I don’t know. This reminds me of how people talked about violent video games 15 years back. Do FPS
games desensitize and predispose gamers to violence, or are they an outlet?
I think for essentially all gamers, games are games and the real world is the real world. Behavior in one realm doesn’t just inherently transfer to the other.
Unless someone is harming themselves or others, who are we to judge?
We don't know that this is harmful. Those participating in it seem happier.
If we learn in the course of time (a decade?) that this degrades lives with some probability, we can begin to caution or intervene. But how in God's name would we even know that now?
I would posit this likey has measurable good outcomes right now. These people self-report as happier. Why don't we trust them? What signs are they showing otherwise?
People were crying about dialup internet being bad for kids when it provided a social and intellectual outlet for me. It seems to be a pattern as old as time for people to be skeptical about new ways for people to spend their time. Especially if it is deemed "antisocial" or against "norms".
There is obviously a big negative externality with things like social media or certain forms of pay-to-play gaming, where there are strong financial interests to create habits and get people angry or willing to open their wallets. But I don't see that here, at least not yet. If the companies start saying, "subscribe or your boyfriend dies", then we have cause for alarm. A lot of these bots seem to be open source, which is actually pretty intriguing.
I think for essentially all gamers, games are games and the real world is the real world. Behavior in one realm doesn’t just inherently transfer to the other.