"The Only Thing I Know" - A video about video game addiction

[More Fun To Compute]

This guy puts too much emphasis on career achievements and having an amazing social/family life. These are just superficial materialistic values of the modern age, only ones that have been reinforced more positively on him than the pass time of playing games due to messages from the mainstream media. The unfulfilled desire for these will leave you way more depressed than spending some time alone playing a video game. You start to feel bad playing a game? Just stop, nothing bad happens.

Being happy isn't that hard. Avoid dwelling on mistakes of the past and other things that are out of your control. Free yourself from unfulfillable desire and take pleasure in what you have.

 

[Levi93]

i kinda feel like the guy is trolling, i have no idea why but somthing in the video is saything to me that he's trolling, perhaps it might just be the video in the related section of the narrator with a troll face. IDK.

 

[JasonBurnout16]

The guy makes a good point but one thing bothers me. He doesn't suggest what we should do instead, just 'go out and enjoy life'. Well I don't feel like wandering the streets getting stabbed thanks, my neighbourhood's not safe. And while the government doesn't provide things for teenagers to do, all we'll be doing is standing on street corners - which gets us in trouble with the police.

The things he says about driving from NYC to wherever all apply to an adult. I can't drive, or do any of these things because of my age. Gaming is just a way for me to release stress after a college day - I do not want to get home and continue learning Spanish or something. People need to do something fun - furthermore all his suggestions are career and family based. Why so much emphasis on family life? Mine hasn't been too great, the one thing I don't want too do is spend more time with them than I have too :/

His suggestions just don't fit to every circumstance. Just my opinion though.

 

[FinalHeart95]

The way I see it, addiction is the fault of the person addicted. You let the thing you're addicted to take over your life, it made you do nothing. It feels like the video blames the games themselves for the addiction at times.

However, at the times where he says to not let games take over your life, I agree.

 

[RobCoxxy]

Videogames didn't ruin his self control.
It's always nice to have a scapegoat.

 

[kidwithxboxlive]

deeeeeeeeeeeeep. but partly true
i think he argued a good point with a good explaination to back it up...

 

[Scarim Coral]

I kind of got mix feeling about this. The first half I just think "Pshh, it all about self control etc" and when it got to the burning the WOW games I just laught since I was under the impression that it was about any games in general and it turn out it was WOW that ruin his life? Way to be misleading... The second half went he talked about hte benefit of playing games that it create community under the same banner then it confuse me to what he was trying to sent out. Overall the message has no valve to me so I will carry on with the way I play my games. I mean after all it's my life and I will take my own responsibility to my short coming.

 

[Kris015]

Beautiful. This may be helpful for some people. I am actually a bit touched by this.

 

[VanityGirl]

.

I just had to quote you to let you know that I love your comments. You seem very true to what you have to say. I believe I had told you this before, but once again, you comments hit the nail on the head.

On topic: I'm very unimpressed with this guy. Not to come off as a jerk, but games are NOT addictive. You really can quit any time. It is similar to people saying "I'm addicted to french fries", it's a mental addiction, meaning you can break it without getting withdrawls or going crazy.

I respect the guy for quitting, but calling games the enemy? Ninja please. You are your own enemy when it comes to these things. You are the one who decided to stop having a social life and instead played games.

I feel like this video will give people the wrong idea.

 

[KiKiweaky]

Well to be fair he does have a point, I'd love to know in the total amount of time I've spent playing games..... It would probably shock me, then I'd just carry on playing them anyway =D

I've never really been one to drop stuff or not go out because I'm playing the computer. I dont play sports, but do I blame video games? No, I never liked sports even when I was a child, much preferred just running around causing havoc hehe.

If computer games are affecting your life that badly you have much more problems than you realise, its easy to blame games. The problem is you being lazy, so lazy that your willing to let your real life slide by while you grind for new shinies.

 

[Wolfenbarg]

He lacked self control, that isn't the fault of games, it's his fault. I am a hardcore gamer, and have been one since I first picked up my SNES controller and played Donkey Kong Country for the first time. It isn't like it's such a throwaway experience that you can say that games are just toys like Moviebob said or that they have no lasting value aside from being entertaining like this guy did. Good writing can change perspectives, educate people, or even change lives. It doesn't matter if that's in a film, a book, or even a damned video game. And games with writing of that quality to exist, you just have to look for them.

Also, and this is probably more relevant to the topic: I know self control. Despite being a hardcore gamer and considering it one of my major hobbies, when I finally found my lifelong passion in film, I didn't pointlessly try to juggle another playthrough of Final Fantasy, I put my priorities in order. These days I spend more time in school or writing than I do playing games, but I still consider myself a hardcore gamer on the inside. Why? Because games have incredible value beyond playtime. Hell, they're part of the inspiration that sent me towards trying to make movies in the first place.

You can talk about perspective and opinion all you'd like, but coming from a strictly objective point of view: this man is WRONG. His entire message creates a scapegoat for his lack of self control by creating a hobby that he couldn't find any inherent value that consumed his life. If you have a hobby that you can't find value in besides entertainment, learn some moderation. You can waste time, education, or even your life reading books just as easily as you can going on raids in WoW.

Things like this are why I'm glad that Extra Credits exists.

 

[Lordmarkus]

Think this video was shown here a couple of months ago.

Still, I believe the maker of the video is a bit off. Addiction to something as trivial as videogames is your responsibility and yours alone. The guy just a have a serious problem of discipline if he allows videogames dominate his entire life for three decades.

Not to say that I'm entirly innocent of said addiction but his cause is just ridiculous.

 

[IxionIndustries]

Wow. Honestly? This guy is a damn tool.

There are plenty of benefits, at least for me, from my gaming "addiction". For one, I have made several friends over the years, both online, and off, through the hobby. I can type faster than anyone in my damn school because of all the years of inputing cheat codes. My art and ideas have blossomed from the inspiration that I have drawn from the years of games. I have learned many things about computers and coding simply by modding, and editing, you guessed it, videogames.

Sure, it's time wasted, but so is actually learning something, and getting a job, and getting a girlfriend, and living. It's all time wasted, no matter if you gain something from it, you're still gonna rot in a hole in the ground.

...I just so happen to enjoy my waste of time.

 

[Stoic raptor]

I love how everyone says he is stupid because its a mental addiction so he can quit anytime he wants.

You know that most addictions are hard to quit because its a mental addiction.
When your addicted to cigarettes, it take 3 days for the physical addiction to leave, but the mental addiction stays for months, even years. All the people I know who try to quit cigarettes relapse 3 months after they quit.
I am not saying it isn't his fault for staying addicted like that for so long, but mental addictions don't break just like that. If they did, they wouldn't be ADDICTIONS!


Personally, I play games a lot. But I always put school work over games, and I do not pick games over friends (although when I do get together with friends, we play games)
And I do not pick games over family.

 

[Ashcrexl]

i saw this a long time ago and it still pisses me off to this day. it's not just this man is whining about his own personal issues to an online audience. it's not that he is seriously projecting his own inadequacies onto a popular entertainment medium. it's not even that he's basically dissing video games for over 5 minutes.

what really bothers me about this video is that he seems to be trying to justify his own failure as a person by making this video. very few people manage to attain this level of addiction to ANYTHING and here is this guy, who has managed to sink to the bottom, who believes that anyone could get there just because he did. no brian. you are wrong.

 

[GamingAwesome1]

What an incredibly arrogant jerk. Who is he to say entertainment has no value? Who is he to tell me how I should think? Who is he to extrapolate his experiences and apply them to everybody?

He suggests things with no explanation as to why they are true, when they make no sense at all. Why is it preferable to read several works of fiction over playing WoW a lot? Are they not both entertainment? Why do books have value but video games don't?

All this looks like is some guy feebly attempting to sound profound by talking about something currently controversial with foreboding music playing in the background. Quite frankly, even if you do agree with what he is saying, he still needs to be called out on his immense pretentiousness.

Edit: If this was made a year ago, then I guess my point about this being a controversial subject now gets kind of thrown about... =P

Way to sum up my thoughts in a more intelligent fashion then I could ever do.