My brother is becoming socially detached due to World of Warcraft. Help!?

Question

I'm becoming legitimately concerned for him, out of love.

My high schooler brother is addicted to World of Warcraft. He's played the game for the past couple years, but before that, he's played Everquest for many years. Even before that, he's had a big affinity for video games.

He plays the game so much. We've had conversations about the futulity of the game and he agrees with me, but he still continues to play it.

I feel that he's using it as a standby for a real social life. He has a group of buddies that accept him hanging out with them in school, but he tells me that he doesn't care about really befriending anyone at school, even the people who play also World of Warcraft.

He has a high IQ and could be doing very well in school, but he's either getting bad grades or just coasting with easy classes/study halls filling his schedule.

After high school, he wants to "travel" or "backpack around the world." To help him do so, he's concocted a "plan" that will help him make money.

He says that he doesn't need college. He wants to make money being an entrepreneur, I guess.

But really, all of this just seem like symptoms of a deeply-rooted online gaming addiction.

How do I get him to finally realize the futility of the game so that he can mentally and socially reclaim proper goals and knowledge of life and what truly benefits a person?

Answer 1

To tell you the truth, I'm surprised that he even got out of Ever Quest. Now he's addicted to World of Warcraft? That's just bad. I mean, they are both great games but...it's just too addictive!

Now...is he paying for the account from his pocket or is your parents paying for him? If he's spending this much time, he's probably not working part time and probably he's getting money from parents, right? If that's the case, you can talk to your parents about this and tell them to stop paying for it. Like you said, it's not helping his social life.

He will get mad at you or your parents...but eventually, if he really want to play, he will have to go get a part job or at least consider it and might quit it. It will show him how there's no such thing as money fountain. It's a good lesson for him, if he has to work, he would be little too tired to play so much and he wouldn't have so much time.

But if he decided to pay for it from his pocket...no one can say anything. It's his money, it's his life...you just have to go on. It's not your fault, don't worry...He chooses it and all you can do is to be there for him just in case he decided to get back to real life.

I hope things will get better for you. Good luck and take care of yourself.

Answer 2

He could be addicted to it earlier when he was bored and nothing else to do and now he is definately addicted.

Take him out of house please. Bring him around for vacation. Make him see there is actually other world to be fascinated rather than warcraft games !!

Glad he has a brother like you to be concerned. Don't just stop here, since he is young and he could be wasting his life.
Seek professional help, on how to handle this addiction.

He could probably join animation courses, games designing, games programming and there are many fields in the games secction which could interest him. Tell him he can pursue that after school. Tell him there are more useful things related to this games.

Importantly, seek professional help.

Answer 3

I think you must help him to get him out of the addiction, I know this might sound silly and unprofessional but that's what I think...you can probably play video game together with him, makes him think that you're as crazy as he is on that stuff, and with that you develop a relationship with him, befriend with him since both of you share the same interest, to help him out of that unrealistic world, like by suggesting lets see a movie today instead of sticking in front of the computer etc, and you might also suggest to go travel with him. How's that??!

Answer 4

properly it would help to describe what you do quite. it is high-quality often times in line with probability you basically want time to think of and be sure your existence yet you gotta get lower back obtainable quickly Islam isn't a faith of recluses like a monk, you gotta stay interior the international.

Answer 5

Ah. My brother has been lost to Xbox live.

My boyfriend plays FFXI. I'm a FFXI widow.

Answer 6

I think your making something out of nothing. Plenty of people spend hours a day on MMORPGs.