Life’s still been kinda blah lately. That’s not to say I don’t have a lot of blessings. I absolutely do. I have the best life partner I could ever wish for. My son is making good progress in his young adult life. My stepson is the joyous youngster he always is. My dogs greet me every day as though I’m a soldier returning victorious from battle. And I even got a raise at work. As I healed from surgery and my hormones leveled out, I have more energy. Hell, just the fact that I will never have a period ever again is cause enough to rejoice. And yet…
Yes, I know this is a blog about gaming, but it’s also a blog about being a middle aged female gamer of the Atari generation so I promise, it’ll all come together in the end. Aside from being a gamer girl, I’m also a huge science geek, which Google knows. About a week ago, a recommended podcast/YouTube video popped into my feed. Oddly enough, I’d never listened to a podcast before. The topic was dopamine and motivation and since I’ve felt wholly unmotivated lately, well, why not?
The Huberman Lab Podcast with Dr. Andrew Huberman hosting Dr. Robert Malenka blew my mind. If you aren’t listening to Dr. Huberman, you should be. He and his guests take complex scientific and social processes and boil them down so that they are accessible, engaging and actionable for the lay person. And though I have nothing but glowing things to say about Dr. Huberman and the litany of downright cool people he has on the show, again, I realize this is a blog about gaming and my personal journey through video games. I promise…I’m getting to the point.
This spot-on Google recommendation (yay, algorithms!) led me down this rabbithole of learning and introspection that spit me out, thinking about my own habits and compulsions. Of course video games is going to be at the top of that list. Last week, my son calculated how much playtime I get in a week. It’s roughly 40 hours so I can say with no hyperbole, I work my XBox like it’s my job. But is this healthy?
I could make the argument that since I blog about gaming I need to spend vast quantities of time engaging in the activity from which I draw inspiration. But that’s really putting the cart before the horse. I love gaming and therefore I choose to write about it. And let’s be honest, I’ve neglected this blog for months at a time while my controller never gathered a speck of dust.
So back to my original question is playing video games as much as I and much of my friends and family do healthy? The jury is still out as to whether gaming truly enhances cognition and memory, though there is data that, at the very least, it keeps my hand-eye coordination sharp. There’s also studies about heightened calorie burning while gaming. All good things. But having learned so much about neuroscience in the last week and a half, I want to know what effect gaming has on my neurons and neurotransmitters and receptors.
The dark side of gaming, of course, is addiction. Given what I now know about dopamine and motivation and behavior reinforcement, I have no doubt the activity gives me pleasure and my brain seeks that pleasure. Thank you, Dr. Huberman and Dr. Malenka! But given the standard for addiction also delineated on the podcast, gaming doesn’t hold that kind of pull. I hold down a job with no issues. I don’t spend money I can’t afford on video games. I still find pleasure in other activities. And please know I’m not passing judgment on those who struggle with video game addiction. I can’t imagine the struggle they go through and I feel compassion for all those who contend with any addiction.
The best analogy I have for my relationship to gaming is more like an exercise enthusiast. It’s an activity I can do without end and which I think enhances many areas of my life. And yes, it is a physical activity. Anyone who has broken a sweat and hit their target heart rate during a boss fight can attest to that. But it’s also similar to exercise in another area. When I’m finished gaming, I feel at peace and yet energetic, like one would describe a runner’s high.
This realization that gaming doesn’t cause a peak and then crash in my dopamine (again this is just my personal experience) got me reflecting on dopamine and serotonin and oxytocin, I wanted to learn more. So I listened to a couple more podcasts that relate to meditation. While I’ve dipped a toe in practices that enhance focus and I’ve been doing yoga for twenty years, being present in the moment isn’t one of my strengths. Let’s put it this way: if those who do not feel the call to write think they have constant narration going on in their heads, imagine what it’s like when your brain wants nothing more than to tell stories, to have this intimate relationship with words. It’s literally non-stop. I find inspiration in everything. But that also means my mind is almost never focused on the task at hand.
There are only three activities I engage in where I feel fully present and one is not for polite company so I won’t mention it, lol. The two I can mention are writing and gaming. When writing, I can submit to the narrator who’s been dying to make her voice heard all freaking day. It’s a release. A catharsis. And in the moments when the words flow, the narrator is in control and the actor is little more than her secretary. I don’t even note physical sensations when I’m writing. For example it’s hot as h-e-double hockey sticks outside right now, but I didn’t notice till I paused writing to clock back into work.
The only other time I feel fully immersed in the moment is when I’m gaming. In that situation, I can fully realize the narrator and actor are one. Let’s take an ARPG for example. My brain processes the story and the actions needed to accomplish the quest. I’ve memorized the controller layout and the specific button combinations to execute the moves required in battle. My eyes identify and categorize the enemies so that my mind can communicate to my fingers what needs to be done. I experience the thrill and emotion of the character I’m playing. My whole attention is focused on what’s going on. My mind never wanders while I’m gaming. And it’s not like reading or watching a movie. It’s a physical experience as well as a vicarious one. And yes, when the action gets harried, my body responds as if I’m actually in a fight. I even experience the desperation to survive and caution inherent in doing so one does in real life. I’m constantly vigilant and problem solving. There’s also this sense of freedom. I love the saying: many people think gamers have no life, when in reality we choose to live many lives. It’s an amazing phenomenon and I want to understand this mystery.
Alas, there isn’t a lot of information from a scientific standpoint. I turned to Google for more answers and sadly came up with a paper on PubMed that came to the conclusion that the neuroscience of playing video games is poorly studied and very much under-studied (hint, hint, Dr. Huberman 😆). The question remains: is gaming healthy? At this point, I’m not sure I care. Even if it weren’t, I’d love it just the same.
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When a Gamer Girl Grows up 