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It would be safe to say that I am not a proper gamer. So it was with absolutely no shame that in the mid-'90s my main games console was actually a crappy white plastic Walkman-alike with a black and white knock-off version of Tetris called The Wall on the front. Even though Game Boys and Super Nintendos existed, I felt no strong urge to own one. Nope, just a great big chunky ersatz Walkman with four bright coloured buttons on it for me. I don't remember ever actually using the thing to listen to music. I'm not sure if it even worked for that purpose, and I have some sense that it might have been secondhand and from a charity shop when it came to me. But I carried that thing around with me everywhere and played it obsessively and endlessly, until I developed a severe case of what I then liked to call "Tetrishead". This was the sensation that Tetris had infiltrated my brain on an unconscious level. When I closed my eyes I'd see a cascade of blocks pouring down in a relentless and vaguely anxiety-making stream. The real world became one giant Tetris game, my mind fitting benches into bins, trees into architecture. Once when I was sick I had a sort of fever dream where my duvet was made of Tetris and I had to fit the shapes together before it slowly crushed me to death. Harrowing.
But it turns out "Tetrishead" is not only a fairly well-known phenomenon but also might actually be good for you. The 'official' term is the Tetris Effect or Tetris Syndrome, and psychologists have found that it can improve spatial awareness. Give a bunch of subjects Tetris to play for repeated sessions and they'll kick the butts of the control group when it comes to shape rotation and spatial perception.
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