Are games bad for dopamine?

If you went to the point of cutting out music, you should definitely cut out video games. Video games deliver an even higher hit on your dopamine receptors. I quit video games when I was 21 officially, transferred to another dopamine hit afterwards in youtube videos. Progressively got worse and worse, I even started watching others play video games again. I strongly believe if you want to heal your dopamine receptors, you'll need to remove it, especially if you can't keep yourself from playing a minor amount once or twice a week tops. Be honest with yourself, see how much time of your life is taken by video games and decide accordingly.

I personally don't want to be dopamine junky anymore. What about you?

 

Wait, but how do we know we have damaged dopamine receptors?

 

I'd say if you feel completely unmotivated and emotionless to do regular day to day activities, anhedonia. (Unless you have been diagnosed with depression prior to over indulging in video games/pornography/social media etc)

I personally think the goal here is to simply your life, where you can actually gain pleasure from something as simple as a sunrise. Perhaps you view things differently, which is absolutely fine.

 

I think it depends on the game and the person. I'm not addicted to marijuana nor alcohol for example, I can drink a beer or smoke a joint every two years and it doesn't affect me. I can't say the same for Porn and YouTube videos, once I start I need to force myself to stop. With games I can stop whenever I want, but I can see why it could be difficult for others.

I love videogames, and I also want to learn how to make them, but I get bored if I play them too much. Sometimes I cannot wait for the weekend to spend it all playing a game I just bought and two hours in I need to do something else because I get bored. I also try to avoid multiplayer games(Smash Bros with the squad is the only exception) and MMOs and shooters.

So yes, if you feel like an activity is more a chore to do than having fun, it's a good idea to stop it, we all are different and we need to know what it's best for us.

 

There’s no need to be rude. That’s a very childish response on your part. Why ask a question in the first place if you’re going troll people who take the time to answer you with their thoughts? Living life = natural release levels of dopamine vs playing video games= unnatural levels of release. Like I said in my post, if you can control it to the point that it doesn’t affect your motivation and day to day activities, by all means go ahead, if not then don’t. The question here is, why bother asking about something when you clearly already made a decision? Especially if you’re going to get upset about a response that doesn’t align with your thoughts. Food for thought.

 

aside from this very topic, i think is not only about games, but about the fact that we are surrounded, imo, by highly addictive things: foods, media... is the pleasure trap.

 

You’re absolutely right brother, I fully agree.

 

Different people get different responses from different substances/behaviors. Yes, that sounded dumb, but what I'm saying is this: some people can play games for an hour and get bored. I can play games for 24 hours and still want more. Not only does it give me a stronger dopamine response than practically anything else I do, but it is a very convenient avoidance tool.

If you don't think you have an issue with games, then I see no reason you can't have some fun once in a while. But if you feel the need to play every day, for multiple hours, you could have a problem. Thankfully, gaming disorder is officially recognized in the ICD-11. Maybe see if you meet the criteria?

Spoiler: Definition of Gaming Disorder

From WHO website:
Gaming disorder is defined in the 11th Revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) as a pattern of gaming behavior (“digital-gaming” or “video-gaming”) characterized by impaired control over gaming, increasing priority given to gaming over other activities to the extent that gaming takes precedence over other interests and daily activities, and continuation or escalation of gaming despite the occurrence of negative consequences.

For gaming disorder to be diagnosed, the behaviour pattern must be of sufficient severity to result in significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational or other important areas of functioning and would normally have been evident for at least 12 months.

Also, @Ghost79, I actually tried what you were talking about. Removing stimulating activities, etc. I cut out all internet, games, music, and PMO for about 2 weeks. Starting in the first couple days, I noticed a persistent feeling of fatigue, apathy, and sometimes depression. I got used to the boredom quickly, but my brain completely shut down, possibly as a symptom of dopamine withdrawal. Nothing interested me, so I just laid on the floor and stared at the ceiling for hours. Short walks around the neighborhood felt like marathons. But I would say that the freedom I experienced was worth the suffering.

One result from that experiment was that I discovered a very fascinating way of approaching addiction recovery, which I will now explain:

Take all of the unhealthy behaviors that you would like to quit - internet, music, gaming, porn, etc. Now allow some small exceptions. For example, you can listen to music while you're in the car. You can watch one episode of a show before going to bed. You can listen to podcasts or watch youtube during your lunch break. Allowing for these exceptions isn't unhealthy, because most healthy people are able to do these things anyway. We will call this scenario 1.

Scenario 2: don't allow any of those small exceptions. No music EVER. No internet unless it's for work/school. Uninstall/delete all social media. No forums, including recovery forums like NoFap.

Which scenario is easier to manage consistently? For me, it has always been scenario 2. When I did my little experiment where I removed all stimuli, I eventually relapsed on PMO. How did this happen? I let myself watch the 2020 election coverage, because I though "this is an important event, I should be able to handle it." Well, one thing led to another.

Managing exceptions requires you to make many decisions, and the more decisions there are in a process, the more room there is for error. When you allow yourself to do something in a small amount, what's stopping you from continuing to do it? Once the dopamine starts flowing, can you really trust yourself not to listen to another song, or to not watch the next episode? Conversely, if you allow no exceptions and forbid those activities absolutely, then your only decision is what else you can do instead.

Cold turkey, always.

 

A lot of it is my approach to music.

When you play classical music by plants, they grow better. When you play rock, they grow worse.

Also my general preference that simple calming classical music is better than the “kill your kids, kill your mother”, screamo, lose yourself music. I’ve definitely seen studies for it before, you can always compare the genre of your preference and see what experts say about it.

Again, personal preference as well. I think other posters have commented on it as well so I’ll just keep my thoughts short.

 

I think a lot of us react differently to external stimulation. I remember one of my 100 days streaks when I felt like trash and I couldn't understand why. Then it hit me, I was listening to a LOT of music(we are talking like 3+ hours when I had nothing to do at work). Since then I still listen to music but not that much and I feel a lot better during my streaks.

I'm not saying that listening to music is bad, listening to a lot of music is bad for me, and that can also be the case for a lot of people.

 

It's like asking how you know a game is addictive or not. If you look at them as programs and are able to take apart what each part of the program does then you know, if you don't then you don't know. Avoiding it wholesale starts looking like avoiding screens and sound wholesale, it doesn't distinguish anything.

 

I read what people write and realize how much I don't know. I don't really have that with games. I've never thought of any vulgarity at the sight of a busty woman in games. Maybe I'm too right. And I generally like it better when a girl has small breasts. If you're so afraid that games will provoke you, play better card games like online solitaire. In this game, for sure, there won't be busty women. You can concentrate on the game and not think about anything else. I advise you to try it because it helps me.

 

I eliminated an 20k hour videogame addiction thanks to my hard work while nofap, so you can. Videogames should be eliminated before music ... If you already stop listening to music then videogames - not even a question.

 

Cut off music? Huh...ok. For video games, well, depends on which type you play. If it's something like Fortnite which is full of ,,busty female characters'', yeah...you should not play it. But I play in general FPS games with a storyline like COD, Far Cry, Medal of Honor etc. In my case, it helps me to forget, for a short period of time at least, about my problems from real life. That applies to movies, music etc. But I'll not cut off my little enjoyable things because it might trigger a ,,relapse''. In 80% of times, my own thoughts triggered the urge to watch porn, not a song, video games, movies etc.

 

Gaming used to be an issue for me in all honesty back when I was 15, 16 and 17. But after that I turned the amount of time I spend playing video games. Even if I can use games in moderation I'm considering giving them up for Lent 2021. Other than that I have a problem controlling my media diet, I only spend 3-7 minutes reading the news, I only listen to one song a day on Spotify, 1 hour of gaming on weekdays, 2 hours on the weekends, I only watch one TV show per day and one movie per week. My main problem is YouTube, YouTube has to be one of my most hated websites to visit yet I find myself binging it. I want to cut YouTube out of my life. YouTube for me at least is nothing more than a time waster. Sure there's decent stuff on there but the site it's self is becoming more and more like YouTube kids and there's not really any good content on YouTube anymore so I just want to give up on it.

 

gaming is worst than porn for dopamine, your frying your brain with that stuff