Tag: Age of Empires

Whenever I speak at a conference, someone always asks me to weigh in on the controversy surrounding whether or not to label excessive cyber behaviors as addiction.  I usually begin to tackle such questions by sharing conversations I have had with video game designers, marketing strategists, and industry executives.  These people understand how the brain… Read more

This is a guest blog written by Alex, a participant in my cyber recovery groups, and the subject of several pages of my book (159-163). In the piece that follows, Alex gets to the heart of his problem. Alex will also be posting tomorrow. At about ten years of age, I reached a tipping point… Read more

I had a lengthy phone discussion today with an NFL defensive lineman, Quinn Pitcock. At first glance, the two of us could not be more different. But, striking similarities emerged in the first few minutes of conversation. Like me, Quinn has struggled with depression and anxiety and views his video gaming behavior as an attempt… Read more

I, like most people, have struggled in my life to create lasting change.  Realizing that most, if not all, circumstances in my life resulted from a series of choices, I ultimately learned to take responsibility, and thereby acquired a measure of control.  I was in my early thirties before I woke up.  Prior to that,… Read more

I am a cyber junkie, or should I say addict?  Certain types of real-time strategy video games—like Age of Empires and Command and Conquer—appealed to me to such an extent that I used to play for several hours and feel that only 20 minutes had elapsed.  I have had 50-hour binges, and used to play… Read more