Why Video Games Are a Plague for Modern Men w/Cam Adair

A gaming addict has a quality of life score of 3 out of 10, and this is causing a huge crisis in our society. What is the root of video game addiction? What are the three ways video games wreak havoc on the brain? What can parents do to save their children? On this episode, Game Quitters founder and speaker, Cam Adair, shares his own story and explains how we can help our children live healthier and happier lives.

 

Three Takeaways

A lot of young men feel rejected, and they don’t have the tools and resources to deal with it. In response, they just escape into games. It has been proven that there’s a 2x improvement to quality of life just after 90 days of detoxing from gaming. People who are able to focus more on delayed gratification are more successful in life. Fulfillment comes from engagement. It comes from being a creator, not a consumer.

 

At the start of the show, Cam shared on his story and experience recovering from video game addiction, as well as how rejection can lead young men to turn to video games. Next, we talked about how gaming affects people’s view of the real world since it is a safe space to fail. We also talked about the role parents have in this addiction crisis.

We also discussed:

What parents can do to stop this problem Why kids need to learn emotional resilience The media’s role in glamorizing video games

 

Overexposure to video games numbs our pleasure response, numbs satisfaction with other experiences in our life, ruins willpower, and harms the quality of our relationships. From an emotional, physical, and mental standpoint: detoxing from gaming takes quality of life up from 3/10, to 7/10-- in 90 days. This is how powerful it is. It is so essential that we solve video game addiction so that we can make men strong, emotionally resilient, well-adjusted and healthy.

 

Guest Bio-

Cam Adair is a speaker, entrepreneur, and pioneer on video game addiction.

He’s the founder of Game Quitters, the world’s largest support community for video game addiction, serving members in 91 countries. His work has been published in Psychiatry Research, and featured in two TEDx talks, Forbes, BBC, ABC 20/20, and VICE, amongst many others.