What would you be doing instead?

Over at paladinsucks.com, Mastgrr posted "I could play this game forever. I really could. But, I'm 21 years old. I've spent the last 2-3 years of my life playing this game. I really don't see how I can go on forever." and stuff along the lines that it's a timesink, and there are other things he could be doing. I've seen this in a few other places as well.

Now, I'm not saying people are wrong, but the common idea of "there are better uses of my time" may just be someone being contemplative of everything in their life, not just the MMO they are playing.

This will vary from person to person, but as the title asks: What would you be doing instead?

Serious question here folks. Before you started playing WoW or MMOs in general, what did you do during your free time? If you spent it hanging out, being a social butterfly, and generally being very outgoing until an MMO grabbed you, then yes, it probably is a better use of your time to do something else.

But for many MMO players, if every MMO company went bottom up all at the same time, and that event scared off every other company from filling the void, would our social life change much? Probably not. We're introverts. We don't go out much, maybe a night or two a week to go drinking or gaming with a bunch of friends, but most of our free hours are spent doing singular activities (despite the multiplayer nature, MMOs are still things you mostly do on your own, IRL).

Yes, you could make better better use of your time than MMOs, but would you? That's something that each person needs to ask themselves and figure out.

For me, the answer is no, I wouldn't. Without WoW, FFXI or whatever MMO, I would be watching TV, or playing video games or reading books. I wouldn't be out making many friends, or making the world better for all of mankind. That's really no different than how my life is now.