The last few months, I've formed kind of a toxic relationship with gaming, especially with Smash, so I'm doing a bit of reset and stepping away from it for a little. I wonder if you all might offer me perspectives as I go forward, as I'd still like to play some video games. Of course, if you don't want to share, obviously don't, but I'm hoping some people can help me navigate this with some info. I'm not judging anyone, your approach is your approach.
How many hours a week do you spend gaming?
Do you watch streams of other people gaming when you're not gaming, yourself?
Does gaming enter your thoughts with much frequency when you're not gaming?
For me, I don't think my hours seem that high to the average person who games as a primary hobby, around 10 hours per week. I started watching more streams and thinking about it more over the quarantine, so it's become a bit of an obsession, and that's what has worried me. I'm not trying to assess if anyone is a compulsive gamer, more I'm wondering if anyone feels that they can play a lot, watch a lot of online gaming, think about it a lot, and still have a healthy relationship with it. I'm trying to see how you all make gaming work for you. For me, it's made me feel bad a lot lately. Even Animal Crossing has made me feel that way because I feel like if I don't check it regularly, I'm not maximizing my experience with the game, and maybe it shouldn't but it does bother me. I think that's part of my chemistry, my makeup as a person, and it makes something as compelling, and yes, addicting, as a video game seem a little like playing with fire for me. But I don't want to just not play them, because I think there's so much imagination, innovation, and fun in the games. I just haven't been having fun lately.
Anyway, anything you're willing to share would be appreciated. I have some ideas of how to approach this issue, but as usual, I solicit info and POV's from here because they're usually very solid and thoughtful.