I know I have a problem and need to quit porn but is online gaming having a similar effect on me as porn? It is not uncommon for me to spend entire days playing video games such as starcraft 2 and an equal amount of time researching on how to be better. I might have a problem but I can't convince myself or even think of quitting video games that seems out of the question while I know I need to quit porn. What are your thoughts? Will quitting gaming be as beneficial as quitting porn?
I think so, in fact I think I use internet browsing and online gaming to avoid doing work and pressure. It actually make things worse and I have to do more work later. I think (not all but majority of) addictions are a pathological behaviour. You do it to numb yourself and avoid facing problems in life.
well, the more you quit stimulations the more benefits you will experience for example, who do you think will recover faster; a guy who quits all PMO, videogames, internet browsing, tv and other pointless media, or a guy who quits all PMO but still plays a lot of videogames/watches tv/etc. I bet even browsing this forum has some negative consequences if you browse it a lot. obviously the guy who quits everything will see the most benefits. Videogames are addicting, and use has a lot of the same negative benefits as PMO, just maybe not as severe. i used to play a lot of sc2 as well, i reached high masters with zerg, but i stopped playing because i couldn't concentrate well during practice LOL. Probably right now (due to stopping PMO) i could concentrate a lot better on perfecting build orders and timings and practicing just by myself in UMS mode ala sc1 style, but in my eyes videogames are still not real life, so i dont think i will go back. Ive watched like over 1000 replays of games for sure in my life, i used to watch those non stop. Its all bad for you im sure.
I also wanna go PMO free and at the same time stop videogaming. I messed up school because of World of Warcraft. Now I can't blame it all on that but it was a big factor and pushed me over. Lately I haven't been engaged in the gaming like I used to, so I have decided to stop gaming and go do things irl that will make me a better person instead. I have to agree with compaddict9999. You are gonna have to be extremely determined to go through with that however. I think gaming and PMO is gonna be enough for me to quit, then cut down with internet browsing and TV instead. To quit those two completely would be to hard for me and I don't really see the point.
http://kingpinlifestyle.com/how-to-quit-playing-video-games/ just read this article and it was pretty good. Could easily relate to him because he was also a hardcore starcraft 2 player
Do it! You will gain so much time and can make something useful with all that time gained instead. It is important that you don't watch TV or play other games as well instead, then it really is no point. I have been WoW free for 18 days now and it is worth it a million times over. No need to log in to that freaking game to do nothing for several hours. Quit that freaking game and you will never regret it! To quit WoW and stop PMO will change your life, I am sure of it . As it will change mine!
Yea fuck it your right im gonna cancel it and delete it, to be quite honest i didnt waste too much time on it, i did the sor thing to get to level 80 on my mage then leveled up from there but yea your right it takes up to much time. Thanks for that man
basically, everything virtual have effect on your mind regarding the real world. It all sounds nice and excellent to be in virtual and replace physical world, but reality is: you will get hungry, you will get sick and you will die. And it will all happen in the real physical world. Science is still not advanced enough for people to have luxury of replacing the physical world with virtual.
Good move, its amazing how that game can have such a lasting impact. I've been playing it since I was 16 around when vanilla came out. That was 9 years ago and now I am 25 and occasionally I get the idea to go back and try some of the new content out and every time I go back to an mmo I go immediately hardcore playing 8 hours/day if I have work or 16 hours on days off. I recently just started guild wars 2 and I already reached the maxed level in a week... So im gonna also say fuck it youre right, time to delete that shit. I do remember that it had a huge effect on me in high school as it consumed all my time. I slept around 3-4 hours a night I did poorly in school, didnt apply for scholarships, didn't do any school activities, or didnt even get a job. All the mean while all my friends were getting into colleges and moving onto the next stage of their life. And me at home wondering wtf happened. Through out high school I had around 9 months of playtime in 3 years. I don't know how my parents put up with me lol. I do attribute WoW as being the major contributor in my decision to do a 6 year contract in the military. I don't regret the decision but it was the hardest 6 years of my life even though what little freetime I had was still spent with porn and WoW.
Just described me in that bit man, and yea I can totally get how it fucks you up socially and academically too, it just aint worth it especially for our goal on here, I was the same man spending hour after hour on WoW doing raids and shit, but I had a realisation a few times and thought wtf am I doing with myself playing it for hours everyday, to be quite honest I do have a video game addiction.. It started off playing runescape back in 04 played that till 2011/Xbox 360 whenever that first came out, got bored of them both and moved on too WoW. But you just dont get nowhere in real life with these things for me it seems, so there is no point. Im not saying games are bad and shit, they can be awesome to take your mind off things, but when it gets to the point of escaping too much/spending too much time on it its just a waste of fucking time. I still play the 360 now and again, I see it as a bit of a drag to play it now only when they release GTA 5 i might have a bit of a problem lol, but yea fuck it man.. life your life go out there and be social and shit, I mean im going to a dance event in amsterdam in july with 45,000 people its gonna be insane, id 100% rather be doing that stuff than stupid games.
Hey ! I used to play video games too (and I have to admit that sc2 is simply awesome) and I strongly recommend you to stop, or at least to dont spend more than 1-2 hours PER WEEK on playing it. I know how awesome, and addictive, it can be. I stopped and I have more time now, I do more things, I feel better, I'm social again... There are only advantages on stopping videogames (but hey! find something useful to do with your free time, stopping video games to start watching cartoons or browsing time-consuming and useless websites is stupid).
I've had to create an account and stop lurking and chime in here. I was VERY addicted to games in college. And this as before the internet. We had IRC we could use in the lobby of the dorm but that was about it. Nothing else. No www even at that time. WWW hit in about 1994 or so and that was when i as already failed out due to freaking video games. I got a $3440 Gateway 2000 DX2-66 with a 2 MB Video card, a 300x CDROM, and I sprung the extra cash for a 15" monitor with only 75 hz refresh rate. Those are 1992 dollars. So then I ended up VEEERY addicted. Failed right on out of school and I had straight A's for 1.5 years before that except for one freaking history class I got a B in. I was failed out at the end of the Fall 1994 semester. I stayed up ALL night playing. I blew every dime I made on new games. Thank GOD I didn't know about MUDs back then. It was REALLY bad. I ended up selling my computer out of frustration after I got kicked out of school for bad grades. Noone had ever encountered 'game addiction' at that time. At least, noone really knew a lot about it. It was realtively new. Then I got hooked bad on usenet religion discussion groups... So... yea, until I got married, my life was a REAL string of problems relating to addiction. I was addicted to PMO for ages too before I got married. So, about game addiction. I have to say that I still play games, albeit I play A LOT less of them in large part due to the demands of working and being a father to 5 kids and a husband to my wife. Now when they go out of town to visit inlaws I do binge a bit on my games. I play on a MUD (a text multi user game) that costs me $40 / month and I also play some strategy games on the PC every now and then. However, for 8 years of being married, when she leaves for a week or two with the kids to visit her family, I only 'binge' for like 1 evening and maybe half of the next day. Like Friday night until 10 when I crash (I'm 40... I gotta sleep), and then for maybe 4 hours the next day and then probably 4 more at night. Then, the same on sunday, maybe 8 hours total for the day. The rest of the day I umm.... binge on reading. I LOVE science fiction and I have a reading list a mile long that I'll never get through. Then it goes down to probably 3 hours of gaming at night and then 2 hours of TV and 1 hour of reading plus the rest of the day talking on the phone or working. Then, when wife and kids come back, its back to merely 2 hours max a night, maybe 3 or 4 if I am lucky. Its just that I like hanging out with the kids and the wife.... I mean, they're a hoot of fun, kids need homework help, there's always a boo boo to kiss, the one kid that's really attached to daddy hard needs some love and fun in the afternoons... the 3 month old needs butt changes... the 1 year old needs butt changes... and, sadly, the 3 year old ALSO needs butt changes. I have to cook dinner for the kids... Wife and I do this incredible dance around the kitchen while we help each other get the kids homeworked, loved, fed, bathed, storied (see note about reading... I read to the kids about 30 minutes / day), etc. Back to gaming... what do I do with the 2-3 hours a night I game? I play a LOT differently. I play more like I did when I was 8 years old playing Dungeons & Dragons. I stop to contemplate what's going on in the game. I stop to admire the artistry in the game's design. That's only for the solo games. Then when I go on my MUD I play MUCH differently. I don't just run around hacking stuff and leveling to be the 133t guy in town. I actually do very little leveling and very little role playing. I tend to explore the rich text based world... I marvel at the geography in some places, the critters that can kill you in others... Sometimes get busted doing something I shouldn't and spend a bit of time in jail... etc. Yes, its an escape, but so is a good book. I actually enjoy my gaming 50000000 times more playing like this than I did when I would stay up all night gaming, tanking on caffeine and getting that dopamine itch scratched. I experience the worlds I play in and they don't rule my life. So... moral of the story... ASSUMING that what I have just described is both true and honest, I would call myself a normal 'gamer' who also does other things and that gaming is really just part of how I choose to spend my free time. Yet I clearly used to have a problem. I would never go back to gambling again (I was a VERY bad compulsive gambler). But gaming? Does anyone else know of someone who had a gaming addiction and then went to a more normal, healthy experience with gaming?
Think about this, why is porn dangerous? Because it overstimulates your brain. Videogames the same. They make you addicted and overstimulated and you cannot enjoy life no more. However: there is a positive aspect of playing that has benefits, catharsis. Is the process of letting out stress and violent emotions through virtual or unreal means. I believe that, when kept under control, playing games is an activity to encourage. Like sports. Why do we play sports? They are a modern version of fighting for surviving, the fittest win, the best win. And by channeling our energy in this activities we can be less stressed and more satisfied in real life. But i cannot stress it enough: as porn addicts, we all have a tendency to addictive behavior, so anything that can become an addiction should be considered really carefully.
