will be so seamless that you won't sit and browse the web or play video games maybe it will be a part of our lives all the time but more subtle. Like the telephone was so futuristic when it came out people had no idea it would become so ubiquitous and easy to use. Maybe information won't have to be sifted through on Google or Duckduckgo it will just be there when desired.

I remember reading about stimulus response reward training given to US Army soldiers so they would instinctively fire at the enemy it pretty much removed the thinking part of the procedure. That's what it seems like for me anyway when I played, really I had trained myself to play without thinking and kills in the game were my reward.

Re: Please don't let gaming consume your life

#90

Post by nostromo »

humbledrone wrote: post #72
cjy wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You shouldn't compare the benefits of getting exercise from rock climbing to the chances of dying from it. The choice isn't rock climb or be totally sedentary. You can get exercise in ways where you can't fall and die. What you should compare is the marginal benefit of the additional exercise you end up doing because you enjoy rock climbing more than the next best activity. And, then compare that to the death rate.

So, if you look at the numbers, the risk of death from climbing is very, very low. Really, it's extremely low. You'd have to go on two outings a week for 3,200 years for the probability of your death to have an expected value of 1.0. Or, if you stick to top ropes, a lot longer than that. Compared to how much you can benefit from the exercise, the risk of falling and dying is really insignificant, to the point that I…

You keep mentioning death, but death is just the worst possible outcome. What about maiming, paralysis, broken bones, etc.?

My uncle played football in high-school, broke his knee and it's bothered him ever since. He didn't die.

Everything we do has risk, and we shouldn't let it consume us. But I'd also not focus on death in isolation.

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