"I paid 10 bucks for this city-building game. I have been playing it for the last 2 weeks non-stop (just breaks for studies, food and sleep).

I am ... nearing the completion of my Master's degree. At this time, fortunately (or unfortunately, depends on how you look at it) I am Single. Since I was introduced to Computer Games, I have had this problem of addiction. Earlier, games would interfere with my other responsibilities. I would perform poorly in examinations and once even came close to losing a job opportunity over some silly military strategy game.

Lately, there are only certain phases when I really need to go back to playing games. This is still a lot better than persistent and long-term addiction. Nevertheless, I realize I am becoming less and less productive the more I depend on games to unwind after a long day at work. For me, the addiction stems from the thrill of building cities or planning strategies, which are at times, almost like long-term projects (stretching over 3 months and requiring attention towards design and other details) but the patterns of addiction are still the same. I often find myself in the middle of the day thinking about how I am going to improve mass-transit in a city of a million people!! I stop interacting, lose my appetite, start losing motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and appear listless and inattentive.

I hope I can curtail my city-building to a couple of hours on the weekend and focus my energies and attention to the tasks I have at hand. I also believe that I need to go out and mix with people :-) that should help me get by! I want to create for myself a work environment which gets more challenging with time, so that I find myself salivating at the prospect of doing some real work rather than spend myself on a $10 game."