(emphasis added)Īesthetic activity may become overwhelming in circumstances of particular occasions and relations. the act is controlled by an exquisite sense of the relations which the act sustains- its fitness to the occasion and the situation.
he material of the experience lacks elements of balance and proportion. Overwhelmed by passion, as in extreme rage, fear, jealousy, the experience is. There is an element of passion in all aesthetic. The passion that animates aesthetic activity contains within itself a dangerous seed such passion can transmogrify to an extreme state in which it “overwhelms” us. Dewey argued that aesthetic activity requires balance and proportion-qualities that in some circumstances may readily be lost. The final feature Dewey ascribed to aesthetic activity may help us understand why discourse around video gaming includes the term addiction. I extend Seay and Kraut’s work to encompass social aspects of problematic use.Īs discussed in chapter 3, Dewey characterized active aesthetic activity as comprised of pleasurable means, successive phases of activity ending in satisfying completion, and collective expression. How exactly should we think about video game addiction? Dewey provides a useful perspective when he discusses the potential for aesthetic activity to become “overwhelming.” I will use this notion, as well as the work of Seay and Kraut (2007) on “problematic use,” to frame my analysis. Some may know players they believe to be addicted.
Many readers will have encountered the notion of video game addiction in newspaper and magazine accounts. I begin with the topic of addiction-a perennial favorite of the media and one which seems to crop up often when people ask me about video games. Having examined theoretical arguments about magic circles, performativity, and so on, this chapter, and the next two, take up broad themes of gaming that are part of academic discourse but also reach into wider arenas of conversation in the mass media and blogs and forums.
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