The videogame trap

Last weeks I’d fallen in a deep videogame hyper-focus phase and that’s not healthy. But before continue I could imagine that there are some readers that never faced the term “hyper-focus” before, so let me define it: Hyper-focus is a mind state in which you could put all your attention into a task and hardly get distracted or deviate from it. Sounds perfect right? If you could hyper-focus deliberately, that would mean that even boring task like doing homework or build large projects would be easy to complete. But it’s not that easy.

People with ADHD could be able to hyperfocus in things, but this “ability” depends on how much feedback you get from the activity theyre doing. For example it’s easier to attach a child with ADHD to math if everytime he or she does well in it you praise then for it. Videogames are master in feedback mostly because the work with a feedback loop. Each time the player make a action feedback is shown as points or a reward afterwards the player is invited to keep doing actions to get more points or better rewards. However not just by adding positive feedback someone would be likely to hyper-focus on something, the feedback must be accurate. No matter how many gold coins you give to a player. If there are not challenge neither would be attachment.

Indeed there is a higher chance to get hyper-focused over things like video games, but this not kill the possibility on get in that state on other activities. In you find something that combines positive feedback and challenge there is a big chance you will immerse yourself onto it, and the feedback could come from your own satisfaction. For me this conditions are met when in programming: To solve problems is very satisfying.

My personal conclusion after my investigation is that I need to be away from video games especially the more additive ones. Not installing game on my phone and only buy or download a game each 2 or 3 months made a bigger difference in my life and my schedule is thankful for it.

Sorry for being away for so many time. You know the song ♪♪ Isolation is not good for me ♪♪. I’ll be posting more entries during the next week, so stay tune.