Excessive video games

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I play video games on my computer regularly. I find it helps me to relax and get away from the real world for a little bit. I have some friends who I talk to on there, and without them I don’t think I’d be playing nearly as much.

Anyway last night I played for 8 hours straight. I hardly realised that I had been playing for that long. It was the end of the week so I didn’t have anything else to do. I’m not sure whether that would have been a mortal sin but I didn’t realise at the time it may have been, or I would’ve stopped. I didn’t plan to play for that long and I’ve been trying to minimize my video game playing by only playing a couple of hours at a time.

So is excessive video game playing a mortal sin? It’s so hard to draw the line between what’s sinful and what’s not. I play more for the social interaction anyway, not so much the gaming.
 
I have played video games online. What a sinful environment for social interaction! lol

Other than that I can’t comment. I doubt it is a mortal sin but sloth does come to mind.
 
FaithInTheSon said:
I have played video games online. What a sinful environment for social interaction! lol

Other than that I can’t comment. I doubt it is a mortal sin but sloth does come to mind.
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Haha. I’ve never really had many good friends and I don’t go out often with them, so I find that video gaming helps me with confidence and making friends.

And yes, sloth is what I’m most worried about. But I’m very confused about it. Is it only sloth when you’re constantly neglecting your responsibilities? I do have homework to get done but I seem to be a pro at procrastination 🙂
 
gcm101 said:
I play video games on my computer regularly. I find it helps me to relax and get away from the real world for a little bit. I have some friends who I talk to on there, and without them I don’t think I’d be playing nearly as much.

Anyway last night I played for 8 hours straight. I hardly realised that I had been playing for that long. It was the end of the week so I didn’t have anything else to do. I’m not sure whether that would have been a mortal sin but I didn’t realise at the time it may have been, or I would’ve stopped. I didn’t plan to play for that long and I’ve been trying to minimize my video game playing by only playing a couple of hours at a time.

So is excessive video game playing a mortal sin? It’s so hard to draw the line between what’s sinful and what’s not. I play more for the social interaction anyway, not so much the gaming.
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It’s a sin if it distracts you from your duties (i.e. church). We’re allowed recreation and relaxation.
 
David_Thorne said:
It’s a sin if it distracts you from your duties (i.e. church). We’re allowed recreation and relaxation.
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It may have cut my night prayers short as I was so tired by the time I went to bed, but I still prayed. I don’t go to Saturday morning mass (I live in Australia) as it is a 40 minute bus ride away anyway.

Also I would never let any game distract me from God. Maybe every half an hour or so I should stop and say a prayer of some sort?
 
gcm101 said:
It may have cut my night prayers short as I was so tired by the time I went to bed, but I still prayed. I don’t go to Saturday morning mass (I live in Australia) as it is a 40 minute bus ride away anyway.

Also I would never let any game distract me from God. Maybe every half an hour or so I should stop and say a prayer of some sort?
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If your work, family, or spiritual life suffers, then cutting back is a good idea. If you lost track of time, it wasn’t your intention to do so. Mortal sin requires grave matter, full knowledge, and full consent.
 
David_Thorne said:
If your work, family, or spiritual life suffers, then cutting back is a good idea. If you lost track of time, it wasn’t your intention to do so.
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Yeah I might start setting a timer or something. Thanks for the helps and answers guys.
 
gcm101 said:
Yeah I might start setting a timer or something. Thanks for the helps and answers guys.
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A timer is a good idea. Try to balance out recreation with charitable works, too. A few hours a week for video games, and a few hours a week for volunteering. A nice balance.
 
gcm101 said:
seem to be a pro at procrastination 🙂
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:eek:

Let’s team up and win gold medals at the next Procrastination Olympics!😉

LOL

I suffer from excessively learning about conspiracy theories and/or excessively watching news.
 
Gaming’s fun and all but you shouldn’t let it control your social life.

I understand how you feel. I was once a hardcore Gamer but recently began going into more productive hobbies and am learning to interact Socially.

Seriously all that time I’ve wasted…
 
gxensen said:
:eek:

Let’s team up and win gold medals at the next Procrastination Olympics!😉

LOL

I suffer from excessively learning about conspiracy theories and/or excessively watching news.
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Haha. I procrastinate when I think the homework’s hard or I don’t know what I’m doing.

But I guess I should appreciate not having many responsibilities because before I know it I’ll hardly have any time to do what I want.

Also regarding the volunteering, is there anywhere in particular I should look for? I just don’t know where I could volunteer around here. It’d be good for me to volunteer around something IT related, as that’s what I’m studying and it look good on my resume 🙂
 
gcm101 said:
Haha. I procrastinate when I think the homework’s hard or I don’t know what I’m doing.

But I guess I should appreciate not having many responsibilities because before I know it I’ll hardly have any time to do what I want.

Also regarding the volunteering, is there anywhere in particular I should look for? I just don’t know where I could volunteer around here. It’d be good for me to volunteer around something IT related, as that’s what I’m studying and it look good on my resume 🙂
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Charities sometimes need people to maintain their websites. Non-profit organizations sometimes need help to set up their computer network. Look around for opportunities. You’ll find them since IT stuff is generally fairly hard-to-grasp for the wider population.

Other than that, there’s the good 'ol soup kitchen.
 
Pisces_Adonis said:
Gaming’s fun and all but you shouldn’t let it control your social life.

I understand how you feel. I was once a hardcore Gamer but recently began going into more productive hobbies and am learning to interact Socially.

Seriously all that time I’ve wasted…
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I’ll probably look back and think the same thing some day.

And yeah I just find it hard to maintain friendships, but I think it’s beneficial to me to associate with people who have similar interests. I have met up with a few online gamers in the past. I totally agree that it shouldn’t rule my social life, so I have been trying to cut back lately.
 
gcm101 said:
I’ll probably look back and think the same thing some day.

And yeah I just find it hard to maintain friendships, but I think it’s beneficial to me to associate with people who have similar interests. I have met up with a few online gamers in the past. I totally agree that it shouldn’t rule my social life, so I have been trying to cut back lately.
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The great thing about volunteering is that you meet other people.
 
David_Thorne said:
Charities sometimes need people to maintain their websites. Non-profit organizations sometimes need help to set up their computer network. Look around for opportunities. You’ll find them since IT stuff is generally fairly hard-to-grasp for the wider population.

Other than that, there’s the good 'ol soup kitchen.
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Oh okay. I’ve never thought too much about helping with websites. I’m only studying basic website making at the moment so that’s definitely something I can look at in the near future.

Thanks for the suggestions.
 
You say you play video games “regularly.” Clearly, regularly can mean a lot of different things. So I’m not going to comment about that, other than to say I would be hesitant to call it sinful.

One 8 hour gaming binge hardly strikes me as sinful, either. I don’t think it would be sinful even if you did it once per week. It’s recreation. It’s a day’s worth of recreation.

I would hope that all of us here get one day with 8+ hours of recreation, if not two such days. This is how you chose to spend your time. No big deal.
 
gcm101 said:
I play video games on my computer regularly. I find it helps me to relax and get away from the real world for a little bit. I have some friends who I talk to on there, and without them I don’t think I’d be playing nearly as much.

Anyway last night I played for 8 hours straight. I hardly realised that I had been playing for that long. It was the end of the week so I didn’t have anything else to do. I’m not sure whether that would have been a mortal sin but I didn’t realise at the time it may have been, or I would’ve stopped. I didn’t plan to play for that long and I’ve been trying to minimize my video game playing by only playing a couple of hours at a time.

So is excessive video game playing a mortal sin? It’s so hard to draw the line between what’s sinful and what’s not. I play more for the social interaction anyway, not so much the gaming.
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I used to play a lot of video games. I was obsessed with World of Warcraft at one point and even found myself getting upset and frustrated quite often. Like you, it was my form of socializing. I wasn’t in to going out to the bars (not that that is the only option), and I used it as my form of entertainment.

I took an extensive break from gaming after an acquired illness led me to reading more about our faith. What I came away with is that whatever I am doing should always bring me closer to God, or at the very least, make sure it isn’t distracting me from God. I have censored many of the more violent video games from my life, and when I do play other games, I use it as an opportunity to teach myself patience with others and as a way to set a good example as a Christian.

I am almost positive everyone on this forum can attest to the fact that people are far less civil with each other over the internet than in person. Many of the hateful things people say in forums (or especially in video games) would never be uttered if those people were all in the same room. Being charitable over the internet on a forum or in a game is no different than doing so in person. Yes, people hide behind aliases and characters, but behind each of those is a person; a soul. I think there is much good that can be done even while doing something that is done for relaxation. Let your interactions with other gamers be an example to others.
 
Haven’t read through this whole thread, so bear with me - it’s very ironic that I saw this thread pop up, becuase my dad has been discussing this with me about some of the kids in our youth group.

These new war games (forigve my tech unintelligence, I don’t play a lot of video games 🤓 :D) I believe make it so that you can’t finish the game with one player, right? It sucks you in! My dad had a pharmisist friend who has boys who would play this game, and then the dad would find himself going downstairs to play it and coming up hours later, because it was addicting!

You have to look at context. Video games aren’t evil. But addiction is. Two things keep us away from God - busy-ness and addiction. But playing video games for 8 hours? The time we spend on the internet and video-gaming could be enough for a part-time job or dedication to learning a new language or instrument or skill.

Excessive video gaming does not contribute to society - but I can see why guys like it. I think guys are wired for a challenge. And in the modern culture, there really aren’t much challenges (women bringing in incomes make it easy for a guy to not have to work hard to support his family. Contraception makes it easy for a guy to be with a girl with no commitment.) So in video games, you feel like you’ve conqured something.

Sometimes we aren’t looking for the right challenge though. Maybe the right challenge is spending more time with God. Or your family. Or school. Or a job. There is a difference between coming home from working 8 hours, spending time with family, and then going to play an hour of video games, then say, just playing 8 hours of video games.

Sometimes it is limiting ourselves. Maybe we set a timer so that when the hour timer goes off, you get up and go, and turn the video game off.

God bless!
Chloe M.
 
LaMusicaSenior said:
You have to look at context. Video games aren’t evil. But addiction is. Two things keep us away from God - busy-ness and addiction. But playing video games for 8 hours? The time we spend on the internet and video-gaming could be enough for a part-time job or dedication to learning a new language or instrument or skill.
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To the OP: I recommend keeping track of the time you spend playing. I knew someone who did that and they were saddened by all the time they spent on video games after counting it all up after a year. I also recommend multiplying the minimum wage by the number of hours to give you an idea of the value of time spent compared to what you get out of it.
 
If you honestly think you have an addiction, then I would suggest backing away. I myself sometimes find myself playing a video game for hours, but I’m not addicted by any means, I just lose track of time. However, if you don’t think you can stop, then I would definitely back away, because addictions are unhealthy for the body and soul.
 
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