Video game addiction partly reflects escape from the terror of death via infinite lives

Evidence

OTHER ACTIVITIES, SUCH AS gambling, serve a similar function to drugs and can become problematic when people engage in them compulsively to reduce anxiety, obliterate self-awareness, obtain a momentary surge of self-esteem, and dampen existential dread. Video game addiction has become a particularly serious concern in recent years. Gamers are seduced by the allure of a fantasy world in which they can attain a sense of heroism and, importantly, in which death is not permanent. Avatars can have “infinite lives.” If you do die, you just start again. Although, as with all addictions, there are multiple forces at work, pathological gambling and gaming likely result in part from a flight from the terror of mortal life. — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 744

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Video game addiction rhetoric dates to the earliest arcade games — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 679

Related

• Video game addiction rhetoric dates to the earliest arcade games (similarity 0.86)