Hacker News Reader

Comment by b800h | Hacker News Reader

Largely unrelated, but the thing which leaves me feeling most wiped-out is playing (modern) computer games. I've cut them out completely, as they have no positive benefits and leave me listless and unmotivated.

View on HN

I wonder if it's because they're so stimulating with minimal physical effort. So, after playing, you hit the real world where achieving anything useful takes mental or physical energy and the contrast is significant.

Your comment caused me to compare gaming (which I haven't done since I was 16) to doomscrolling. It's a dissociative activity, requiring near zero physical presence or mindfulness. Passive entertainment which I do to take a timeout from the world and avoid the frustration of doing things I don't want to do, like work. But it always leaves me groggy and only begets more behavior of the same type.

Any particular class of game? Are we talking AAA console games or casual mobile games, or everything?

I was particularly fond of grand strategy.

Interesting - yes my take on this is that gaming is a dissociative activity, so typically the symptoms will resolve during the activity, but afterwards will make CSS/CSS worse.

Serious question: Why would this be any different than reading a book?

Is the implied suggestion, that, anything that is not "real" is bad? Does watching a tv show, movie or youtube video, reading a novel, or listening to podcasts of people discussing things (either fictional or "real world") have the same supposed impact? What about listening to a co-worker tell me about their weekend?

How do we define a disassociative activity?

Good question - one of the soft clinical signs of a person with css I’ve noticed: they come to clinic w a thick fantasy novel in hand.

So imo every activity can facilitate dissociation to a different degree depending on the activity and individual. Gaming, gambling, stress eating, and actual substance use out on one end of the spectrum. Hiking, gardening in the middle. And mindfulness body scans on the other end.

Playing Starcraft 2 (RTS) was incredibly stressful for me. I don't recall if I got any joy from it.

Warcraft 3 was similarly stressful.

The RTS I play now is Age of Empires 2 DE. And only campaigns. And it's not any more stressful than other games for me.

same for me with Starcraft 2. I tried league gaming but it was waaaaaay too stressful to be enjoyable. Loved campaign mode.

The DOTA genre is interesting. They don't stress me out that much. I'm more bewildered by the ever-growing rooster of heroes/champions and what skills they have and what items they could have at the tenth minute or something. Then I easily just end up letting the other team farm experience over my dead body. :p

So did the cut out have any positive effects on your mental or physical health? Do you suffer from symptoms like CFS or BFS or other something that might potentially be triggered by stress?

Yes - cutting out games resolves my apathy and lack of energy. I probably do have stress and tiredness caused by high cortisol from work, but concentrating on physical exercise as a remedy seems to be the most effective way of coping. Gaming compounds it, as does consumption of social media, particularly long-form video like YouTube.

> as they have no positive benefits

Hopefully you at least enjoyed playing them?

I quit playing video games years ago when I realized that they were more like an unpaid part-time job than something that I actually enjoyed. Spending hours to solve the puzzle or complete the mission or get to the next level, with nothing to show for it at the end.

Same here. I played Last of Us 2 when it came out and didn’t realize how big of a toll it took on me. It put me on edge and left me exhausted. I don’t play video games anymore either, except for some laid back iOS games.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com