Time Loss - "Ummm yeah, I played for days..."

In reviewing video footage and notes I've taken over the past three years of my own detailed study of MMO gaming, the most common reason that people report getting into trouble with gaming is what we can call the experience of time loss - losing track of time to the extent that one plays for hours upon hours, even days at at time, seemingly without full awareness of how long it's been.

"I went three straight days once" a 28 year old woman admitted with a grin, "I usually play until I fall asleep at my keyboard." College students and adults in their 40s and 50s routinely confess to playing 12 or 15 hours at a time, skipping eating and using empty Mountain Dew bottles in very creative ways.

This can be hard for a lot of people to understand. I get it though - mainly because I've been there. Back in my active clan days in Lineage2 I felt the pull to play "Just one more hour," eating the microwaved frozen burrito while sitting at the keyboard, and neglecting bathroom breaks because "I can't leave the party now - I'm the only healer." I know it sounds weird but you sort of have to be there.

You don't have to be a genius to see that this kind of play impairs real life. And, that there must be some interesting things going on that cause it. I've been immersed in a good book before, staying awake an hour or two longer than I should to get to the end, but I've never behaved like I did while playing in the MMO.

Of course you've got the sophisticated reinforcers built into the game, and the social commitment to the other players you've bonded with who need you (or rather, need your character) to stay. But I think there's often something deeper going on, and on a psychological level I'd refer to it as the process of dissociation.

Dissociation in a nutshell can be described as an alteration in consciousness in which the mind is split off from normal awareness and surroundings. It can be experienced on a continuum, from the mild way you can get caught up in an exciting movie, to the more extreme forms where you lose touch with your physical sensations and the environment around you, losing track of the passing of time (sound like something already mentioned?).

Therapists generally believe that extreme degrees of dissociation are indicative of a mental process gone awry. Something is wrong, and it's happened (or is happening) for a reason. These reasons can be many and varied.

Some people find the experience of dissociation pleasant, and for brief periods of time mild degrees of dissociation are not necessarily harmful; they can even do some good. Sometimes they are intentionally induced through religious trance states or clinical hypnosis.

However if people are staying in a state of dissociation for hours and hours, experiencing time loss to the point their lives are being impaired - well, maybe we should be asking "Why?" and
taking a look at the deeper issues.