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schnikeys Something I didn't expect about quitting computer games cold turkey last semester (not mobile games, mind...) was that when I returned home after the first semester I've ever completed without failing anything and had ample time to game...
...I didn't.
I had all the time in the world to play Destiny 2, or Overwatch, or any of the many other games I have clogging up my Steam Library! And yet...I ended up switching cyclically between the same apps on my phone which I had during the semester when stuck in an "I don't wanna" executive dysfunction spiral (or when just trying to kill time, to be fair).
I have several ideas for contributing factors. One is that starting A Computer Game has a higher activation energy than browsing the internet on my phone, or messaging people on Discord, or playing Cookie Run: Ovenbreak, or even vomiting a few more lines into one of my Google Docs WIPs. I have to start up the gaming computer which was my treat to myself a year ago, update what needs updating (fuck you Windows 10), then boot up the game. Not to mention that for most games, the expectation is that a satisfying session is about a half hour minimum, usually an hour to an hour and a half. My dumb brain hates being interrupted, so I have to plan it for a time when I don't think I'll be interrupted. I got out of the practice of going through that whole routine, and so it feels way more onerous to sit my ass down and go through that whole process.
(This isn't to say that I don't spend large amounts of uninterrupted time idly browsing on my phone or playing mobile games - but my brain doesn't feel that such a span of time is necessary, if that makes sense.)
Another interesting thing with Destiny 2 specifically (since that is what I was primarily playing, last summer) is that my tolerance for grinding and repetition went WAY down. Destiny 2, as an FPS MMO, has a lot of grind. Now, I never liked the grinding, but now my brain can't get sucked into the flow of it like it did last summer, not without getting antsy. The frustration of spending several hours trying to pass a raid encounter over and over again feels far more salient and upsetting (I got more snappish than I should have at the other newbies who weren't grasping the mechanics as fast as I was in the Shuro Chi encounter of the Last Wish raid...sorry guys...) than it did before.
Another possible factor is that keeping up with my classes...felt really great. This may also tie into the other things in that if my enjoyment level of video game playing is decreasing, my long-engrained guilt of "you should be doing something more productive" has an easier time overriding it.
The other thing I was thinking about is that even more than keeping up with classes, writing has felt really, really, REALLY good.
I made my first real fandom friend back in June of 2017 - before that, I'd pretty much exclusively lurked. I helped edit a fic for the first time with one of their fics, back in October 2017. I posted the first chapter of my first longfic back in February of last year. Largely due to that, I met the most amazing, incredible RP partner that has ever existed, leading to me RPing for the first time since 2012 (when I made like two posts on an RP forum and then disappeared XD) last April. We have written a total of probably four hundred thousand words (probably a half of that being smut lol). We started a new plotline/AU back in August, and we wrote about 200k words of that throughout the semester up until now (if slower than the first plotline).
I'm not going to say that writing (particularly when I don't have a co-writer) is easy for me, but it's been getting slowly easier every time I practice writing snippets of dialogue and ideas for scenes down instead of letting them percolate and then die. And being able to reread something that I wrote, that is exactly the kind of story I want in the world, that is a little piece of my thoughts articulated out there...my god, it's like anise cookies, I am surprised literally every time I stuff one into my gullet by the fact that it's just as good as the last cookie I ate.
(I mourn all the years that I let my ideas vanish instead of writing them down. Where would I be by now?
Also, I'm mourning the loss of anise cookies. Why did I have to find out that I'm allergic to them?)
The only reason I feel kind of miffed by the fact that I don't tend to entertain myself with computer games as much anymore is that I don't like confronting how it's a really top-tier avoidant strategy for me - get stressed, usually because I'm behind on something, play video games to avoid thinking about it, get sucked in and spend more time than I meant to, don't finish things, feel bad about not finishing things, play more video games, repeat until breakdown...because I love video games! I think it's one of the most exciting mediums for storytelling! I love talking about them, analyzing them, and I do like playing them! (I would also rather that my parents' criticisms of video games as "addictive" not be true.)
I think, in the long term, this will be good. Getting antsy after an hour of game-playing could mean it's easier to keep sessions to an hour, and prevent getting sucked in or burned out. I want video games to be something that makes me feel good, not bad. Something I can do without being paranoid that my brain is fucking itself over again.
Either way, it's a new semester, and I left my gaming laptop at home again. I think (I hope) that things will go well again. Fingers crossed!
...I didn't.
I had all the time in the world to play Destiny 2, or Overwatch, or any of the many other games I have clogging up my Steam Library! And yet...I ended up switching cyclically between the same apps on my phone which I had during the semester when stuck in an "I don't wanna" executive dysfunction spiral (or when just trying to kill time, to be fair).
I have several ideas for contributing factors. One is that starting A Computer Game has a higher activation energy than browsing the internet on my phone, or messaging people on Discord, or playing Cookie Run: Ovenbreak, or even vomiting a few more lines into one of my Google Docs WIPs. I have to start up the gaming computer which was my treat to myself a year ago, update what needs updating (fuck you Windows 10), then boot up the game. Not to mention that for most games, the expectation is that a satisfying session is about a half hour minimum, usually an hour to an hour and a half. My dumb brain hates being interrupted, so I have to plan it for a time when I don't think I'll be interrupted. I got out of the practice of going through that whole routine, and so it feels way more onerous to sit my ass down and go through that whole process.
(This isn't to say that I don't spend large amounts of uninterrupted time idly browsing on my phone or playing mobile games - but my brain doesn't feel that such a span of time is necessary, if that makes sense.)
Another interesting thing with Destiny 2 specifically (since that is what I was primarily playing, last summer) is that my tolerance for grinding and repetition went WAY down. Destiny 2, as an FPS MMO, has a lot of grind. Now, I never liked the grinding, but now my brain can't get sucked into the flow of it like it did last summer, not without getting antsy. The frustration of spending several hours trying to pass a raid encounter over and over again feels far more salient and upsetting (I got more snappish than I should have at the other newbies who weren't grasping the mechanics as fast as I was in the Shuro Chi encounter of the Last Wish raid...sorry guys...) than it did before.
Another possible factor is that keeping up with my classes...felt really great. This may also tie into the other things in that if my enjoyment level of video game playing is decreasing, my long-engrained guilt of "you should be doing something more productive" has an easier time overriding it.
The other thing I was thinking about is that even more than keeping up with classes, writing has felt really, really, REALLY good.
I made my first real fandom friend back in June of 2017 - before that, I'd pretty much exclusively lurked. I helped edit a fic for the first time with one of their fics, back in October 2017. I posted the first chapter of my first longfic back in February of last year. Largely due to that, I met the most amazing, incredible RP partner that has ever existed, leading to me RPing for the first time since 2012 (when I made like two posts on an RP forum and then disappeared XD) last April. We have written a total of probably four hundred thousand words (probably a half of that being smut lol). We started a new plotline/AU back in August, and we wrote about 200k words of that throughout the semester up until now (if slower than the first plotline).
I'm not going to say that writing (particularly when I don't have a co-writer) is easy for me, but it's been getting slowly easier every time I practice writing snippets of dialogue and ideas for scenes down instead of letting them percolate and then die. And being able to reread something that I wrote, that is exactly the kind of story I want in the world, that is a little piece of my thoughts articulated out there...my god, it's like anise cookies, I am surprised literally every time I stuff one into my gullet by the fact that it's just as good as the last cookie I ate.
(I mourn all the years that I let my ideas vanish instead of writing them down. Where would I be by now?
Also, I'm mourning the loss of anise cookies. Why did I have to find out that I'm allergic to them?)
The only reason I feel kind of miffed by the fact that I don't tend to entertain myself with computer games as much anymore is that I don't like confronting how it's a really top-tier avoidant strategy for me - get stressed, usually because I'm behind on something, play video games to avoid thinking about it, get sucked in and spend more time than I meant to, don't finish things, feel bad about not finishing things, play more video games, repeat until breakdown...because I love video games! I think it's one of the most exciting mediums for storytelling! I love talking about them, analyzing them, and I do like playing them! (I would also rather that my parents' criticisms of video games as "addictive" not be true.)
I think, in the long term, this will be good. Getting antsy after an hour of game-playing could mean it's easier to keep sessions to an hour, and prevent getting sucked in or burned out. I want video games to be something that makes me feel good, not bad. Something I can do without being paranoid that my brain is fucking itself over again.
Either way, it's a new semester, and I left my gaming laptop at home again. I think (I hope) that things will go well again. Fingers crossed!
no subject
Date: 2019-02-09 06:34 am (UTC)Also yes. I was never a big grinder but Destiny 2 took it to new levels of monotony, which was sad.
(Congrats on a good semester! And on finding your ideal RP partner, always a blessing.)
no subject
Date: 2019-02-10 03:30 am (UTC)I do wonder about whether video games have to be like this, though - because it is DUE to Destiny 2 that I have been writing so much fic, and so it is, indirectly, a hobby leading to creation...sort of, because it’s not the grindy gameplay that captivated me, it’s the lore! The lore that is...primarily found outside of gameplay.
As a storytelling medium, and not a money-making medium, extended grind really HURTS the storytelling capabilities! It’s a mechanism to space out content, it barely counts as content unto itself. There’s gotta be a better way of pacing things - like in Hyper Light Drifter, or Undertale, gameplay which perfectly complements story instead of the story feeling tacked on.
idk tl;dr i just hate how monetization hurts storytelling lmao