Is Chess A Waste of Time? A Call To Action

For chess you have to be meticulous. It is not for everybody. Concentration, focus... not for ADD people. For them chess is a waste of time. Any resemblance between life and chess is exaggerated. Neatly placing figures on their spots, avoiding crowding... boring... so boring, at least for me. I can't be very good in chess, although I am fairly intelligent. For us chess is activity that should be avoided. Do mathematical equations, music, whatever...just don't do chess. It is a game that requires very specified type of intelligence (one in which most of even very intelligent people are not stellar at), along with meticulousness to the point of being anal. Stay away..!

it kinda is....if i don't make money off it and i know i will never be a great chess player it is indeed a waste of time

That's about where I am. I spend a lot of time on chess yet I'll never be really good at.

Also, I'm pretty old now and I'm really questioning if I shouldn't be spending what time I have left in more productive pursuits.

Then again, you can do it sitting down!

I can't think of the term the psychologists use for it, but there's a transference of skills that one mental exercise imparts on other exercises.  For example, the ability you develop through chess to concentrate and consider multiple possibilities not only helps you think while solving a crossword puzzle, it helps you maintain your concentration while playing sports.

During the 1960's, when Standford U's tennis team was national champions, their coach would begin each practice by placing a tennis ball on a court and having the whole team stare at it continuously for 30 seconds - a drill to improve concentration.

So, perhaps chess also helps you stick to a budget as you go through life by the ability to delay gratification and better understanding the consequences of straying from the best path.

For me, chess is also worth it for the pleasure of playing and, as long as it doesn't interfere with enjoying a wide-range of experiences, that's not a waste of time!  I first began seriously studying chess while I was in graduate school in Chemistry at IIT. My teaching assistantship didn't pay me in the summers, though I had to do research at IIT all summer long.  One July I began the month realizing I could budget $7 for fun.  Glancing at titles in a book store I found an old copy of William Winter's "Chess for Match Players."  Inside were things I had noticed in newspaper chess articles but didn't understand: Ruy Lopez, Sicilian Defense, pins, forks, etc.  I decided that's where my $7 would go!  Not too long afterward I joined the USCF   I never studied enough to get above 1400, but became my county's scholastic USCF Tournament Director and also coached a high school team to 3 consecutive county championships and 3rd, 4th, and 5th in the state (those above us had Russian immigrants!) in those years.

Now I'm 66, retired and realizing I'm not thinking as deeply as when I worked, so I'm studying chess again to keep me mentally sharp. So there's another benefit of chess: it's been shown that those seniors who frequently think deeply have much less chance of developing Alzheimer's, dimentia, etc.

“[Chess] is a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are doing something very clever, when they are only wasting their time. ”
George Bernard Shaw, 

The thing is that if you want to get better at chess which in my opinion makes it a lot more fun, it takes A LOT of time and commitments to become better and even making some sacrifices in your life. I think the most important question to ask is, "What do you get out of life by being good in chess?" - Ego? Because  it is more fun to win and be better than everyone else? What do people think about that and why do you want to get better in chess? What are your goals? 

George Bernard Shaw had once a saying about idle people just wasting their time with chess. He is soo right.

Chess is a waste of time if you play too seriously

it's not a waste of time if you can't do anything worthwhile with your life anyway.

Everything is a waste of time. We all will end up corpses eaten by worms in a few decades, while the Universe will exist for hundreds billion years, maybe for eternity.

Playing chess is only a waste of time on days you have something better to do, just like exploring a variation is only a waste of time if it is unlikely your opponent will pick that path. I read some opening traps and stopped because they required my pieces to make a few moves in preparation for two mistake moves my opponent must make. That is going out on a limb. Learning rook endgames seemed more useful.

Exactly. And I bet when our rating drops, it is because we know we are behind in other life areas, so our subconscious mind is distracted from doing the calculations we need.

i like chess, so it's not a waste of time

Nearly everything humans do is more or less a waste of time, depending on how you look at it. If we wasn't playing chess, what else would we be doing instead lol.

It's good for getting the brain use to thinking outside the box, I suppose that's not a waste of time.. playing this game lead me down a massive rabbit hole that shattered my whole life, everything I thought I knew, well, I didn't.