Limbic Capitalism
POSTED: January 13, 2021
David Courtwright wrote this in May 2019:
One summer day in 2010, a Swedish graduate student named Daniel Berg approached me after a talk I gave at Christ’s College, Cambridge. During the talk, I had casually mentioned internet addiction. Berg told me that I had spoken a truth larger than I knew. Many of his male friends at Stockholm University had dropped out of school and were living in crash pads, compulsively playing World of Warcraft. They spoke an argot more English than Swedish. It was all raiding, all the time.
“How do they feel about their circumstances?” I asked. “They feel angst,” Berg said.
“But they keep playing?” “They keep playing.”
This sort of behavior does seem like an addiction, in the sense of a compulsive, regret-filled pursuit of transient pleasures that are harmful to both the individual and society. For gaming, the personal cost was highest for Swedish men. “I am,” Berg reported, “now the only male in my graduate program in economic history.”
I suggest that you read the entire essay which you can find at Quilette.com.