WHO says video games are “digital heroin” | Hacker News Reader

WHO says video games are “digital heroin”

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8 pointslerie828 comments

Hey now. The title is absolute clickbait. WHO does not say video games are "digital heroin". There is a single reference to heroin in the beginning of the article: "Watching as a video game ensnares their child, many a parent has grumbled about "digital heroin," likening the flashing images to one of the world's most addictive substances."

The article is about WHO including videogame addiction in ICD as a mental health state, and the submission title should reflect that.

As crazy as these articles have been about gaming being a medical condition, I believe it. I'm in my early 20s, ever since I was in my mid teens I was addicted to video games. All through grade school and in college now, I struggle to put the controller down. I routinely don't get enough sleep because I can't stop playing. As soon as I come home I am on, and I won't get off until the early hours of the morning. It's a mixture of reasons why I guess; it keeps my mind off of reality, I enjoy the satisfaction of winning frequently, and it fulfills my desire of being in a progression based system. Achievements, knowing that my actions will eventually unlock achievements and level-ups, it keeps me going. I can't play games that don't have progression systems of some sort because I feel like without progression, it's a waste of time. Sure you can kind of get that in the real world, but it's harder and takes so much longer. Why do that when I have an easy alternative sitting on my desk? I really want to break my addiction to gaming as it really does affect some parts of my life, especially academic.

Personally I agree with the WHO and think that gaming addiction is a much larger problem than we currently think it is.

There are a lot of aspects to it but I think the biggest one is just that video games are ridiculously stimulating compared to other activities. I have similar issues with TV shows now that binge watching entire seasons or shows at a time is easy, and with browsing certain parts of the internet like Reddit and HN.

Going from having your brain being heavily stimulated to being less stimulated or not stimulated at all is hard. It doesn't feel good. That's why it's hard to not "just watch one more episode" or "just play one more game" even though I know it's not going to be just one more.

The desire to avoid understimulation bleeds over into many aspects of your life. It's hard to writing the next part of your CRUD app when you could be scrolling through Reddit comments. It's even hard to read a book or play guitar, which I know I will enjoy, when I could be doing something more stimulating instead.

Based on market size and broadness of appeal, I think that video games in general are significantly less addictive than social media or gambling, which have much wider appeal and greater impact. _some_ video games exploit gambling addictions, and are easily regulated (via bans on unlimited microtransactions for example, which remove the incentive for game designers to generate "whales")

Im assuming they are referring specifically to exploitative games like the mobile idle genre where you always have to do something and you really cant leave the game alone if you want to "maximize" everything.

Im playing Bloodborne right now and its 2-4 hours a day just because of how the game is made. I will die horribly and just put the game away for the day.

Other games, like Minecraft, is just a co-op sandbox. A social hangout. All it needs is a treadmill, and its good enough for me.

The three most addictive categories in my opinion, and in no particular order, are mobile games, competitive games (League of Legends, DOTA, Overwatch), and MMOs (World of Warcraft, EVE, Guild Wars, RuneScape).

You are correct that games like Bloodborne and Minecraft won't be a problem for most people, but for some they certainly will be. Any game that can be described as fun for some segment of the population will also be addictive to a small subset, because the same qualities that make it fun make it addictive to some people.

Don't get me wrong, I really really love Soulsborn series but they are one of the few games which I could play for the longest hours. They can be addictive in their own style.

For the sandbox part, I spent many sleepless nights during week days to Starbound, which is basically 2d Minecraft.

My point is, taste really matters and even non-exploitative games can be addictive. I'm never known as a hardcore gamer who spends half his life playing video games btw.

Pete Townsend really needs to stop with this social commentary.

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