Which of these activities is not like the others: summiting a majestic peak, slaloming down a slope of fresh powder, floating through a blissful 10K run on a spring morning, blowing your rival’s head off with your Dragon’s Breath Sniper rifle to win a round of Fortnite?
Three of those take you out into the real world, dissolving your ego in the face of nature’s grandeur and making the slings and arrows of daily life seem insignificant by comparison. And then there’s sitting in a darkened room for hours on end, manipulating pixels in the flickering light of your high-definition monitor. Sure, it’s a form of escape—but it’s the wrong kind of escape. Reams of psychological research have found that those who play video games to evade their problems are more likely to be anxious and depressed. Escapism-based motivation is one of the American Psychiatric Association’s criteria for internet gaming disorder, a proposed diagnosis in its most recent manual of mental disorders.
That’s how I’ve always seen it, at least. But a series of recent studies offer a more nuanced picture of escapism, one that threatens…
