I’m curious how many of these concerns could be applied to fiction in general.
I do think that video gaming is likely to be a far more detrimental hobby than people realize, especially if they choose the wrong sort of game to play. My favorite style of games use a lot of the same parts of my mind as my research- and so I find that in order to be maximally productive during the week, I need to limit them to the weekends or not at all, and play games that use different parts of my mind during the week if I’m gaming during the week.
I think that there are similar troubles with reading fiction, especially if you’re like me where you find it difficult to stop reading engaging narratives, even if you dislike them. I made the mistake of getting the first four Game of Thrones books at once from Amazon, which meant I lost about 40 hours that week to reading them (almost) nonstop, even though I quickly realized the books were making me miserable and thus were quite possibly things I should not read. The more generally applicable argument is about generalizing from fictional evidence. Once you have a well-developed sense of empathy, I think you’re much better off reading non-fiction book about interacting with people than reading more fiction, for example, and there are Waste of Hope reasons to dislike escapist fiction.
I do think that video gaming is likely to be a far more detrimental hobby than people realize, especially if they choose the wrong sort of game to play. My favorite style of games use a lot of the same parts of my mind as my research- and so I find that in order to be maximally productive during the week, I need to limit them to the weekends or not at all, and play games that use different parts of my mind during the week if I’m gaming during the week.
I think that there are similar troubles with reading fiction, especially if you’re like me where you find it difficult to stop reading engaging narratives, even if you dislike them. I made the mistake of getting the first four Game of Thrones books at once from Amazon, which meant I lost about 40 hours that week to reading them (almost) nonstop, even though I quickly realized the books were making me miserable and thus were quite possibly things I should not read. The more generally applicable argument is about generalizing from fictional evidence. Once you have a well-developed sense of empathy, I think you’re much better off reading non-fiction book about interacting with people than reading more fiction, for example, and there are Waste of Hope reasons to dislike escapist fiction.