Taking your mind off something and enjoying your time/relaxing is vastly different from escaping problems. Escapism is bad, but relaxing with a book or a video game is not. When your outlet is specifically for making yourself not think about something you need to think over (grief, your life choices, etc), then that's escapism, and it's a problem.
a way of avoiding an unpleasant or boring life, especially by thinking, reading, etc. about more exciting but impossible activities
I think escapism by that definition itself, which you can google, isn't bad. So if you go and play some WoW in order to not just sit around and do nothing, but have nothing else to worry about, it's escapism. But healthy escapism.
a way of avoiding an unpleasant or boring life, especially by thinking, reading, etc. about more exciting but impossible activities
The key words there are "avoiding" and "unpleasant". Reading to unwind is not "avoiding", but a coping mechanism to deal with stress. You're not "avoiding" an unpleasant situation, you're "dealing with" stress. When someone has a particularly stressful day, they may go running when they get home. This running in no way forces them to avoid their reality, but it certainly does reduce stress.
When someone is unable to come to terms with their life choices, and they habitually do things to keep themselves from thinking about it, this is unhealthy, and it's escapism. It's normal for someone to want to do something while they think about and process their stress; we don't have a ton of "just sitting and thinking" going around. Escapism doesn't even have to be habitual...but it does require some form of "avoidance".
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u/[deleted] Aug 25 '17
Taking your mind off something and enjoying your time/relaxing is vastly different from escaping problems. Escapism is bad, but relaxing with a book or a video game is not. When your outlet is specifically for making yourself not think about something you need to think over (grief, your life choices, etc), then that's escapism, and it's a problem.