• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

I always suspected that gaming ruined school for me, now I know it did

It depends on content, not the medium per se. Playing e.g. Morrowind isn't really overstimulation. But playing five GaaS games at the same time is, or the mobile crap which is all practically the same game repackaged a millionth time.

And let's not forget people can also get addicted to almost anything (there's no limit to non-substance-related/behavioural addiction) and some even have an unfavourable genetic disposition.

Despite these games are on the rise, many still don't rely on overstimulation.
 
It certainly can become an addiction. They hire psychologists to design game loops specifically for that purpose. If you have no awareness of media literacy, advertising literacy, psychology, self-awareness, it can be almost inevitable to be sucked up by something. There's a widespread social media addiction, online addiction, phone addiction, online gambling epidemic, etc. You always have to view media and habits through that lens and critique yourself and your thoughts. These things tend to be a lot more pronounced if there's other underlying disorders like depression or anxiety.
 
Every time I was an university student, I had to quit gaming. I quit gaming for 8 years in total. Now I have several university degees and a shitty low-paying job.

I even graduated with honors once. I currently work at the university, but I'm fed up with education. I just want to work a simple job, enjoy life and create something myself instead of playing some fucking scholar.
 
I don't say OP is wrong but at a certain point you have to willingly and purposefully cultivate an habit of discipline, otherwise "videogames" will just be replaced by whatever activity you find more fulfilling than studying (which is: pretty much all of them).
Schools do whatever they can to be as uninteresting and unappealing as possible, especially when you're little, so even if you like stuying and science they very efficienty target your native interests and kill them. In that context, no wonder videogames can look much more interesting on any level.

Too bad you're wasting an amount of free time you will never get to experience ever again. In that context, yeah videogames are poison.
 
lol wtf is happening, a real thoughtful and actually useful thread on NeoGAF? Am I dreaming?

You forget to provide us with the most important bit, OP: What the f are we supposed to do about it? Like is there a way to "revert" the brain and let it have some fun with homework again? Or is this irreversible?

Edit: In my 40s I have the reverse effect - I just don't know how to enjoy games anymore, I find every single game totally boring and unattractive. Maybe it should stay this way then?
 
Last edited:
Man imagine how fucked the tiktok generation is. Though I can't say it effected my enjoyment and performance in school very much - I did however play a lot outside as well.
 
I still went on and got a degree with honors but damn… WoW was a definite time sink that hit at exactly the wrong time.
 
Nah, gaming is not to blame, you are.
I've had a bunch of loser colleagues in school who didn't play video games. They smoked, drank, gambled , fucked around all day doing shit. So ppl will always find something to put the blame on.
 
I agree, I'd already been playing games before, in my spare time, but in high school, I started playing online games like World of Warcraft, DOTA, and Counter-Strike. And because of that, my grades plummeted, to the point where I had to repeat a year (the only upside of this was that I met my wife there, because since I already knew the material, I helped her). In the end, because of university entrance exams, I put gaming aside and started studying. However, when I entered university, I fell into the trap of online forums, so I discussed games more than I played. Today, despite having a stable job, I felt stagnant and decided to pursue a PhD. Then I realized that things like basic math were lacking solidity and decided to review everything. I only play for a few hours on Sundays or short breaks midweek if I'm enjoying a game. But that doesn't bother me anymore.
 
I'm someone who deeply regrets not having been more studious when I was younger. I did indeed hate school and spent a lot of time doing other stuff like gaming while my grades degraded and I didn't have any plans for the future. The result is that I'm now a 30 years old with pretty useless degree from a shitty university in a field I don't particularly like (which basically just ammounted to another 4 wasted years). Though I do at least like my current job in the small business I opened several years ago.

That said, I think blaming it on games is missing the point. I was just very lazy and deeply unmotivated, had you taken videogames away from me I'd just have spent that time on other stuff besides studying. Also not to deflect responsibility to others but there were other factors back then (between my parents getting divorced, us changing school to one I hated, etc) that I think had a bigger influence than games.

I know a lot of people from back then that played just as much as I did and they still went on to have successful careers in well respected fields like medicine and engineering.
 
kpopSuperstar said:
I guess my point is that you need to stay aware of what you are doing when it comes to media and entertainment, cycling off entertainment for a few months to regain your natural interests might change your entire educational journey, and might make things easier for you, if you game constantly and have a problem with being interested and engaged at school/work.
Click to expand...

I was born in 1980. I went through middle and high school during the 90s. I hated school too, but not because I was "over stimulated". I hated it because:
  • Most kid's natural sleep cycles are to stay up late and sleep in late. School makes you wake up early, which means you feel like shit. This is normal. Kids aren't "naturally" wired to wake up at 7am and be alert and attentive at their desks by 8:30.
  • Most of what they teach in school has very little value once you become an adult. Kids know this. I knew it when I was in school, and my kids know it now.
  • Most of the Science and History would stick with kids if they just watched videos instead of studying/memorizing from a text book.
  • They spend way too much time breaking down the mechanics of language because it's easy to grade. They don't spend nearly enough time reading great books. They don't read great books because great books try to push a message or a point, and the school system is designed to avoid confrontation with parents who don't want the school system pushing ideas on their kids. Most of the hours kids spend in Language Arts at a school are just wasted time.
  • They don't assess kids honestly and early and start pushing those kids in a specific direction. Expecting average IQ kids to go through Algebra 2 and get good grades when they're not going to work a job that requires math above a basic arithmetic level is a waste.
  • Kids are in a social dominance hierarchy at school being surrounded by other people their same age. This is not a normal environment. Nowhere else in life are you around a bunch of other people who are exactly the same age as you are.
I would say the only major new thing is the gasoline that social media brings to the social hierarchy. That is a huge problem, and there's really nothing anyone can do about it. The kids of today just have to grow up with it because it's always going to be there. They'll have to deal with it for the rest of their lives.

I would also say if you took my music, movies, books, and games away from me when I was a kid under the guise of "we don't want you to be overstimulated and do worse at school", I would have just made a point to fail every class out of spite. Getting to enjoy the media I loved was a big part of what made life worth living when I was younger.
 
Maybe the thing you didn't like is that you were forced to go to school and learn things you didn't chose to learn. And your performance there determine if you were allowed to do anything else or should study even more.

I Think games have a bigger effect on other free time activities, like not wanting to play outside, not wanting to go to trips, not wanting to meet with any friends. People hated school way before videogames were a thing.
 
Distractions come in many forms. Some wear pixelated armor, others lace panties. All of them whisper, "Don't worry about your dreams, we've got dopamine." I often wonder where I'd be if my parents had handed me a shovel instead of a controller. Perhaps I'd be outside, digging holes, building character, or at least a decent credit score.
Instead, I became a citizen of the Basement Republic, population: me. My constitution? Article I: All pursuits shall be postponed until the next checkpoint. Article II: The sun is a fascist orb that seeks to age me prematurely.
I could blame Nintendo, Sony, capitalism, or the seductive curve of a well-rendered racetrack. But deep down, I know the truth: I am the mayor of my own mediocrity. I hold elections every morning and vote for comfort over conquest.
Still, there's power in this padded exile. I can change. I could rise. I could chase the American Dream. But first… one more lap in Sonic Racing. The basement is warm. The sun is carcinogenic. And the outside world doesn't offer respawns
 
Arsic said:
Got straight As, played sports, had girlfriends, friends, and played a shit of games.

It's easy to blame things but ultimately your actions determine more than you think. You could've studied, gamed less, etc and it's easy to say "dopamine addicted" but everyone handles stimulus differently.

I got to level 75 in multiple jobs in final fantasy xi online in middle school and high school, doing raids, end game content, grouping for hours at a time. One of the most demanding and life ruining games ever created. Yet here I am, and even then, was still aware that gaming is my reward after putting in the time in all other aspects of my life.

Click to expand...

Oh the memories you just brought back of FFXI
 
I hated school as a kid and teenager because everyone bullied me, even some teachers, so gaming was my escape from that shitty reality.

So no, gaming didn't ruin school for me, it actually made it less shit and saved me from despair. My grades improved in my teen years, but gaming was even more central in my spare time.
 
It did for me, and I admit it. Used to play Genesis MUD where most players were Nordic so they were ahead of me in time, so to spend time with them I'd play very early during the day. I would skip classes just to raid other guilds or grind, eventually becoming one of the largest there. So, I ended up dropping university because I couldn't pass tests. To put it in perspective, at one point my character (which I started in 1998 or 1999, dropped university in 2002, the server has been running since 1992 or so) was the third oldest character in the game in terms of playtime. Right now it's over 1300 days (that's, over 33000 hours).

Life has been generous with me, though, since I started programming back in late 90s so jobs weren't as fixed in getting programmers with a degree. Built my two-stories house, got my investments, savings and enough to buy a few physical games monthly. But I always regretted the fact that I couldn't finish the career. Then, during pandemic I decided to take on an associate degree in programming just to see if +20 years of experience would make the experience easier and indeed, it was.

(I no longer play that MUD but I log in once every year during Yule season to greet old friends, plus I'm supporting them via a Patreon subscription).
 
Last edited:
Nothing wrong with enjoying your childhood. I was bored in most of school and most training / qualifications i've done as an adult. Always aced things, my issue was/is having to go at other peoples speed, often being held back as they slowly compute or fuck about wasting my time. I also hated being told to accept facts with zero explanation behind them. If I know why something is it is much easier to understand the whole subject and have good questions.

When researching things myself I can go at any speed, go down any rabbit hole. There is a big difference between educating yourself and going through an education production line.

As for wasting time, I bet there were people moaning about kids wasting their time reading novels after the printing press popularised books.
 
Learning is stimulating, more than most of everything. Humans are learning junkies and that's actually one of the reasons we enjoy games too.

Western schools are just horribly shit at teaching anything.
 
kpopSuperstar said:
This ain't anything new and you all know this, but I have been reading up on overstimulation and what it does to you, and I now see my entire youth in a new light.

Overstimulation of entertainment is when some activity, in this case gaming, alters your natural dopamine cycles and starts to change your interests. School, work, social events, can all become far less enjoyable if you game on a daily basis.

Your brain gets so used to overstimulation that it adapts to that lifestyle and tries to get you to constantly engage in the stimulation, like a drug, and it does this by making other things less enjoyable for you.

I fucking hated school, but I never understood why because I enjoyed studying later in life. It's pretty clear to me now that it was because my lifestyle back then was dominated by gaming several hours daily, and when that changed as I aged, my natural interests returned.

Kids today, growing up on iPads and smartphones, less and less outdoor activity, more and more lost in a device. The same goes for older people too, they get lost in devices as well.

I guess my point is that you need to stay aware of what you are doing when it comes to media and entertainment, cycling off entertainment for a few months to regain your natural interests might change your entire educational journey, and might make things easier for you, if you game constantly and have a problem with being interested and engaged at school/work.
Click to expand...



I actually agree. I remember when I was a teen, gaming was a bigger deal to me. By the time I turned around 17/18 that changed. There's just more important things in life and to achieve those things you inevitably will have to spend less time with a Contiller in your hand.


The time I would have spent getting better at street fighter alpha 3 is the time I spent learning to play bass guitar, be a better keyboard player and got serious about music production. 20 years later it's my day job and supports my life. I know people that just played COD and smoked weed all day. Got level 20 prestige but not a descent day job.
 
Last edited:
Links between video games and bad grades for sure exists I think the message I send to kids is play games in moderation, I think ranking system like cod's prestige kinda pulls kids in, and they want you to think ranking up guns matters.
 
BlackTron said:
When I was a kid it was hard to talk to people, but I made friends over N64 hype which led to visiting each others houses packing a controller to play Goldeneye, Smash and MK. It kind of became a group, and eventually we were trying to put together Starcraft LANs with nothing but sheer will and duct tape, to the total confusion of our parents (none of us even having a car yet).

I'd say it was a net positive for me, but maybe not if you were just binging JRPGs one after another in your basement
Click to expand...
I think a more salient point, one that I agree with, is that multiplayer games kept people out of trouble. Mostly anyway.
 
It definitely affected my schoolwork, but I grew up when we had broodwar, cs 1.6, and dota.... Wasting time on anything else would have been seen as Heresy at that time. I made a lot of lifelong friends, and it didn't stop me from graduating uni so can't say it was all bad. Watching the way people use their phones I'm sure their dopamine centers are way more jacked up today
 
School ruined itself. Essentially a torture chamber for boys administered by the communist teachers' unions here in good old U S and A.

Online = bad for kids
Grindy games = bad for kids
 
kpopSuperstar said:
I fucking hated school, but I never understood why because I enjoyed studying later in life. It's pretty clear to me now that it was because my lifestyle back then was dominated by gaming several hours daily, and when that changed as I aged, my natural interests returned.
Click to expand...
Dont Know You GIF
 
I thought school was ok nothing more, gaming happened every week. I also fished alot, played alot of soccer, did hockeyrinks on the lake with my buddys, adventures etc etc. I hated work though, every single one of them(not the friends i made but just the fucking booring hamsterwheel that work is) so very early i started to save and with help from my dad(ty dad, miss you) i found shit to invest in when i was really young. Thx to that i will never ever have to work again, so since about 4 years ago i have been free, can game every day if i want to, go to my cabin whenever i want to, take a fishing tripp whenever i want to etc.

That for me is life, im not sure how the brain is meant to enjoy and love school and or work, with or without gaming or anything else for that matter.
 
Last edited:
I always felt like gaming was far more positive than negative, in terms of sharpening the brain for brain work. This was back when games were more likely to involve problem solving and thinking outside the box though (often even just to get them to work on pc), and if you got stuck you had to figure shit out yourself. Certainly better for the developing mind than being sat in front of a tv imo.
 
Sounds like you ruined it for you, Don't blame games for your choices. Make better choices.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Games that ruined an entire genre for you?
2
59
1K
DarkShadowXI replied
Right about now I would KILL for another old school Rockstar game
2
51
822
CliffBronger replied
Before Elden Ring was released did you know it could be a 10/10 game?
2
92
906
Tomorrow replied
  • Locked
Kotaku, I Know What You Are: Retarded
Social Drama Cringe 
19
313
kiphalfton replied
Installed Hallow Knight Silksong because of Game Pass, now I understand
36
443
Orbital2060 replied
Top Bottom