[munificent]

Addiction is fascinating because the distribution of outcomes is so broad across users. Damn near anything can be life-debilitatingly addictive to some segment of people while others can consume it with absolutely no problems.

Psychology obviously can't always be simplified, but I think a key component underlying when consumption goes in a bad direction is why someone is using.

If you're playing videogames because your life is otherwise fine and you want to sprinkle some leisure on top, it's fine. Hell, you can play for hours a day and it's not really a problem if you're content with the time spent.

But if you're playing videogames as an avoidance strategy for underlying psychological problems, then you're setting yourself up for addiction. Because avoidance tends to cause those problems to grow. You aren't working on them, and seeing yourself avoid them subconsciously sends a signal that the problem is too big for you to handle. So the whole time you're avoiding, you're building it up bigger and bigger.

[oreally]

Just want to add, you can be addicted to any number of other things to suit your avoidance needs.

I have hope for people who are addicted to video games though, because I know they have obtained the knowledge/capability to figure out the underlying metagames and redeploy those skills to other areas of their life. And judging by the anecdotes on this thread it looks promising.

Now imagine if they're addicted to drugs; They'll be having another health problem to resolve. If you have a choice of being addicted to something at least let it be video games.