101 things to do instead of playing Skyrim
1. Go for a walk.
2. Go out and meet new (real) people.
3. Get your holiday shopping done early.
4. Get into sword fighting, martial arts or fencing.
5. Learn how to ride horses.
6. Look at and study the artistic works of others.
7. Spend some time quietly meditating.
8. Study the intricacies of magic and illusion.
9. Prepare a nice, healthy, sit-down meal.
10. Write an article on Hubpages.
11. Do something ridiculous, something not even funny.
12. Browse through the music of musicians you've never heard of before.
13. Go skydiving.
14. Start writing a book.
15. Read poetry to the homeless.
16. Try your hand at pryography.
17. Help a neighbor with chores.
18. Adopt a highway and make the world a cleaner place.
19. Try your hand at ceramics.
20. Take a road trip.
21. Take up weaving.
22. Plant a tree.
23. Practice sketching (improvement comes with practice!)
24. Start learning a new language.
25. Look for forgotten treasures at a thrift store.
26. Call up a politician and tell them about a cause you think they should support.
27. Pick a nasty habit and break it.
28. Self-style yourself an awesome new hairdo.
29. Make some neat beaded necklaces.
30. Volunteer to help out a charity.
31. Take a free class from the Khan Academy.
32. Study a new (or your own) religion.
33. Visit the sponsors of the writers of articles (like this one) so they can keep making more awesome articles for you to read for free.
34. Find a role model from history. For fun, act like them for a day.
35. Learn how to have an out-of-body experience.
36. Streamline your daily routine.
37. Hand-write a letter to someone you love.
38. Learn to play the Theremin.
39. Go on a pub crawl (instead of a dungeon crawl.)
40. Go rock climbing.
41. Spend some time at Project Gutenberg.
42. Study up on something you know you really should study up on.
43. Improve your skills at math.
44. Browse art on Deviant Art or Tumblr.
45. Build something epic out of wood.
46. Spend time listening to someone the way a counselor or psychiatrist would.
47. Give (or get) a massage.
48. Explore the musical tastes of people you meet in retirement homes.
49. Build a website (or a blog!)
50. Stand around with a cardboard sign protesting something from mainstream entertainment (like Twilight or Skyrim.)
51. Learn how to work on (or fix simple things on) your own car.
52. Put together a puzzle.
53. Play around on Free Rice.
54. Take a friend out to lunch.
55. Melt old candle stumps together to create a candle sculpture.
56. Go spelunking.
57. Build a fallout shelter.
58. Play Minecraft.
59. Design your own superhero.
60. Start storyboarding a brand new, independent film.
61. Play catch with a kid.
62. Work to change something that you don't like about yourself.
63. Start keeping a journal.
64. Call your mother.
65. Apply for credentials of ministry.
66. Make a collage.
67. Ask a Mason about Freemasonry.
68. Support a small, local business.
69. Perfect the ultimate belch.
70. Lay the groundwork for a new invention or business.
71. Find a new radio station to listen to.
72. Go fishing.
73. Start collecting garden gnomes.
74. Paint a mural.
75. Dig for marvelous lost treasures at a flea market.
76. Create a work of art from old soda or beer cans.
77. Browse through the stories at Linguistic Erosion.
78. Plant a garden.
79. Spend a few hours at an art museum.
80. Help a friend with homework.
81. Leave books in strange places for people to find.
82. Watch a foreign movie (complete with subtitles.)
83. Learn tattooing.
84. Make friends with a cephalopod.
85. Study the works of the world's greatest architects.
86. Research the “Bliderberg Group.”
87. Take someone out dancing.
88. Watch documentaries (and learn things that will widen your perspective)
89. Make the world a better place (here's a list to get you started)
90. Backup your computer's important files.
91. Wash someone's car for them.
92. Put in a little overtime.
93. Start snapping pictures of things that people don't normally take pictures of (like tiles, toilets and leaf-piles.)
94. Go hangout at a local park.
95. Pick a fear that you have and face it.
96. Play a new board game.
97. Master a strategic game (like chess).
98. Read a big, thick book.
99. Take someone's dog for a walk.
100. Build your own, original RPG.
101. Make your own list of all the things you could be working on instead of playing Skyrim.
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Comments
Sometimes I wonder how better off we would be if gamers put forth the same amount of time and effort towards something productive as they do their games. There would surely be a lot more skilled and talented people in the world.
- Author
It is my dream that some day we can see a world where both the joy of playing games and the power of improving ourselves and the world around us will be truly inseparable.
Everyone enjoys some form of entertainment. Would you rather I was out clubbing every night/weekend killing brain cells? How can you possibly think gamers are bad enough to write this list? Maybe you could switch out "playing Skyrim" with "watching Jersey Shore" and I'd agree.
How is playing minecraft better?
Sorry, Earl. I don't see how writing a list of 101 (with probably 99 things you've never done and never will do) is something that's even worth doing. You could have spent that wasted time not giving a fuck and done at least, like, 10 of those things. Although, you may have just made this shit up to make fans rage (if you did... you've slightly done it). And on another note.... Minecraft? How is that not wasting time? Nothing gets accomplished in that game... ever. It's fun though. Won't lie. And one more.... Sex.... That wasn't at all on the list. But you do have "Master Chess" on there. Makes me think you do a lot of "Master...bation". All I'm saying is.... you could have spent that time playing Skyrim... instead of wasting that time making a horrible list.
Skyrim is a fun way to be entertained, but like all forms of entertainment, it's always a great idea to take a break every once in a while, and do something for humanity. Skyrim is full of quests that help a thriving virtual population. People who love Skyrim must have a desire to help others; otherwise they wouldn't be playing a game that relied so heavily on helping virtual people. I see the love of helping others as a beautiful quality, one that should be explored both inside, and outside of the game world.
Hm, it would appear our opinions differ. We should do what you say.
Skyrim for me was pretty damn impressive, but when I got bored of it, I got bored. It just hit me like a hammer, and to be honest, I'd rather play Minecraft than Skyrim after that.
Nice list, and has given me a few things to look at instead of play any other game really.
any video game that becomes super time consuming is a waste of time. regardless of what level you make it to. how is living vicariously through a game living? those who play for hours and hours on end are giving into what the proverbial "they" want you to do. be connected. tied into the computer so they know exactly where you are and what you are doing. weve just been conditioned to think this is living when really its anything but. this list was awesome except for .. the minecraft suggestion. trading 1 game for another is sort of obsolete and redundant. at least skyrim has better graphic =x
Here's what a typical day of my life looks like.
Wake up at 8am. Exercise for an hour: weights, crunches, pushups. Then my wife is usually out of the shower. She plays Skyrim or watches old episodes of Frasier, or the Golden Girls or whatever she feels like doing from 9am to 1pm. During this time, I hang out with her while I do computer repair work out of my home. Then she gets ready and goes to work.
I then read a page in "the Intellectual Devotional" a few times to memorise the subject, whether it be music, art, science, math or religion. Then I go look the subject up online to learn more about it.
Then I look up a verse of scripture and then read some of the commentary on it. Then I pray for a little bit. It's usually about 4-4:30 at this point.
Then what do I do from 4:30 until my wife gets back from work at about 11pm? I usually play the heck out of Skyrim, breaking to cook supper, look at stuff online, little tasks around the house and whatnot.
Things interrupt this schedule throughout the week -- I serve my church family by assisting them with tech issues and attend church events and "hang out" with friends every now and then. I'm an introvert, social situations are not as pleasant for me as they are for others, but I still force myself to have social contact outside of my wife.
I play 6 or 7 hours of Skyrim a day. Some days I read or play another game instead.
Am I not well-rounded? Your article is interesting, but actually a waste of your time. There's no reason for anybody to stop playing Skyrim, it's just a great game. And if somebody sacrifices too much of their life to play it, that sort of person would just be doing something else if Skyrim didn't exist.
Holy crap - if this was an attempt to convince us that people who resent video games are mind-numbingly boring, passionless individuals, it's a rousing success.
It's not that many of the things on this list aren't interesting. It's just that each of them is delivered in the short, listless tone of a dispassionate friend jealous and frustrated with his social group's enthusiasm.
I'll zero in on one item for an example: going to an art museum. Now suppose a friend comes up to you, and starts gushing about a small Aztec microculture that basically pre-empted the European cubist movement by a millennium, and you notice that a local museum just put together an exhibit displaying actual pieces from that society alongside with its influences and parallels. Now that sounds like something I'd like to go see!
Contrast this with: "Spend a few hours at an art museum." Notice how the length of time is stressed rather than the content. This, like every item on this list, sounds like either a chore or an attempt to look busy. (Some of them actually ARE chores - back up your computer files? Wheeee.)
If you're trying to convince Skyrim enthusiasts that there are other things to be passionate about, you should try coming up with things you actually find interesting, so it doesn't end up being one giant counterexample.
I can do a lot of that in the Province of Skyrim.
Did you know that gamers can have a higher mental capability and multitask easier because of video games?
They raise awareness in what is going around in the virtual world and manage to keep their character alive during the entire thing.
It's one huge strategy and if you think otherwise, go around, say where you work, and ask your colleagues if they play video games and see how they are doing at their job. Except for a few people, most will be excellent at multitasking and getting everything done right.
If you still believe "video games are bad and corrupt your life" alright then. Don't play video games, and don't waste your time trying to convince us gamers otherwise. You're entitled to your own opinion, and I am as well.
I am a proud gamer and NOTHING can convince me that games are bad for you. If you don't know how to handle the games, that just means you aren't a very quick thinker. Thus ends my rage debate.
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