Tuesday, March 15, 2011

The Sleeping Schedule of a Modern Gamer

Why do so many of us stay up so late? My sleep schedule does more flips than a trapeze artist. Do we feel as if we get a better gaming experience late at night? You'll often notice that people consider the gamers that are on between 11 p.m. and 4 or 5 a.m. are the more hardcore/skilled gamers. I think it might be due to the misconception that this person has played all day AND all night but in my 16 or 17 years of gaming and about 12 years of online gaming, I've found that both real life and online friends alike that play during these times are sleeping away most of the day due to lack of responsibility so I fail to see the difference between playing during the daytime and playing during the nighttime. Still, I fall into this category, I'm sucked in by the night culture of online gaming. There's something unattainably relaxing about playing a game online with friends at 2 or 3 a.m. This trend of skilled gamers playing late at night doesn't go without a little evidence of support, I often find that the more hardcore arena players in World of Warcraft play after midnight and my friends and I consider it a treat to play Call of Duty from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. due to the easiness of kills. I swear, I promise you if you're a skilled Call of Duty player and you play in this time slot, you will feel like you're playing against bots.

Unfortunately, although this time schedule of playing games is immensely enjoyable, it disrupts a normal, productive lifestyle and supports insomniac trends that are almost as hard to break as a cigarette addiction. I wish I was just speaking for myself but even my friends (both online and offline) seem to suffer from a trend of staying up late that they cannot break. It's nearly impossible for me to go to bed at 10 p.m. unless I'm completely exhausted. This may also be due to the over-stimulation that technology and, in-particular, video games gives our mind. I've suffered for years with an inability to sleep unless I'm completely exhausted and due to the fact that I see many other gamers suffering from this, I believe it is due to our online gaming trends. I've been playing online games in this late-night style since I was about 10 years old, so the only question is if this is brought on by gaming or by something in my genetics. Unfortunately, this just another nature vs. nurture debate that is too deep for me to go into on this blog as I don't feel like writing a research paper for my own enjoyment.


I flipped my sleeping schedule yesterday by pulling an all-nighter (something many gamers do when they need to get their sleeping schedule back to "normal") but I fear that it won't last long. As I was telling someone yesterday, I can almost guarantee that I will be sucked in by a game tonight and it will keep me up until 2 a.m. or later thus making my attempt to get on a more acceptable pattern futile.

A fellow blogger and follower has written on a related topic, check it out!: http://life-coach-uk.blogspot.com/

25 comments:

  1. Oh I can relate to that soo hard =)

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  2. When I use to play vanilla WoW I played when I woke up before school. Then go to school talk about WoW with my friends then come back home and play WoW until late at night. So I can relate lol

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  3. Im taking pretty easy courses right now so i have little demand for my time. So i have no problems staying up till 3 am or so.

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  4. meh...I think we're all just slowly becoming polyphasic sleepers.

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  5. It's difficult. And especially tempting at uni where there are free days and parties to go to.

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  6. it's all about intrinsic motivation...which I've just posted about thanks to this inspiration :)

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  7. 4 AM is when I get all my Minecrafting done.

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  8. I hardly get any sleep either! ANd i dont game much!

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  9. Sleep if for the week! lol awesome blog, check out mine.

    1+ Follower

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  10. I find that incorrect. I play competitive Halo late at night, after midnight, and I feel like I find less skilled opponents then during the day.

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  11. I am gaming for cca 2h/day so its not that bad, but great stuff...followd

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  12. great post, i was in the night time gaming but got a job, feels great to see morning sun haha

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  13. I'm not too sure for the motivation for playing games at night, but i know for me i started night gaming because i had school, work and other events on during the day making it a little hard to play games. I guess night gaming was the only option if i wanted to game.

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  14. my sleep schedule is terrible

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  15. Lol, I never sleep for more than 4 hours. Will die soon I guess.

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  16. Being in school takes its toll on my sleeping schedule. It's bad lol I'm usually at least past 3

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