How much WoW is too much?

This edition of WoW.com's Breakfast Topic got me thinking about a question I struggled with recently due to the awesomeness of 3.3 (especially compared to the disappointment of 3.2) and my surge of free time with finals and Christmas break conspiring to cause me to flirt with WoW addiction again. (I suffered minor addiction when I started playing but have since gotten over it) That question is, how much WoW is too much? The comments section on that particular Breakfast Topic were an interesting look at how the community views that issue, but I still wanted to think about it for myself, and here is what I came up with.

Before we start, you should know that I view WoW as equal to other things people do as hobbies. I don't see things like hiking, biking, reading, writing, painting, etc. as inherently superior to WoW. (Though I may argue in casual conversation that they are superior) After all, a hobby is nothing more than an activity done to fill our free time. Sure, we can say that there are better ways to spend our time then WoW. Exercise is healthy for us and artistic endeavors exercise our creative "muscles" (a.k.a. our brain), but these are all value judgments that say more about us than the hobbies themselves.

So, how much WoW is too much? It's futile to try to pick an objective number of hours per a week that constitutes "too much WoW" since everyone is different, as are their schedules, so it's better to talk in relative terms. Let's start with the obvious: if you are playing WoW is lieu of eating, drinking, or sleeping, the most basic things we need to survive, that is too much WoW. No question. The same goes for if WoW gets in the way of your job or your school work, the latter of which is, among other things¹, preparation for the former. You need to work so that you can afford food, a house to sleep in, the rent/mortgage, your bills, WoW itself, etc. You need to make money to live, the question wage slavery aside², so putting off work for WoW is just as bad as putting off eating for WoW.

So, if you don't let WoW ruin the necessary parts of your life, but it's all you do in your free time, is that too much? I'd say so. Human beings thrive on variety, and though you don't need to try every hobby out there, you shouldn't spend all of your time on any one hobby (WoW or otherwise), no matter how "worthy" that hobby may be of your undivided attention. We need multiple sources of stimulation to stay well rounded as people, for different stimuli exercise different parts of our brain. If we focus too much on one thing, we lose the ability to do other things. In addition, if all you do is play WoW, you will, at some point, get bored. Maybe you'll run out of content to do, or maybe you'll suffer from burnout. Regardless, if WoW is all you know, then you won't have any hobbies to fall back on. You'll have all that free time and nothing to do with it, and then the real boredom will start. If you want a more direct reason for why WoW shouldn't be your only hobby, let me ask you this: if WoW is your only hobby, what will you do on Tuesday mornings during the weekly maintenance?

So, assuming you have other hobbies, but WoW is your chief one, what if your WoW time starts creeping in on your family time or your time spent with friends? This is one of those things where it's not so clear cut. After all, introverts don't feel as much of a need to socialize as extroverts do, so the standard for when WoW is getting in the way of ones socialization would be higher for introverts than extroverts. Like any hobby, I think WoW become a problem when it causes you to either break your promises or break off your commitments with your friends, e.g. you promise to pick up a friend from the airport, but you did one random heroic too many and are now running late, or you miss your best friend's birthday party because your ICC progression raid was scheduled for that night. When it comes to family time, I can't say with much certainty how much is too much since I don't have a family of my own, but if you spend significantly more time playing WoW than your spouse and/or kids spend with their hobbies, that's probably a sign you are playing too much.

So, that covers your basic obligations to yourself and your obligations to those around you. Assuming your play time doesn't cause you any of the aforementioned problems, can you still play too much WoW? Again, the standard of what is "too much" is different for everyone, but if you encounter any of the problems bellow, they I think you are playing too much.

-You no longer consider WoW fun. WoW is a hobby, and as such, it is only worth your time if you get some form of enjoyment out of it. Burnout is a pretty good reason to take a break, or at least cut down on your playing.
-You start playing for the results rather than the process. In other words, you play for the gear, the achievements, the titles, but not because you actually enjoy playing to acquire those things. As I have said before, a game or hobby is a process you enjoy, with the results being secondary. When the results are the most important thing and the enjoyment of the process takes a back seat to them, then your hobby becomes a chore.

There may be other signs of too much WoW that I have forgotten, so feel free to say in the comments what signs you think I have left out.

Because of the nature of the post that inspired this post, I thought I'd leave you with my favorite answers to that Breakfast Topic.

"When you have to justify your playtime to others." -Knob
"Easy as cake: whenever I find myself saying "I have to farm 26 more emblems" instead of "I want to", I force myself to quit the game for a few months." -Sterdoker
"When you have to plan real life around wow you play to much, a video game shouldn't rule your life to the extent that you have trouble watching a TV show you enjoy." -mjb (this touches upon the point of balance in your hobbies, which I discussed earlier)
"There is no 'time' or 'signs', there are simply priorities. When something more important comes up, WoW stops. Kids in school - wow. Kids on break - no wow. Holidays with family - no wow. Weekend off - wow. Having fun - wow. Can't fit though the door anymore - no wow." -John
"You know you've played to much WoW when you go and play a single-player RPG for the first time in a while and it actually makes you uncomfortable that your character actually is a unique snowflake." -Stormscape

¹This is the key part of that sentence. Though preparing students for their working life is a fundamental role of school, school (at all its levels) can and should be much more than that.
²I will say that I give this theory and other parts of Marxism some credit, but that is a much bigger topic, one I don't have the room to address here.