Not Tarkov, that's for sure.
Playing video games can help to reduce stress and anxiety, and improve mood
111–120 of 189 posts
Re: Playing video games can help to reduce stress and anxiety, and improve mood
#112I think the issue here is one of timescale and trading off short-term versus long-term joy/fulfillment. Playing games is often fun in the moment, and can certainly have a positive social component and can be challenging and build skills and in general be a way to blow off steam and decompress after a long day of work, similar to how many people watch TV.
But I have basically stopped playing games totally for the past decade, and I am so glad to have gotten all that time back to do other things which build up over time and then ultimately provide me with a lot more happiness, like learning new skills, reading scientific papers on ML/AI, learning how to use tools like Blender, reading biographies/history, etc. There is only so much time in a day, and when I look back on how many hours I spent during my mental prime playing stuff like Starcraft and Quake, I really wish I could have that time back and instead done other things.
Obviously this is just my take on it, and I'm not trying to shame anyone about playing games or saying they are bad. But I think it's wrong to focus on the upsides without at least being aware of what you might be trading off for that short term dopamine hit and fun.
Re: Playing video games can help to reduce stress and anxiety, and improve mood
#113I think the issue here is one of timescale and trading off short-term versus long-term joy/fulfillment. Playing games is often fun in the moment, and can certainly have a positive social component and can be challenging and build skills and in general be a way to blow off steam and decompress after a long day of work, similar to how many people watch TV. But I have basically stopped playing games totally for the past…
I think this is mostly based on different needs at different times - most people play more games when they're younger and have more uncertainty in their life. As you get older there's less uncertainty and less need for things with semi-predictable outcomes. Doesn't mean you underestimated the benefit at the time - just that it's not as useful to you in this stage of your life
There's periods where I want to learn a bunch of new technologies, and other times when I can't. It's all time well spent just in different areas
Re: Playing video games can help to reduce stress and anxiety, and improve mood
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not necessarily a good thing knowing the science - just off the top of my head... Topics I wish I'd never known about - General anaesthesia and low dose - General anaesthesia and the idea you are actually awake but forget. - General anaesthesia stats and possibility of being awake (moreso if you're anxious about not going to sleep - it's happened to me with gas). - Flying and why the plane needs to dive for certain s…
>Flying and survival stats if there's actually a serious incident. This is such a bad contextualization of the risks if you actually know the stats on the matter, since there are ~600 million passengers per year and My point is that this is very much an example of where internalizing the stats should make you feel safer, unless you're letting a cognitive bias (like anxiety) prevent you from actually internalizing the…
I fly because I know the stats. I worry because the stats for survival are low (or worse, you actually survive the impact).
It also doesn't help that I live near a major airport and almost on a fortnightly basis we get reports of planes declaring minor emergencies and having to turn around or be diverted. Occasionally it may be bird strike/engine fire.
Re: Playing video games can help to reduce stress and anxiety, and improve mood
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is the military industrial complex really that big? I’m under the impression that it’s honestly pretty weak and fragile.
Yep, the current Russian war in Ukraine exposed the fact that the western 'military complex' isn't that industrial anymore, as (for example) the total annual production of artillery shells is less than what we'd shoot in a single average day of WW2. There's still a lot of money spent, but it's spent less on actual industrial capacity but rather mostly on various high-tech R&D things - probably because then you can co…
Yes that was what I meant. Lots of RD. probably an army of contractors.
But industry? I really don’t think so. Still curious if others have evidence otherwise
Re: Playing video games can help to reduce stress and anxiety, and improve mood
#116I thought this was going to be an article about optimism ("geeking out" as in getting excited about things). I acknowledge that I'm responding to the headline and not the meat of the article. I've recently (past ~5 years) stopped viewing the world pessimistically. I don't believe it's because I'm blindly optimistic, but because I didn't have the perspective to understand our ancestor's problems and how good of a life…
This is somewhat true but also somewhat not - we have a lower chance of childhood mortality, but only in some countries. We have a general higher standard of living, but income inequality is worse than it's ever been. We have less people dying in wars, but when we do have them more people die than ever would have in the past. I'd recommend "The better angels of our nature" as a book for more on this - it covers human history of this well and shows the tradeoffs we've been making at the same time. The average person today has more creature comforts than a king a hundred years ago, but at the same time almost no one today has as much vacation time as a medieval peasant did
Re: Playing video games can help to reduce stress and anxiety, and improve mood
#117or you could just smoke a cigarette like a normal person
Despite the popularity, there's nothing normal about smoking cigarettes.
Re: Playing video games can help to reduce stress and anxiety, and improve mood
#118So can heroin, the bible and television.
Re: Playing video games can help to reduce stress and anxiety, and improve mood
#119I think the issue here is one of timescale and trading off short-term versus long-term joy/fulfillment. Playing games is often fun in the moment, and can certainly have a positive social component and can be challenging and build skills and in general be a way to blow off steam and decompress after a long day of work, similar to how many people watch TV. But I have basically stopped playing games totally for the past…
Perhaps that time spent playing Starcraft in the past was part of what enabled you to do other things now. Transition from mid-game to late-game.
Re: Playing video games can help to reduce stress and anxiety, and improve mood
#120The game probably matters a lot.
“This definitely improves my mood” - said no League player ever