If you want to get your message across to these types of people, you should first consider MMOs IRL. The friends, the responsibility, the schedules, and the socio-political skills are all very real.
It’s better to refer to hiking, etc as AFK.
Credentials: I grew up on 40+ hours a week of video games. I’ve played more than a year worth of screen time in World of Warcraft, I’ve gotten a Bachelors of Computer Engineering, and worked at Amazon for 8 years.
Meanwhile, I’ll tell you first hand, playing WoW from 16 to 19 prepared me more for being successful and getting promoted at Amazon than my 4 years of university.
This is hacker news self selection talking. The filter: The few who found computer science through gaming and made a cushion of a life which let's us the time luxury to post on an online forum in the middle of a Monday(at least it is the middle of a Monday for me). Meanwhile countless lives went into backbreaking labour work if that in the "below the API" sort of uber and amazon delivery work. These lives and their stories will rarely be represented here. I am speaking for a friend who went into construction and got injured and is on disability at the age of 35. He said he could have made so much more of his life had he not played 24/7 video games for several of his most precious formative years during high-school and early college (of which he dropped out).
To clarify, I’m not advocating for gaming-abuse. I believe in a balance.
I’m just letting the grand parent know that to get their point across better they need to realize MMOs specifically should be considered IRL and it’s better to use “AFK” or “non-digital” to differentiate in person interactions rather than “IRL”.
Specifically in the grand parent’s post, they ”blame” MMOs and gaming-abuse for their friends “issues”. However, it’s a more apt analogy to view over use of MMOs as a form of workaholism than to view it as a form of drug-addiction. It’ll help you to get them to find a balance.
And similarly I advocate a similar vocabulary switch from “IRL” to “AFK” to differentiate Zoom/FaceTime vs non-Zoom/FaceTime activities.
It’s better to refer to hiking, etc as AFK.
Credentials: I grew up on 40+ hours a week of video games. I’ve played more than a year worth of screen time in World of Warcraft, I’ve gotten a Bachelors of Computer Engineering, and worked at Amazon for 8 years.
Meanwhile, I’ll tell you first hand, playing WoW from 16 to 19 prepared me more for being successful and getting promoted at Amazon than my 4 years of university.