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Comment by WA | Hacker News Reader

Are you a gamer? I play PUBG, I used to play other games. Multiplayer online Games with a competitive aspect trigger my buttons. They can be very rewarding. They provide a constant release of dopamine.

I can’t think of any other activity that comes close to gaming in that regard. Most stuff gets boring after a while. Sure, you can dive in a book and come back two days later when it’s finished. But after doing this a couple times, it gets boring rather quickly.

With gaming, especially never ending competitive online games, one can easily sink hundreds or thousands of hours.

So, as a gamer being honest with myself: I will restrict video game time and media consumption of my kids, because they don’t know yet how to deal with these immense dopamine triggers.

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That's not true at all. I'm a gamer and I LOVE reading books and I removed "pleasure books" (non self improvement books) because they actively disrupt my life much harder than games.

My favorite book series is 14 beefy books (800 pages some of them), I started reading them when 9 were out.

I read the first 9 in 1-2 months, doing ONLY THAT because I loved it so much. Same goes for the previous book series I read (I was 12 at the time, so my memories are not as solid).

I can play games for long hours, but I never end up in that same state where I don't do anything else for an entire month. Sure, there have been a few days where I played all day, but never months.

And I stopped playing games without looking back when I stopped liking them, or when I figured out they were bad for me (mmorpgs especially)

Yes, I am a gamer, and my wife plays occasionally too. We set limits on our kids gaming and use it as a tool for rewarding good behavior. We created a “real life battlepass” for our older kid where he gets 4 weekly challenges (chores, non-gaming learning objectives, etc.) that have to be completed by certain times in order to earn gaming time. We let him come up with one additional challenge that is non-gaming related and then another gaming related challenge (e.g. 5 eliminations in a game of Fortnite). This is all in addition to the normal expectations of keeping your room clean, school work, etc.

Managing their exposure to this type of media is important. They’re going to be exposed to it, and they enjoy it, so instead of fighting it we found a middle ground where we all win.

Agreed. In another comment, someone points out that LoL/Dota2 require a lot of dedication and metagame analysis to be good.

Which is true, but doesn't change the fact that I look back at all gaming I did as a massive waste of time, wishing I spent even 10% of that time doing anything else. And even in my early 20s, I couldn't get out of that "just one more game" compulsion many nights and it would impact my work performance and social life. Not really something I want for my children.

I'm in my 30s now and have healthy hobbies again like language learning, reading, and drawing.

I have a feeling a lot of these "gaming are no different than reading or playing a sport" are from young HN gamers. I would've argued the same thing when I was a kid. Not til later did I start wanting to live my life to maximize my sense of fulfillment and minimize regret, and I have a hard time believing gaming does that for anyone.

I realize it on and off. I go through periods where I binge games (I've always been a handheld fan, so 3DS and now Switch) and then I won't play for weeks, while I do other hobbies. I definitely notice a vast difference between when I'm playing games and when I'm not. When playing, I just want to do one more, one more, and even see the game in my head when not playing, or think about metastrategy. Thankfully, it hasn't impacted my life, but I definitely don't want any kids I might have dealing with that until they're able...Though I'll definitely introduce them to games, just keep it limited.

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