[bonoboTP]

For better or worse, gaming cultural references are very common and a way to relate to colleagues of the same age. Many would say this is bad and pushes women, older folks and people with very different backgrounds away and creates an exclusive nerdy geeky club. I'm not here to argue that. But it is a useful thing for making friends in practice.

People also often get to know each other through gaming or it is their first interaction with technical things, setting up networking and firewalls for LAN parties, installing and creating mods etc.

[saiya-jin]

Well if that's the best highlight of wasting one's life then its a poor one. In similar analogy you can maybe make some friends by getting addicted to heroin or becoming homeless too.

Just to be clear - I've wasted much of my youth with single player gaming. It was pretty addictive, no question about it. I'll do my best to get my kids have better life than that - no active screen around their young age, being very active in sports, nature, mountain activities, travel around the world backpacking etc. If they will choose to get hooked on games, so be it, but at least I've shown them many other, for me better options.

[mszcz]

I remember playing a lot or Warcraft 2, Stunts, Dune 2 etc when I was young. However, what I "wasted" even more time on is writing cheats (Warcraft) and map editors (Stunts) for those games so...

On a side note I tend to think kids have a lot of self regulating abilities but that might not matter anymore since it seems that the brightest minds of this generation are focused on "increasing engagement" and fucking ads...

[watwut]

Basically, for many men, gaming is the only socialization they have. After a years, it may became only socialization for some.

[renjimen]

Just moved to my wife's home country during COVID. I can attest to the fact that online gaming has one of my only ways to "socialise" since I can't go and make any new friends at the moment.

[bitwize]

There's a much better way to relate to colleagues of your age, as well as people from a variety of age, ethnicity, and gender backgrounds: sports. Sports have the added benefit of getting you outside and moving when practiced. Women are also almost universally attracted to male athletes -- male gaming nerds, not so much.

[watwut]

> male gaming nerds, not so much

Dating someone who plays games is not issue. Most young people of both genders play games. Athletes play games too, there never was any dichotomy between sport and playing video games.

But, dating obsessed gamer is kind of like being alone, except you get yelled at more. If excessively competitive sport dude is asshole to his mates, you don't get to witness that every evening either.

[_carbyau_]

Here in Australia it seems like a month can't go by without a high profile sports person being accused of abuse/drugs/alcohol or other.

Maybe it is something about the ultra-competitive streak - being "driven" - that makes it not nice to be around?

Personally, I gave up playing even the lowest grade of social hockey as people seemed to have forgotten the "game for fun" part and were "playing to win" - including hard shots at your legs, playing on no matter the breach of game rules unless the ref whistled etc.

[watwut]

I think that big stars are something else entirely. They are stars, so their excesses are enabled by everyone in their lives and they experience is "I can do crap and they can do nothing". They also live under high pressure, stress and physical pain.

I mean, people who do sport at amateur level drink a lot too. But, the high sport is not the same at all.

[MaximumYComb]

I think high profile sports people are an exception. For one, they're rich/famous/athletic and this leads to women being very forward with them. This run this lifestyle for long enough and they're bound to get into trouble. Add in that a lot of sporting clubs have heavy alcohol cultures and it's even more trouble.

[bitwize]

> Dating someone who plays games is not issue. Most young people of both genders play games.

True. But following a sport and being able to hold forth on it competently will allow you to start conversations and engage in connections with a much broader social circle than demonstrating your knowledge of vidya memes.