I find this really sad

[Archon_Wing]

To tell your the truth, I just stopped reading the article midway through. :blink: There was just something that made me say, "Blech, I can't read this anymore" even though the author might just be being sacrastic. (I just finished eating if you know what I mean) The reason is that I do know people who are addicted to various things (Diablo, alchol, whatnot) and these things do screw up their lives. They start stop caring about everything and just end up being wrecks. What disturbs me is that even though the author may not be totally serious, there is still a real person being described here. This is not to say that anyone who plays D2 too much is a screw up, but some people just can't handle it. I have to admit to not going to class to play D2 occasionlay though. :P

Games stimulate the imagination, but one must realize that there are times, where we must return to the real world. aka. reality check.

[Mavfin]

Well, at ages less than 20, very few (almost none) understand the term 'grown up' and 'responsibility' yet. Yes there are exceptions, but it's mostly true. I'm not flaming any teenagers reading here, but, I didn't quite understand that yet when I was 18 (16 years ago), and it was a few years yet before the world kicked me in the butt and taught me what it meant.

As far as the article, as a father of 4 kids (10, 7,6, and 2 months), I have little sympathy for him. That kid comes first, last and always.

Hey, I'm a computer addict to the nth degree, but I can pause my gaming at any time if my wife needs help with the kids, or whatever, or one of the kids needs something important. That's one of the primary reasons I don't play much online. You can pause single-player. Not so online.

To complete my addiction picture, you have to remember, I work as a network admin at a school. There are two of us, responsible for 1100 computers, 15 servers, and various other hardware across 10 buildings. We don't have any consultants that we call to do things. We do it. After work, I usually spend from 2-4 hours/night on my computer, playing D2/NWN/etc, but some nights there's just not time for that. And I deal with that, as my family comes first. Period.

No, the article is just pretty sad. I understand addiction, but there comes a time in a person's life when you have to decide whether you're going to join society, or if you're going to live off society and have no self-respect the rest of your life. My time came with alcohol when I was about 21. I met someone special, and I realized that if I couldn't get off the bottle, I was going to lose her. Well, we've been married for 12 years as of tomorrow, and have those 4 wonderful kids that I wouldn't trade for money or fame or anything. The alcohol addiction lost out on that one. But it was my choice. I couldn't have blamed anyone or anything else for it if I had gone the other way. In the end, it was *my* decision and no one else's to pick my path. And it's that way for everyone. There's choices in life, and a price attached to all of them.

[kandrathe]

I agree with you completely. The article is sad in many ways. I guess my point was that it could be worse, and maybe for that young man it will. Or, he can get up off his arse and start doing things with his life (and wife, and family as well).

It is perhaps a universal things for parents, for finding the balance between the individual, the family, and the society. For me that balance is between my childrens needs and that of the "family", my wifes needs and of our "marriage", and then my needs as an "individual". If I've been addicted to anything in the past, it would be to work. But, after we started having kids, that has not been a problem. If anything the reverse is true, I've been more guilty of putting off things at work to solve problems at home.

I still feel like I don't get to spend enough time with them. I defer my start time in the morning to 10am, mostly so I have more time in the morning with my children (7-9:30), but I was also able to justify it with my boss, as most of my human interactions are with people in Silicon Valley (2 time zones later from me). That 2+ hours in the morning has been the joy of my life, where my sons and I get to bond playing with thier toys, or reading books, or like this morning, playing in the snow outside.

Most evenings I try to scramble home in time for their 8-9 pm bedtimes, and occaisonally (maybe once a week) we get to have a dinner together. On weekends, I try to spend my time exclusively with my family or doing projects for/with my wife.

My time is after bedtime (my wife and kids go to bed at 8-9pm) and I stay up until 2 or 3am. I've never needed more than 4-6 hours of sleep, so I either work on my "moonlighting" projects, my "mad scientist" projects, or play some games. Once a week (Wed), I gather together a technical group at my office and we either play some games or work on other projects together until the wee hours of the morning.

[Guest]

Well, at ages less than 20, very few (almost none) understand the term 'grown up' and 'responsibility' yet. Yes there are exceptions, but it's mostly true. I'm not flaming any teenagers reading here, but, I didn't quite understand that yet when I was 18 (16 years ago), and it was a few years yet before the world kicked me in the butt and taught me what it meant.

Q: Are you male (said in respect of being that myself)? *Just read your whole post* -_-

It is common knowledge (or the media and teachers are all liers :unsure:) that females mature faster, and I'd say many do it at very young ages (then I really mean psychologically, not about the trend of girls (making them themselves) look more mature nowadays).

[Mavfin]

Yes, I'm male, but, it still holds true with females. Maybe to a lesser extent, but it still holds true from what I've seen. Of course, I'm not a certified expert on it or anything.

[Occhidiangela]

MavFin, my hero. :)

[pakman]

Interesting.

I know that when I played Diablo II I was addicted to it. I would sneak it, in fact. My gaming computer at home is in the basement, and my parents were usually cooking dinner together after my dad picked me up from school. I would play instead of doing homework. However, I learned after I failed a test that was worth a large chunk of my semester grade. Needless to say, I reconsidered, salvaged my grade, and completed high school in the top 10% of my class.

Then I came to college. With high-speed internet access and a new computer, my addiction was rekindled. I just *had* to play online seeing as I had never been able to do that before. I skipped some classes to play sometimes, and I would stay up late at night. Same thing for weekends.

However, unlike this guy, I still kept a social life. I met some people down the hall who were just as big a gamer as me. Prolly a bad thing, but it worked out for the best.

After I got bored with Diablo II about this time last year, I discovered something called Counter-Strike. Digital heroine. I now have to limit myself on the time I spend playing CS. My grades are good, and I get out. But it's tough, you always think about how to kill that Terrorist or Counter Terrorist that came around the corner. I can say now that I am limiting myself greatly on the time that I spend playing compouter games.

[Count Duckula]

It is common knowledge (or the media and teachers are all liers :unsure:) that females mature faster, and I'd say many do it at very young ages (then I really mean psychologically, not about the trend of girls (making them themselves) look more mature nowadays).

I'm a 20-year-old female college student. I attend an all-women's university. I just spent a Friday night working on my term paper like a good college student.

About an hour ago, another 20-year-old female college student stumbled onto our hall (after weaving her way down two flights of stairs) and threw up on our bathroom floor, and promptly passed out, and left us to clean it up and get her medical attention. Her excuse once she came out of it? She was drinking, and didn't want to dirty up her own bathroom.

(I know Mav nailed it on the head, but I just had to add my own spare change. Does 20 years of being Y-chromosome free make me a certified expert? :P)

As for computer gaming, I admit that playing computer games makes me happy and sane, and that I can express myself with my typing better than I can with my speech, but I still hang out with my friends and live in the real world.

[Guest]

Count Duckula: It is only my weird interpretations of course, which might not apply to the the average of the world. That one has only existed for ~5 years too since before I was ~15 my maturity (world understanding) was about null.

And it's also skewed in that the really idiotic people I've met have been males, and even if females have acted this way (and even if those ways are completely psychotically insane, way worse than any males), they've still been nice at moments. While for males they can spend their entire life beyond in one single state (which annoyes me more).

Also, all the English (not native here) I've learned is near zero learned in books (although I'm changing that now), so many words I interpret completely differently from the norm - like mature in this case.

I've also got a really abstract (word used in wrong context as I've been corrected of, but I don't care) world image which I apply to almost everything in the same way (and I guess Ada Religion's diety:s are females), which of course makes communication weird..

Yeah, erh, I would say more, but everything then turns into infinite paranthesis usage goo. :unsure:

[Archon_Wing]

Everyone has diffrent surroundings, and thus the idiocy ratio will vary widely.

I have seen morons of both genders, and believe me, I wasn't worrying about what gender, ethnicity, or creed they were. :)

Also, some people aren't assholes all the time. I met this one guy who convinced me that he was the scum of the earth, but getting to know him better proved him to be less scummy, and perhaps ocasionaly a decent person.