Depends on your utility function. WoW doesn’t seem to build a significant corpus of micro-skills or anything; it seems of mere transient enjoyment. It’s fun in the moment, but then later you regret having wasted your time. It’s dangerous though, and not simply because it’s a waste of time. Plenty of things are a waste of time, but once you realize that, you quit. WoW is different; it’s addictive super-stimuli.
You were asking what the difference is between being addictive and simply being really, really good. Well here’s an example: being in the midst of an indulge-regret cycle is one way to experience addiction. Think of somebody who eats three donuts each night, but always regrets it the next morning. Or someone who, well, every night stays up way too late playing WoW, and then every morning hates himself for it. Or somebody who whiles away his weekends or evenings playing it, and then always regrets it when at work. The indulge-regret cycle; a species of akrasia.
WoW is addictive for the same reason donuts are; it’s super-stimuli for a certain part of our built-in reward system. It’s hard to resist, yet useful to resist (at least for somebody with a utility function sufficiently similar to mine), because it plays on certain emotions and indicators and not on others. Or it affects one part of our motivational system so strongly that the natural stimuli for other parts becomes boring. And of course natural stimuli for that part gets boring too. And that’s bad because you start picking WoW (or whatever the super-stimuli is), over a ton of stuff of long-term importance. Like activity related to physical or mental health. Or your finances.
We’re built with a reward system that constantly feeds us inherently-compelling information. Taste, emotion, etc. But of course this system gets hijacked left and right in the modern environment. It’s built to motivate us in the moment, but designed to be in a harmony of interests with our future selves. Something is supposed to taste good to make you eat it now, to be healthy later. Not so anymore! Now we have junk food, and that creates a potential conflict of interests among our different selves over time. You want to eat it now, but you’ll regret it later… So you try to summon that precious will-power, but of course that rarely works.
WoW will hijack your reward system, destroy your motivation to do things that in the future you’ll regret having not done, etc. It’s not mind safe. Not for somebody with my utility function, anyway. I wouldn’t touch it with a 10-foot pole.
WoW doesn’t seem to build a significant corpus of micro-skills or anything
High-end play will teach you a fair amount about teamwork, coordination, and group politics. If you’re in charge of the group, you’ll gain some decent management experience—actual employees are a LOT easier to manage than WOW players. I was a manager for a couple years, and fairly highly rated within the company, and I relied a lot on my gaming experience to get me started :)
It’s probably not the best environment, but for people who are otherwise fairly socially isolated, it can be an incredible experience. I suspect running a tabletop RPG would be more optimal, but that’s also significantly less convenient.
I’ve had other friends who do high-end raids in WOW confirm that this benefited them in performing managerial duties.
Depends on your utility function. WoW doesn’t seem to build a significant corpus of micro-skills or anything; it seems of mere transient enjoyment. It’s fun in the moment, but then later you regret having wasted your time. It’s dangerous though, and not simply because it’s a waste of time. Plenty of things are a waste of time, but once you realize that, you quit. WoW is different; it’s addictive super-stimuli.
You were asking what the difference is between being addictive and simply being really, really good. Well here’s an example: being in the midst of an indulge-regret cycle is one way to experience addiction. Think of somebody who eats three donuts each night, but always regrets it the next morning. Or someone who, well, every night stays up way too late playing WoW, and then every morning hates himself for it. Or somebody who whiles away his weekends or evenings playing it, and then always regrets it when at work. The indulge-regret cycle; a species of akrasia.
WoW is addictive for the same reason donuts are; it’s super-stimuli for a certain part of our built-in reward system. It’s hard to resist, yet useful to resist (at least for somebody with a utility function sufficiently similar to mine), because it plays on certain emotions and indicators and not on others. Or it affects one part of our motivational system so strongly that the natural stimuli for other parts becomes boring. And of course natural stimuli for that part gets boring too. And that’s bad because you start picking WoW (or whatever the super-stimuli is), over a ton of stuff of long-term importance. Like activity related to physical or mental health. Or your finances.
We’re built with a reward system that constantly feeds us inherently-compelling information. Taste, emotion, etc. But of course this system gets hijacked left and right in the modern environment. It’s built to motivate us in the moment, but designed to be in a harmony of interests with our future selves. Something is supposed to taste good to make you eat it now, to be healthy later. Not so anymore! Now we have junk food, and that creates a potential conflict of interests among our different selves over time. You want to eat it now, but you’ll regret it later… So you try to summon that precious will-power, but of course that rarely works.
WoW will hijack your reward system, destroy your motivation to do things that in the future you’ll regret having not done, etc. It’s not mind safe. Not for somebody with my utility function, anyway. I wouldn’t touch it with a 10-foot pole.
Sorry this was so rambling.
High-end play will teach you a fair amount about teamwork, coordination, and group politics. If you’re in charge of the group, you’ll gain some decent management experience—actual employees are a LOT easier to manage than WOW players. I was a manager for a couple years, and fairly highly rated within the company, and I relied a lot on my gaming experience to get me started :)
It’s probably not the best environment, but for people who are otherwise fairly socially isolated, it can be an incredible experience. I suspect running a tabletop RPG would be more optimal, but that’s also significantly less convenient.
I’ve had other friends who do high-end raids in WOW confirm that this benefited them in performing managerial duties.
Good points.