Let’s face it, MMORPGs are addictive. A recent article published at Hellforge examines why and has some answers to help you get over the addiction.
Here’s an excerpt from the article:
Unlike chemical addictions like alcohol, cigarettes and other substances, the addiction to an MMO is not physical. However, it is both emotional and psychological. The MMO tends to fill in a gap hitherto left vacant by an unfulfilling social life. MMOs can, in many ways, bring some sense of false emotional satisfaction to the user. The addiction to MMOs can be difficult to overcome.
To indulge in an MMO is to indulge in an activity that simply makes pulp out of your free time by chewing you up from the inside out. It’s an activity that’s arguably self-destructive, especially when it starts to eat into the time you’d spend cultivating your social life, work life or the leisure time you’d spend doing other things, like reading, writing or spending time on any number of other productive hobbies.
An MMO can essentially replace your social life (be it online or offline), depending on how immersed you are within the game’s “community”. When you’ve got no social life or friends outside of an insular MMO server, it’s hard to give it up because it becomes the only life you know. The friends with whom you spend your time in an MMO are nowhere to be found outside of the “realm”; if they’re just as addicted as you are, you won’t even find them on an instant messenger. Essentially, the MMO becomes the user’s only window to a sorry excuse for a social life.
The article offers some advice and alternatives to MMORPGs such as a hobby, reading, or even photography.
Check out the full article here.
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