How much gaming is too much?
- Thread starter ForceUser
- Start date
Well, before I imposed a sabbatical from my gaming activities, I was involved in three separate DnD 3rd edition campaigns. 2 were held on the same day, alternating every week, and the third was held on a weekend day. The weekly games were usually four to five hours, with six to seven players, and the weekend game lasted about five to six hours with four to five players.
Now, five to ten hours of gaming a week for a single adult may not seem like a lot, until you take into consideration a forty-hour work week, and ideally a forty-hour sleep week on top of that. Not to mention at least five to ten hours a week commuting from place to place on sundry errands. Some people using gaming for their decompression time, but I need at least two hours apart from people to properly unwind after a day's work, which includes having dinner.
With the above scenario, not even counting in online Internet time and requisite time with a significant other, you have 10 to 20 hours left for your weekday leisure time. Some might argue about the weekend, but isn't that the time that most people reserve to get chores done and catch up with their friends anyway? Most people sleep in, and/or nap during the day (say about ten hours of sleep a weekend day). From my experience as a sales person in the internet industry, most single people spend 4 to 8 hours a weekend day online as a conservative estimate. All the chores they avoided doing during the week usually get taken care of, taking up the rest of the weekend.
For some of us, gaming is a forum of socializing with one's peers as a group. However, the dynamic doesn't replace supporting the individual relationships. If you claim all fellow players as your friends, spending time with at least one friend outside of gaming is a big deal, especially if all your peers have the same sort of schedule, and most of them with a significant other.
I found out that my responsibilities as a friend to others outside of my gaming circle were suffering because of the time I was spending gaming. It wasn't healthy for me to ignore my friends, then expect my gaming peers to fulfill the functions of those friends. Similarly, if I had friends in the gaming group, the only time I could spend with them was during our gaming session, due to our schedules.
Since resentment and confusion were building in me at this point, I decided to drop gaming for a full month, "quitting cold turkey", as it were, to take some time to reassess my priorities. I'd also been getting tired of playing DnD 3rd for at least two years, once a week, straight. It was pretty amazing, making the decision to stop investing my time in the pastime.. The ensuing emoional states I experienced missing the first couple of games actually felt like the withdrawal from an addiction. I'm still coming to terms with it, but I'm enjoying the free time I've got now. I also feel my enthusiasm for gaming coming back, although I really would like to get out of the fantasy roundup if and when I rejoin the gaming circle.
It's somewhat easier for those still in college to game every day, twice on Fridays like I used to do, oh fifteen years ago. But as adults, our time becomes less available, especially if we're building lives. I think it's important to support one's non-gaming-related relationships, and try to find social activities outside of gaming that get us to be a part of the real world. online role-playing games only encourages us to further distance ourselves from the "outside" word, and enough dissociation from reality can really wreak some havoc on your worldview, in the end.
My twopence.
M.
Now, five to ten hours of gaming a week for a single adult may not seem like a lot, until you take into consideration a forty-hour work week, and ideally a forty-hour sleep week on top of that. Not to mention at least five to ten hours a week commuting from place to place on sundry errands. Some people using gaming for their decompression time, but I need at least two hours apart from people to properly unwind after a day's work, which includes having dinner.
With the above scenario, not even counting in online Internet time and requisite time with a significant other, you have 10 to 20 hours left for your weekday leisure time. Some might argue about the weekend, but isn't that the time that most people reserve to get chores done and catch up with their friends anyway? Most people sleep in, and/or nap during the day (say about ten hours of sleep a weekend day). From my experience as a sales person in the internet industry, most single people spend 4 to 8 hours a weekend day online as a conservative estimate. All the chores they avoided doing during the week usually get taken care of, taking up the rest of the weekend.
For some of us, gaming is a forum of socializing with one's peers as a group. However, the dynamic doesn't replace supporting the individual relationships. If you claim all fellow players as your friends, spending time with at least one friend outside of gaming is a big deal, especially if all your peers have the same sort of schedule, and most of them with a significant other.
I found out that my responsibilities as a friend to others outside of my gaming circle were suffering because of the time I was spending gaming. It wasn't healthy for me to ignore my friends, then expect my gaming peers to fulfill the functions of those friends. Similarly, if I had friends in the gaming group, the only time I could spend with them was during our gaming session, due to our schedules.
Since resentment and confusion were building in me at this point, I decided to drop gaming for a full month, "quitting cold turkey", as it were, to take some time to reassess my priorities. I'd also been getting tired of playing DnD 3rd for at least two years, once a week, straight. It was pretty amazing, making the decision to stop investing my time in the pastime.. The ensuing emoional states I experienced missing the first couple of games actually felt like the withdrawal from an addiction. I'm still coming to terms with it, but I'm enjoying the free time I've got now. I also feel my enthusiasm for gaming coming back, although I really would like to get out of the fantasy roundup if and when I rejoin the gaming circle.
It's somewhat easier for those still in college to game every day, twice on Fridays like I used to do, oh fifteen years ago. But as adults, our time becomes less available, especially if we're building lives. I think it's important to support one's non-gaming-related relationships, and try to find social activities outside of gaming that get us to be a part of the real world. online role-playing games only encourages us to further distance ourselves from the "outside" word, and enough dissociation from reality can really wreak some havoc on your worldview, in the end.
My twopence.
M.
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