[caymanjim]

This is a horrible format for providing the transcript, and a long and boring conversation, so I didn't read much of it...but from what I can tell, they're just trying to redefine the word 'addiction' to a narrow, specific, and arbitrary meaning. I've consumed plenty of supposedly-addictive chemicals, and aside from nicotine, none of them have the kind of pyschological hold over me--or rewarding brain-chemical satisfaction--as video games. That's a more narrow focus than "technology", but these days everything is being gamified, so there's no clear delineation.

[Sigmoid]

Agreed.

I personally think one problem with this article is their cult following of science. I guess there isn't conclusive scientific evidence that social media or video games are addictive or detrimental to you. But should I wait possible decades for more conclusive research? I rather not. I know I have been addicted to video games and it has negativity impacted my life.

The reason people are making these 'assumptions' about social media/video games being addictive is because they can see it in their own life and the life of others. The 'hard science' this guy is talking about just hasn't catched up.

[visarga]

Yet another call to trust personal experiences, stories and subjective opinions as more authoritative than science. It's a bad trend.

[louis___]

Science should be a tool, not be a religion that you MUST trust.

When the voice of the people does not matter anymore because some guy in a white coat said "Science, you know", this is another kind of bad trend.

[visarga]

There are opinions and personal experiences - valid for one or a few people, and then there are scientific concepts that are universal and generalize everywhere. The Mars helicopter flies OK even though it wasn't designed on Mars. Science works with or without people's approval.

My main concern with stories is that they are prone to emotional appeal and cherry picking of facts. We live in the era of fake news and critical justice mobs after all, we need to be skeptic. What if the story proposes an agenda that is just supporting another group against your own, not including a balanced view of the situation? What if the underlying message is that of social war, non-inclusiveness and dehumanizing towards the "oppressor group"? The Bible itself is a story with many many victims during the last two millennia.

[louis___]

I get what you mean.

I agree with you, some scientific concepts -at our state of understanding-, may seem universal and generalize everywhere, such as Einstein's work on relativity that the Mars helicopter must be using.

What I wanted to emphasize is that, humans are deeply political and biased animals, and will always use a scientific concept to their own interests, even ever so slightly. Just look on the horror of the stuff psychiatry has done the past century : accusing women of being frigid if their child was autistic, saying that their genitalia made them prone to psychiatric disorders, the list goes on...

In my opinion, the concept of "addiction" falls into the 2nd category. Humans are just so complex, that we will never isolate the gene of addiction, but nevertheless, this is not a requisite to start saying that junk-food or smartphones can damage your quality of life.

[rasen58]

Do you have any advice for breaking video game addiction? I feel like it affects me a lot.

[bonoboTP]

Sorry if this is too obvious or unuseful or feels condescending etc. Just a direction.

Concentrate not on the games but what it replaces. Is it a lack of community? No other outlet to feel skilled and successful? The goal isn't merely to stop playing games, it is to find more healthy but similarly satisfactory replacements (but maybe in a longer timescale). What thoughts are you avoiding, are you in some kind of guilt cycle etc? A key part is to know: your life afterwards won't and should not be merely your current life minus games. That would be terrible and frightening probably. But no, the goal is to feel satisfied through other means. Another thing is to recognize that you are in a local optimum. Perhaps it is a (short-term) rational choice to play games in your situation. To escape the local optimum you'll have to temporarily go through a worse situation where even the only thing you derive real joy from is taken away. Furthermore, it could be that your way of life is a local optimum within a pretty large volume of alternatives. Meaning that it might well be that the current social culture around you isn't giving you much better options, depending on who you are, ie society might be incentivizing this behavior through the state of dating, decaying communities, attention economy, consumerism etc. Still, wouldnt it be better to find it out yourself? For my disagreeable personality, I find it useful to feel hostile to the creators of these attention black holes, these exploiters of young men, and feel viscerally repulsed by what they are doing in the name of profit to destroy a generation. This is no way to live, it's like being a domesticated zoo animal. We are destined to more than this.

Of course a therapist specialized in the area can give better concrete steps.

[rasen58]

Wow this was definitely the best advice I got on this. Thank you so much for the time you took to share this.

I think my watching of movies or playing of video games is probably due to avoiding other things I don't want to face. I should probably try to address those things or change my environment to be in a more productive state.

[kempbellt]

I used to play console games a lot, but when I got laid off from a job I pawned my Xbox. Haven't regretted it even for a minute, and I sleep more...

PC games are tough because I built my PC for everything - VR, mining, development, etc. It can run just about any game, and I have hundreds in my Steam library. The tough part is that I see it as a valuable asset for other things - makes it hard for me to want to sell it, but if I were to get rid of it I doubt I'd miss gaming much. I've found that unplugging it and putting all the components in a closet makes it not worth the effort to play a game. I only break it out for projects.

I used to play phone games a lot on while commuting in NYC. Since I moved away and don't have that commute time, I uninstalled them all. That quick satisfaction I'd get from dumb games like candy crush or whatever, is no longer alluring. The "wins" are unfulfilling, and the ads and annoying upselling are enough of a deterrence to keep me from installing any games.

My only advice is to remove your access to them, or make it not worth your time to access them. You'll quickly find other ways to fill your time.

Just about every gaming experience I've had is feels like an unfulfilling time sink, but until you feel this way, it will be a tough temptation to break.

[rasen58]

Playing games definitely make me feel bad because they're a waste of time and are unfulfilling, but the hard part is that they're also super fun and engaging while you're playing them, which makes it hard to kill that desire to have that feeling.

[caymanjim]

Only the same advice I have for breaking chemical addictions: just stop already. I don't buy into the idea that any addiction is a disease or that people are powerless over their addictions. I think it's incredibly disempowering, deflects personal responsibility to an unhealthy degree, and does nothing to solve the problem. I don't make light of this; I know how hard it is to stop bad habits, especially if part of the appeal of that bad habit is escaping other problems. At the end of the day, though, you need to choose to stop. One of the other incredibly dangerous ideas to come out of programs like AA is that you have to stop bad habits completely, and that any "slip up" is a personal failing. Moderation is a lot healthier than the guilt and shame these programs try to make people feel for "failing".

I don't have any actual advice for you. Some people swear by cognitive behavioral therapy. I prefer to manage my various negative tendencies myself. Sometimes the pendulum swings too far and I pay a price, and that tends to bring me back to a state of equilibrium.

[rasen58]

Hm I actually think stopping completely is very important. If I let myself watch even one tv show or install one game to play then I'll have the urge to keep doing that action for hours and the next day as well.

I find it a lot healthier to eliminate these dangerous activities altogether.

But curious to hear if you have other thoughts

[blackbear_]

What worked for me was not eliminating videogames but using them as a sort of carrot-on-a-stick. A reward for doing what I should be doing, if you will. Playing videogames can be a hobby like many others, you don't need to completely eliminate that from your life.

You first need to find what you would like to do outside of gaming, things like reading, exercising, learning an instrument or a language, and so on. Then force yourself to do those things regularly, just half an hour or a hour each day. Even better if you find somebody to hold you accountable and nag you when necessary. As a reward for being "good", allow yourself to be "bad" and play videogames.

I work my ass off during the week, exercise, read literature, study Chinese and meet friends. I achieve enough during the week not to feel bad if I spend most of the weekend playing. The weekend session can be a good motivator during the week, but you have to be disciplined.

[rasen58]

Hm I feel like I wouldn't be disciplined enough for that though. If I got a taste of video games or TV, then I wouldn't want to stop. So I feel like it's just better to stop entirely and never touch them again.

[formerly_proven]

Depends on the kind of game. E.g. multiplayer games, especially with persistence, are just very addictive, so if you know that you are vulnerable to those addiction triggers, it's best to abstain completely. That's of course only useful for avoiding future addictions, and doesn't really help with an ongoing addiction, which are hard to control, but withdrawal should be mild, so going cold turkey (uninstall, sell/delete account(s) and perhaps the hardware) should be viable. Oh, and it's not particularly nice to people, but if it's game that's only played within a community, you could also grief / troll / insult / cheat for a day or so to get permabanned / ejected from the community and burn your name.

[rasen58]

Haha that's a good idea on trying to ban yourself. Yeah I think I just need to abstain from all games in general since even if I let myself play some single player game I'll eventually let myself play a multiplayer one again later.

[twodave]

Being willing to do whatever it takes is the only way. If that means trashing your phone, you've got to be willing to go through with it. If you're not willing to make sacrifices to change then the addiction will just continue to run its course.

I say this as someone who handled it poorly as a teenager and young adult--I eventually overcame the addiction by replacing it with a more social hobby (guitar), after a lot of self-isolation and lost sleep. Trashing my computer would have been a far quicker way, and my life would look completely different today if I'd done it.

[rasen58]

I tried to do this with reading books by putting a kindle on my desk so that I would see that want to read (I did a lot of reading in high school and it was very enjoyable so I'm sure I'll still enjoy it). But I just ended up ignoring the kindle and still continue to play mobile games on my phone or watch TV and movies on my laptop.

I agree with trashing things completely and I tried to do things like hiding the app store on my phone but I would still end up sometimes still opening the play store and installing a game. But I can't get rid of my phone completely since I do need it for other work things.

I want to replace these bad activities with a better activity but it seems hard when I can just start playing a movie and get that instant dopamine without needing to do any work.

[MattRix]

Uninstall the game. It’s the only thing that works for me.

[rasen58]

What if I go back and reinstall it again later? I've done this multiple times with some mobile games I've played that were really good.

[emerged]

See if you can transfer the addiction to a fitness game? Suddenly the addiction becomes a virtue and is strengthened by the endorphin highs.

[rasen58]

Any recommended fitness games? I think the idea makes sense but I feel like I'll just be lazy and choose the easier game that doesn't require me to move when it comes to deciding what game to play.

[emerged]

Zwift is great if you like cycling.