How many people think that; Chess is just a Total Waste of Time in Life!

@im2busy...it helps your brain.That's balloney...how does it help.I would rather waste my time watching movies may be that way I will get a girl to bang.

If you solve tactics, if you really think during a game (I play bullet for fun, but it is BS. You can not make the best moves and win when you have only 1 minute in the clock), if you memorize openings or patterns, then it is not a waste of time at all because you are doing a workout for the brain, which is very important. 

However if you are just playing hundreds of games everyday, spending several hours without learning anything, then yes, it may be a complete waste of time. 

However it is still better to play chess (even just for fun) than laying on a sofa eating crap and watching garbage on the TV. 

It develops your memory, it develops your ability to analyze certain situation and take the right decision. 

So many people spent many hours daily on this site playing chess, trolling and spamming the forum with countless postings. Many of those fine people have nothing in life, not even education. So their life consists solely of lurking around here. If you want to call this wasted time, then yes, without chess.com they had no life just headache. But at least they do something useful, playing chess without knowing what else they could do.

GOOD QUESTION!

Are ALL games a waste of time? What constitutes GOOD use of time?... These become serious questions as people approach the end of their lives, you know, closer to the end than to the beginning...

One thing I know with certainty, the temporal cost/benefit ratio of Chess is EXTREMELY high. It requires a VAST investment in time to be anything more than the most casual of dabblers.

I consider it a noble contest, but it produces VIRTUALLY NOTHING ENDURING that might benefit others and only a bit of ill-remunerated glory for the fewest of the few. However, it IS effective mental exercise that almost certainly staves off the mental decrepitude of advancing age.

Bottom line? I will continue doing my daily 25 tactics puzzles and play one game daily against MY ARCH NEMESIS... computer, level 5.

DIE COMPUTER!!... DIE!... DIE!... DIE!

Chess is just a hard game...I haven't played for almost one yr and comparing what my past competitors have gained in terms of elo, it is almost waste of time when you think a person has only gained 10 elo having spent an average of 3 hrs a day for a whole year.Alot of beneficial things could have been done with that time.

.. even with all of your sub-1500 victims.

To post on chess forums is a much better use of time than actually playing chess.  The people who neither visit chess sites, nor post on forums, nor compete in chess games are mostly doing useless things like watching Netflix or attending Nascar races or playing the lottery although some are doing something semi-valuable like harvesting produce or driving trucks around or teaching mathematics courses or fixing the roof or spraying pesticides or giving live reports on local broadcast news.

I also wonder occasionally which is a greater waste of time: Chess, or Scrabble?

Supposing Chess is a waste of T millenia.  Then 4-player chess is a waste of 4T millenia? or 12T millenia because time is wasted in three different directions per player?

What a bump. They don't always work, though.

So what in life ISN'T a waste of time??? Anything you do that has no lasting effect after your death can be considered a waste of your life.  #chewonthat 

IF chess makes you a better decision-maker, and you end up inventing something for mankind or leaving a legacy, then it can hardly be considered a waste.  To answer the question truly you must be objective about what chess is actually doing for you, is it a utility for entertainment, a road to self-discovery? (lol) A way to pass time? (probably a waste) 

Play the game don't let it play you.

What a great question though, we should elaborate further.  What is your role or intended role in society?  Are you a workhorse? A creator? An entertainer?  Are you here to make a difference and change the current path of society or will you just work until you die and fade away?  What will be your post-mortem social influences?  Whatever your primary contribution to society is, if your productivity is affected in a positive way by you playing chess for whatever reason, then that is your answer.

 (P.S. using chess as an entertainment utility is not necessarily a waste, it is healthy to balance your mood and happiness for sustained productivity)

OP is completely wrong. Having a passion or a hobby is a part of life even if it doesn't make money.

Think about it. How are you able to play chess or do any other hobby? Because you have a stable life and a stable income to exercise your hobby. If I would have financial problems I wouldn't play chess in the first place. So your argument about paying the bills and stuff is weak. Chess only a waste of time if you have other problems to deal with.

Also I'm playing in a chess club in my town. I'm not only there for the chess. Chess is a way to connect to people and make new friends and do something together. I learnt a lot about chess and life in my chess club. I like the game and the people. No evening at my chess club was wasted.

@AntonioEsfandiari you're right.  If you work hard you need something that keep your life in balance. That can be chess, the people you meet there, another hobby, playing cards whatever. Otherwise we would be able to stay productive for a long period of time.

You know what a waste of time is? Trying to convince trolls like you @Batman-Bin-Superman that chess is not a waste of time. That's why I'm posting for the last time here in this thread.

Bye, time-waster.

Life is a waste of time. It`s just painful to get out of it.

If chess is a waste of time then why r u downloaded it it?you just waste 10 sec of your life waiting for it