Life and Games
Games can be so much fun that people devote much of their lives to them. As their skill grows, and they get better, the game can become even more compelling.
At some point, for some people, the game becomes so important that it cuts into other valued activities, or social relationships, and the player's life begins to deteriorate. How can this happen?
An anthropologist suggests those who play a game seriously may do so because it marks a spot of meaningfulness in a world that often seems meaningless.
Games are like living life, we make decisions that influence the outcome. But in games the situation is set up so that we can know how it all adds up. This adding up, this meaningfulness, is one of the most important things that draws people to games.
Whatever the reason, when the meaning of the game outweighs the meaning of the world, something that enhances life has slipped into something that detracts from it.
In our attempt to understand why a person can get pulled into something that begins to take over their life, the problem can be based in something that virtually defines our humanity, our quest for meaning.
Psychology Today
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