Go To Health

Is it any surprise that I always played a healer in MMOs? I love studying avatars as projectives and my own make terrific case studies. More on that another time.

Right now I feel compelled to address my perspective on the issue of compulsive MMO play, as it seems to be something I'm asked to discuss a lot. I'm keenly interested in it, having played compulsively myself and having family members who still do. It's a serious subject and one that arouses strong passions. Intelligent people become highly polarized and I think sensationalistic media attention can encourage negative engagement and hostility. It's probably my clinical background and training that lead me to attempt to get people to engage in positive dialogue, to listen to one another respectfully, and above all, to be self-aware. In my real-life role as a healer self-awareness is a key to living a healthy life. After all, you can only be free when you know what you're doing. And health is what we should all be concerned about.

No matter what words you chose to use ("addiction", "compulsivity", "problematic play") I don't think anyone would deny that some people play games too much. Some people become severely impaired from the amount of time they spend preoccupied with gaming. People argue about who owns the responsibility for that - the game developers (often compared to the tobacco industry) for creating the reinforcement systems/leveling/social embedding inherent in MMOs, or the players who should be able to manage their own lives. Perhaps it would be a giant step forward for everyone to take responsibility for moving toward health. Ultimately, what is good for people? Can we define that individually and make responsible choices for ourselves and our children? Can we encourage corporations to put health as a priority above profit?

Okay, maybe I'm an idealist in a PvP (Player vs. Player) world but so be it.

In my daily life I don't have contact with the major gaming companies, thus I don't know that I have any power there other than to continue to attempt to raise awareness regarding issues of responsibility versus profit. I've talked to enough small developers who do have concerns about creating healthy and pro-social games to know that there are people who have similar concerns and are making moves in positive directions. In another post I'll make some observations about what qualities in certain games encourage compulsive play, and I encourage others to comment on their own experiences and observations.

My daily work is with individuals who are struggling with how to be healthy, sometimes having no clue what that would look like as a lifestyle. It would take a book to discuss this adequately but I can make a few points here. The first and perhaps most important is that any behavior that is compulsive, obsessive, and is interfering with your basic life functioning is a problem. Any behavior.

The next few points all start with "S" - self-awareness, self-monitoring, self-correction.

Finally there's "E" for empathy. Awareness of and compassion for the feelings of loved ones cannot be left out of the picture of healthy functioning.

I think it's going to take another post to go into more detail. There's a lot to say. And yes, the book is in process.