The feels from this post.... I relate to you so much Bzy, I am 22 going on 23 myself and my life sounds much the same. Started playing videogames when I was very very young and as an young 13 year old started to get into mmorpg's and have never had a social life outside of games since. I have been known to play an mmorpg all day for days on end (Sometimes up to 2 or 3 days straight, and that is not exaggeration that is the truth.), and I agree with you that gaming can be comparable as an addiction to smoking or worse, and unlike yourself I have never been able to stop for a period so long as a year, I was in the military briefly which gave me a period of almost that much time without living my life online, but to this day the internet and online games are the majority of my social life, for me it may always be that way.
And I would agree that if you are a younger teenager reading this advice from Bzy or myself you would do yourself a favor to heed it, and while you are able to do so, make the effort to force yourself to go for long periods of time without playing online games so that you do not fall into a situation where it is all you know. It may sound silly now but it is a real thing that can happen to you, to anyone. It is not an easy thing to stop, I myself am not able to do so through will power. But if you want to have any semblance of a life outside of the one you live online, the best way is to never let yourself fall into that trap.
That being said I also recognize that for many people, hopefully most people, gaming is simply a means of entertainment that they can partake in healthily to only a small extent. The point is if that is you, you should realize that the line between people like you and people like Bzy and myself is not so large, and make sure you stay on the side of it that you want to be on for yourself later on down the road.
I will also say that as someone who relates to this problem greatly, I think that league of legends is a good thing for the gaming community, it is one of the few mmo style games that gives very little incentive to people to play continually and sink all their time into it.... Some younger people may find it enough incentive to try and farm elo or whatever we are calling it these days... mmr .... in order to reach the higher tiers of competition but I hope not so much... For me at least league definitely provides an environment I relate too, that I am used to and that I enjoy, without all the traps other games create to force you to put an exorbitant amount of time into it.... league is a game that is possible to just play a little bit, and not feel pressured to play when you could be doing other things to better yourself. I also hope that Riot games as a company I greatly respect, is aware of this part of gaming culture and the community that their product is marketed too, and try to avoid creating situations where young people are enticed to put all of their time into this game or any other game they would create, they have done a good job so far.
Some games are made in a way that, just makes it extremely difficult for any person to play and not slowly have to prioritize that game over other aspects of your life in order to feel fulfilled from it and be successful, and I hope young people are wary of these situations, and I hope Riot is wary of it too, because I believe that if they know the kind of damage it can cause a person it is something they would want to make sure they don't do.
Also I do not suffer from much social anxiety or depression now, but in my teenage years I definitely did, severely, and I think that that can definitely contribute to people falling into this kind of situation, and as a bit older of a person now I can tell you that once you are 22 or 23 and you have done this all your life, there does not seem to be any going back regardless of what you have learned or how you have grown as a person, it doesnt matter if you are no longer depressed or no longer anxious, that does not make kicking an addiction like this an easy thing to do. It is Hard.
