Dallin Crump

It's been many years since I've had games on my smartphone. It's not that I don't enjoy video games, it's that I enjoy them too much.

Phones are addicting enough for me without games. With them, I may as well not even try to do anything productive in my free time.

Most games nowadays, especially mobile games, are designed to addict you. They know just how to trigger that dopamine rush that keeps you coming back for more.

Annoyingly, they are also very good at extracting money from you. Fortunately I never went down that rabbit hole, but I won't say I was never tempted. It's worse than gambling because you have absolutely zero chance of recouping any of that money, and all you have to show for it are intangible things in a game that you probably won't even remember 20 years from now, let alone still be playing.

I've done a lot of things to make my smartphone use more intentional and less distracting, but removing all the games has been one of the best.

Nowadays I play a couple PC games (Minecraft and Valheim). And occasionally I'll play some retro console games on an emulator. But I will never install games on my smartphone ever again.

Discuss... #100DaysToOffload (No. 66) #tech #intentionism