That’s a very different thing than people who play games for avoidance reasons. It’s well established that most things are “addictive” when doing that activity so often impacts one’s ability to function in other parts of life, like maintaining a job, relationship, etc.
I've had this discussion with a few people: and afaict for some folks it's not actually an addiction, but a passion. I think the difference lies in whether you ever have the thought: "I wish I was doing something else right now", and then continued doing what you were doing. It comes down to whether you're in control of your own motivation and time.
Hobbies are great, and video games are a perfectly legitimate hobby, for some. Just like some people can casually do cocaine and not think about it the next day. For others, it's a different story.
This is a huge problem for people with ADHD. Executive dysfunction makes it incredibly hard to pull away from things you enjoy.
Stopped reading after this. I became a programmer because after playing video games for 8 hours a day, I wanted to make my own.
And it's led to an amazing career, as long as your hobbies aren't hurting anybody else, feel free to dive into them.
Way too much time is given to judging the personal habits of others, I literally couldn't bother to finish the article after reading that.