When Grant Johnson got to college at the age of 18, he realized he had a problem. He wasn’t motivated to study. He wasn’t dating. He wasn’t an athlete. And he was in debt. He didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life, and he had a hunch why.
“My dad and brother got me into playing video games before I can even remember,” Johnson, now 25, told me over the phone. “Growing up, there were times where I’d go online right after I got home from school until I went to bed. When I graduated high school, I would spend upward of 12 hours per day online.”
Back then, Johnson had two computer monitors. On one, he’d be playing video games like League of Legends, and on the other he’d be watching anime, or something on Netflix, or YouTube videos. At college, he told me, “I didn’t know why I was there . . . I was just wasting my time.”