Video games used to take up some amount of energy and have some addicting potential, but they would only get so involved.

Modern gaming, however has become a nearly limitless intellectual blackhole to waste the mental energies of the most mentally gifted. Just looking at all the options for hardware alone is staggering.

Here is a video discussing just one feature of modern graphics cards. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQotCxIA7Yk Just one of many and it already feels like a college course to understand this stuff properly.

Some games, like Smash Brothers Melee, have such a depth of lore and game mechanics that it feels like you need a PhD to become good at the game. There are people nerding out on custom built controllers and analysis of game mechanics as if they were building the Space Shuttle. All for something that isn't going to pay them almost anything and has little benefit to society.

I wonder how many of these people end up getting their lives together only to major in theoretical physics, another waste of time and resources. At least they will be getting paid, but society will reap almost 0 rewards from their activities.