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Kotaku
Sometimes you just don't want to stop. I know that I've sunk weeks of my life into playing Starcraft, Tetris, and Advance Wars. So why is it so hard to separate oneself from the keyboard or cross pad? Because it "fulfills basic psychological needs."
Psychologists at the University of Rochester polled 1,000 gamers and asked them what keeps them glued to games. They found that gamers "reported feeling best when the games produced positive experiences and challenges that connected to what they know in the real world."
Sometimes we need a virtual replacement of tasks we don't get to accomplish in real life to make our brain happy:
"It's our contention that the psychological 'pull' of games is largely due to their capacity to engender feelings of autonomy, competence, and relatedness," says Ryan. The researchers believe that some video games not only motivate further play but "also can be experienced as enhancing psychological wellness, at least short-term," he says.
See mom? I'm not wasting my life, I'm just doing right by my brain.
