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Gaming Addiction Addresses Deep Psychological Needs

In addition, the kind of play that people are addicted to addresses a deep psychological need

Many of those who are addicted to computer gaming are those who don’t feel comfortable meeting life’s varied and ambiguous challenges. In life, it’s often not clear if you are “winning” or “losing”. Gaming offers a very controlled world in which victory and defeat can be clear and unambiguous. Part of the reason for widespread game addiction in Japan and Korea may be that those are societies in which there are intense pressures for young people to be high achievers along a very specific and rigid career path, offering little chance for the young to define their own quest.

Stuart Brown, Play
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Play To Live

Laurence G. Boldt: “Learn again how to play, even as a child.  One in touch with the vitality of the inner child throws himself into life. He is free to move spontaneously from intuition. His actions are neither dependent on the validation of others nor blocked by his own self-censure. No longer a mere observer or spectator, he actively participates in his life. This child-like spirit of engagement is the road to life’s work. As Thomas Merton said, ‘A man knows he has found his vocation when he stops thinking about how to live and begins to live.'”.