[jackothy]

Video games are dopamine machines like few others. I fear they might cause us to waste more mental capacity than older pastimes.

I'm inclined to think of it as stealing too much of people's brain power for too little return, like TikTok etc.

Doesn't it sound almost undeniable that we would be healthier as a society if people were forced to do sports, read a book, create something, or talk to their friends in order to relax instead?

(I play lots of video games myself so I guess I'm just theorizing here)

[jacobolus]

Why do you think spending time solving hard logistical optimization puzzles is such a worse hobby than sports or reading books or painting or whatever? Even if it’s not your own cup of tea, why do you care if other people enjoy it?

It’s certainly no less valuable to society than e.g. playing chess or go or poker, and on average probably a better use of time than reading the newspaper or chitchatting on this website. Many of the skills learned are largely transferrable to solving other kinds of difficult technical problems.

You can make an argument that aerobic sports are valuable for general health, but beyond the exercise and some measure of social activity, the game part of the sport doesn’t have any a priori importance, and if people prefer to get their exercise some other way that doesn’t seem like an inherent problem.

“Forcing people” to “relax” with particular activities seems pretty authoritarian.

[jackothy]

I don't think I'm getting my point across.

First of all: It certainly is my own cup of tea; Like I said, I play lots of video games myself.

On a societal level I'd say there are basically two reasons why I think video games might be a worse pastime than the older ones. First it's that you are more likely to spend "too much" time on video games because they are more addictive, you don't really get tired and you can do them at basically any time. Second it's that I think video games is a lower value way to spend your time. Sure, you might improve a bit at problem solving, but I think the value per unit of time spent is still very low. I even think this might come at a cost because really figuring out/performing well in a game can be very mentally taxing at the expense of more productive use of that mental capacity.

These two points apply to the examples you mentioned as well: reading news and talking on social media. I'm not saying video games is the only bad hobby. Apropos Ted Kaczynski, it might be tempting to say that most "post industrial" hobbies are the bad ones.

Lastly, I'm not talking about "forcing people". Even if choosing video games as a hobby is a bad idea then people (including me) are free to make bad choices.

[jacobolus]

> I'm not talking about "forcing people"

>> we would be healthier as a society if people were forced ...

* * *

People have been complaining since forever that other people waste too much time on board games / novels / playing or watching sports / playing or listening to music / traveling / attending live theater shows / going to the pub / gardening / hiking / stamp collecting / politics / mathematics / philosophy / cooking / going to restaurants / whatever other activity you can name.

It’s fine to say that many people would do well to prefer activities that are interactive and creative vs. passive, physically active vs. sedentary, social vs. individual, skillful vs. mindless, etc. But Factorio per se seems like pretty high-hanging fruit, especially if people are playing it together. (Disclaimer: I don’t really play computer games.)

[jackothy]

Oh, my bad, I see how I miscommunicated the "forcing" thing. In my head I was imagining an alternate world where video games simply didn't exist, so there people would have no other option than to (be "forced" to) read a book etc.

And yes, I agree that Factorio might be one of the "smarter" games out there. But the point about addictiveness, and the point about being mentally draining rather than relaxing, still stands for Factorio.

Personal anecdote: I spend much of my time in high-ranked (think top 0.1% of players) video game matches, and I think it might be too mentally stimulating to the point where I don't have the energy or willpower to get other useful things done.

[spopejoy]

Another analysis is to go ahead and consider video gaming primarily as a compulsive & addictive pastime. If so, it is one of the least harmful ever.

If video games are scratching some dark and antisocial itch leading to hours spent with them, it's easy to think of far worse outlets -- drugs/alcohol, sex/porn addictions, gambling, food, etc -- that have been with us forever.

[wadd1e]

>Doesn't it sound almost undeniable that we would be healthier as a society if people were forced to do sports, read a book, create something, or talk to their friends in order to relax instead?

I disagree. Firstly, video games are a very broad term so I'm not claiming that there are not video games that are made solely for the purpose of making money from people addicted to the dopamine rush. Bad actors are unfortunately present in all sorts of industries, but anecdotally, they are outliers.

For me, the video games that I play or played have brought me closer to my friends and left me with memories that I can look back on and smile at the thought of.

Infact, Minecraft Redstone[0] was a massive catalyst in developing my interest into putting small parts together into a working system, which eventually led me to learn programming.

If I'm understanding you correctly, you are suggesting that video games and similar dopamine machines are replacing more traditional past times such as sports/reading etc. Are you suggesting that before the prevalence of video games, people only ever engaged in things like sports/reading books?

TV is a thing, and before TV, people who didn't want to engage with sports or reading spent time with their friends in ways which weren't exactly productive. There are undeniable changes to society since the introduction of the WWW/electronics in general, but I don't think they've made society unhealthier in general; they've merely changed it in ways that we are still getting used to.

One last thing to note is that video games are a great way for me to also talk to my friends and have a purpose for hanging out(albiet online). Lots of them live way to far for us to feasibly meet in person on a regular basis, and playing a multiplayer game together is a great way to engage with each other and also have some fun on the side.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that video games aren't necessarily unhealthier substitutes for past times we engaged in before they became prevalent.

[0]: https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Redstone_circuits